Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/341

 the festivals of sacrifice in the Drontheim country. It was an old custom, that when there was to be sacrifice all the bonders should come to the spot where the temple stood, and bring with them all that they required while the festival of the sacrifice lasted. To this festival all the men brought ale with them; and all kinds of cattle, as well as horses, were slaughtered, and all the blood that came from them was called laut, and the vessels in which it was collected were called laut-vessels. Laut-staves were made, like sprinkling brushes, with which the whole of the altars and the temple walls, both outside and inside, were sprinkled over, and also the people were sprinkled with the blood; but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those present. The fire was in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles, and the full goblets were handed across the fire; and he who made the feast, and was a chief, blessed the full goblets, and all the meat of the sacrifice. And first Odin’s goblet was emptied for victory and power to his king; thereafter, Niord’s and Freya’s goblets for peace and a good season. Then it was the custom of many to empty the braga-goblet ; and then the guests emptied a goblet to the memory of departed friends, called the remembrance-goblet. Sigurd the earl was an open-handed man, who did what was very much celebrated; namely, he made a great sacrifice festival at Lade, of which he paid all the expenses. Kormak Ogmundson sings of it in his ballad of Sigurd:—

Of cup or platter need has none The guest who seeks the generous one,— Sigurd the Generous^ who can trace IIis lineage from the giant race; For Sigurd’s hand is bounteous, free,— The guardian of the temples he.