Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/84

 Book by William the Conqueror, the lands of Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and part of Lancashire, are omitted, as not belonging to England. Of these Anglo-Northmen the conversion cannot well be fixed to a date, because they had no scruple apparently of nominally adopting Christianity when it suited their interests; and they appear to have had no desire to convert, or to be converted, in their predatory expeditions. As late, however, as the beginning of the 11th century, the Northmen and their chiefs were still pagans. Swein, indeed, and his son Canute, who in 1017 became sole monarch of England, were zealous Christians; but they and their contemporaries, Olaf Tryggvesson and Olaf the Saint, and the small kings in Norway, were born pagans; and their conversion, and the introduction of the Christian religion and religious institutions into Norway and its dependencies, cannot be dated higher than the first half of the 11th century. It seems surprising that we know so little of a pagan religion existing so near our times,—of this last remnant of paganism among the European people, existing in vigour almost five hundred years after Christianity and the Romish church establishment were diffused in every other country! What we know of it is from the Edda compiled by Sæmund the priest, a contemporary of Are who compiled the historical sagas. Sæmund was born in 1057, and had travelled and studied in Germany and France. He lived consequently in an age when many who had been bred in and understood the religion of their fore-fathers were still living, and in a country in which, if any where, its original doctrines and institutions would be preserved in purity.

If we may take the account of Tacitus as correct, this ancient religion of the Germanic race must have been eminently spiritual, and free from idolatry. He says, in chapter 35. "De Moribus Germanorum," that