Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/101

 given to the Supreme Being in their religion, which are still to be recognised, not only in Scandinavia, but in the north of Scotland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, show that the Northmen carried about with them some knowledge of their religion. The many allusions in the poems and songs of the scalds presuppose even a very intimate knowledge, on the part of the hearers, with a very complicated mythological nomenclature and system. Every one, from the lowest to the highest, must have been familiar with the names, functions, attributes, histories ascribed to these gods, or the scald would have been unintelligible. The great development of the intellectual powers among the Northmen, is indeed one of the most curious inferences to be drawn from the sagas. The descriptions of relative situations of countries, as East, West, North, or South, show generalised ideas and habits of thinking among their seafaring men; and the songs of the scalds, as those of the four who accompanied Saint Olaf at the battle of Stikleslad, seem to have been instantly seized and got by heart by the people,—the Biarkemal to have been instantly recognised, and thought applicable to their situation; and all the mythological, and to us obscure allusions, to have been understood generally in the halls in which the scalds recited or sung their compositions. Their religion must have been taught to them, although we find few traces of the religious establishment or social arrangements by which this was done.

The material remains of this religion of Odin are surprisingly few. We find in the North very few remains of temples;—no statues, emblems, images, symbols. Was it actually more spiritual than other systems of paganism, and therefore less material in its outward expression? If we consider the vast mounds raised in memory of the dead, and their high appreciation of their great men of former ages, we can