Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/305

 The Ancient Teutonic Priesthood. 293

Freyr {i.e. Fro), Niordr, and Thor were the three names invoked at the opening of the Icelandic assembly, and in the oath which was taken in courts of justice, which seems to show that they were regarded as the chief gods of the land.i

The Ynglinga Saga gives the following account of Fro : Niordr and his son Fro did not originally belong to the Aesir (Othin's tribe), but to a tribe named Vanir ; they were given to the Aesir as hostages. Othin made them temple-priests, and after his death Niordr, and subse- quently Fro, succeeded him in the monarchy. They continued to receive the tribute which had first been paid to Othin, and their reigns were blessed with prosperity and peace. Fro fixed his capital at Upsala and built a great temple there. When he died, his death was con- cealed, and his body carried secretly into a great howe. The tribute-money was still taken and poured into the howe. After three years the Swedes became aware that he was dead, but since prosperity and peace still continued, they believed that such would be the case as long as Fro was in Sweden. Therefore they would not burn him in accordance with Othin's ordinances ; but they called him ' the god of the world ' and sacrificed to him for peace and prosperity ever afterwards. The Saga then goes on to describe the reigns of his son and grandson and subsequent descendants, the Yngling kings of Sweden. According to this story Fro is obviously the tribal god of the Uppland Swedes and the ancestor of the Yngling family. We have seen, however, that he was also worshipped in Norway. Yet the cult may have been brought here from Sweden. When King Olafr Tryggvason was Christianising the dis- trict of Inner Throndhjem, he seized the figure of Fro out of its temple and brought it to the assembly. He is repre- sented in the Saga as haranguing the assembly in order to convince them that the figure was not divine. Fro, he said, was a king who formerly lived in Sweden. He was so popular that on his death it was resolved that some men should be shut up alive with him in his howe. No one, however, was willing to undergo this fate. They therefore made two wooden men and put them in the howe with Fro,

' Hialpi m'er svd Freyr ok Niordr ok hitin ahnattki Ass ; Islend. Sog. i., pp. 258, 334.