Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 3.djvu/387

 KINGS OF NORWAY. 37b which the mere ceremony of baptism Avas synonymous with noies. Christianity. But this is merely conjecture, not sanctioned by any antiquarian authority. These are not analogies common to all forms of religion, because arising from a common root — the sense of religion in the mind of man ; nor are they coincidences which may be com- mon to two religions totally unconnected with each other, be- cause formed among two bodies of mankind living under physical and social circumstances very similar, although in very different times and totally distinct countries ; but they are palpable imitations of ceremonial and arrangement, prov- ing that the one religion has been impressed by the other — has adopted ceremonies, observances, institutions, and doc- trines, from some obscure knowledge of the other. Mahomet, some centuries after Odin, has drawn much from Christianity. The true historical place of Odin, or rather of Odinism, — for Odin may not have been, like Mahomet, "^ an historical per- sonage, but merely a name given to several distinct con- querors known only by tradition, — would appear to be after Christianity and before Mahometanism ; and as the gene- alogies indicate, if fairly measured, about the 5th century. Hengist and Horsa are stated in the Saxon Chronicle to have been the sons of Wihtgils, who was the son of Witta ; and Witta was the son of Wecta, a son of Woden. This gene- alogy is rejected, because it brings Woden so near to his- torical times, making Hengist and Horsa the fourth in descent from the god or w^arrior Woden. Yet if we apply the same measure of seventeen years to each of these descents from the time of Hengist and Horsa (the year 449) upwards, we find a wonderful coincidence with the other Saxon gene- alogies of Cerdic, Ida, and Ella, and come within eight years of the two latter. One man of 79 years of age might have been the Odin or Woden of the Scandinavian genealogies, and of the Saxon — the ancestor of Hengist, Cerdic, Ella, and of Harald Haarfager, Gorm, Canute, if he had been born about the year 342, and had died about 421. But were the numerous followers of Odin without any religion before the 4th or 5th century? By no means; not more than the followers of Mahomet before his appearance in the 6th cen- tury. Odinism is a new patch upon an old garment. There has been evidently a polytheism, — a worship of Thor, B B 4