Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/99

 Rh "The king does like those who believe in their own strength and power, he dedicates the horn to Thor. It was the sign of the hammer that he made before drinking."

The sagas tell us more than once that a wooden statue of Thor with his hammer was to be seen in a temple dedicated to him. For instance, it is mentioned in the saga of Saint Olaf that the king asked the son of that Gudbrand, after whom the large and beautiful "Gudbrandsdal" is named, what the god-image in their temple was like. The answer was,—"It represents Thor. The god is large and hollow, and carries a hammer in his hand. Underneath there is a pedestal on which he stands when he is brought out. There is no lack of gold and silver on him."

Concerning the temple of Old Upsala, Adam of Bremen relates, (towards the end of the eleventh century), that the people there worship three gods. The mightiest of the three, Thor, sits in the middle, and on either side of him sit Odin and Frö, or "Fricco," as he is called by Adam, who is writing in Latin. Like Jupiter, Thor carries a "sceptre." Adam, misunderstanding the description he has received, transforms the hammer to a "sceptrum." Even the two brothers, Johannes and Olaus Magnus, though living some hundred years later than Adam, misunderstood what they had read or heard, and described Thor's image at Old Upsala as carrying a "sceptrum."

Other accounts show that Thor was sometimes represented as sitting in his "cart," drawn by bucks.

It is quite evident that the images were made of wood. This is also clearly shown by the descriptions we have of god-images that were burnt when Christianity was first introduced.

Several other Thor's hammers are mentioned besides those placed in the hand of his images. Saxo, for instance, tells us about King Magnus Nilsson, who fell in the battle of Fotevik in 1134, that, while he was waging war against Sweden, he despoiled a temple of remarkably heavy