Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/104

 formation. He is struck at least with the conviction that not only in other countries, but in Sweden itself in particular, such formations of small ridges, and hillocks of gravel, sand, and rolled stones, upon a tongue of land which has originally divided two lakes, are of most frequent occurrence. Here, about Upsal, man has availed himself of a chain of mounds formed by nature; and, as a natural feature of ground, they account for the selection of Gamle Upsal in the earliest ages for the seat of government. With a lake or mire on each side, a narrow tongue of land dotted with small eminences behind each other gave the defenders a succession of strong posts to retire upon; and when missiles of very short range, and spear, sword, or battle-axe, and fighting hand to hand, were the only weapons and modes of fighting, the advantage of the higher ground was the great object in tactics. Gamle Upsal would be strong when the country was covered with wood, and the flat ground was a flooded morass. Of the old buildings, or town, no vestiges remain. Of the temple some of the walls are supposed to be included in the present church; and the old foundations have been traced by Rudbeck and Peringskiold. Its extreme length has not exceeded one hundred and twenty feet; and the rough unhewn small stones of such walls as may possibly have been parts of the old structure do not tell of much architectural magnificence. The arches, whether of the pagan structure, or of the re-edification in 1139, are the round Saxon arch; and the whole is less than an ordinary parish church in England. An exterior line is said by antiquaries to have surrounded the building, and to have been the golden ring, chain, or serpent surrounding the temple of Odin in scaldic poetry; but this has had no foundation but in their fancy. A wooden palisade may, no doubt, have surrounded the temple, with the tops of it painted or