Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/108

 Baltic side of the country, that the Slavonic tribe who inhabit Esthonia had a Jomala, according to Kohl's "Reise in der Deutch-Russisch Ostsee Provinzen," 1842; and the name of Jomsburg given to the fortress of that singular association the Jomsburg Vikings on the island of Wollin, off the coast of Esthonia, seems to have had the same origin. The Joms-Vikings were a military association of pirates inhabiting the castle of Jomsburg, professing celibacy and obedience to their chief, and very similar to the orders of knights—as the Teutonic order, and that of Rhodes and the Templars—which appeared in Europe a century or two later; but these pirate-knights do not appear to have been in any way connected with the religion of Odin, or of Jomala. The Laplanders and Finlanders appear to have worshipped Jomala also; and he appears to have been altogether a Slavonic, not a Saxon god. From the account of the expedition to Biarmaland, the temple and idol of this worship must have been as rich, and the attendance of guards or priests on the temple much greater than in the Odin worship in Norway in that age, viz. the beginning of the 11th century.