The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

No! The only true meaning of this Northern worship is conveyed in the simple words of Adam of Bremen, when relating what still existed in his own time. (Descript. insularum Aquil., lib. iv.) He describes the solemn sacrifices of Upsala in Sweden thus: "This is their sacrifice; of each and all animals they offer nine heads of the male gender, by whose blood it is their custom to appease the gods. The dead bodies of the victims are suspended in a grove which surrounds the temple. The place is in their eyes invested with such a sacred character that the trees are believed to be divine on account of the blood and gore with which they are besmeared. With the animals, dogs, horses, etc., they suspend likewise men; and a Christian of that country told me that he had himself seen them with his own eyes mixed up together in the grove. But the senseless rites which accompany the sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood are so many, and of so gross and immoral nature, that it is better not to speak of them."

We have here the naked truth, and no meaning whatever could be attached to such ceremonies other than that of the rankest idolatry. To complete the picture, it is proper to state that Thor, Odin, and Frigga, were frightful idols, as represented in the Upsala temple, and the small statues carried by the Scandinavian sailors on their expeditions and set in the place of honor on board their ships, were but diminutive copies of the hideous originals. It is known, moreover, that Odin had existed as a leader of some of their migrations, so that their idolatry resolved itself into hero-worship.

Having spoken of their gods, we have only a word to add on their belief in a future state, for every one is acquainted with their brutal and shocking Walhalla. Yet, such as it was, admittance to its halls could only be aspired to by the warriors and heroes, the great among them; the common herd was not deemed worthy of immortality. Thus aristocratic pride showed itself at the very bottom of their religion.

Of their social state, their government, we know little. They lived under a kind of rude monarchy, subject often to election, when they chose the most savage and the bravest for their ruler. But blood-relationship had little or nothing to do with their system, so different from that of the Celts. The sons of a chieftain could never form a sept, but at his death the eldest replaced him; the younger brothers, deprived of their titles and goods, were forced to separate and acquire a title to rank and honor by piracy; and that right of primogeniture, which was the primary cause of their sea invasions, stamped the feudal system with one of its chief characteristics, a system which probably originated with them. Some, however, entertain a contrary opinion, and suppose that at the death of the father his children shared his inheritance equally.

Of their moral habits we may best judge by their religion. All we know of their history seems to prove that with them might was right, and outlawry the only penalty of their laws.

A man guilty of murder was compelled to quit the country, unless his superior daring and the number of his friends and followers enabled him, by more atrocious and wholesale murders, still to become a great chieftain and even aspire to supreme power. Iceland was colonized by outlaws from Norway; and the frequent changes of dynasty in pagan times prove that among them, as among barbarous tribes generally, brute force was the chief source of law and authority.

That outlawry was not esteemed a stain on the character is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that the mere accident of birth made outlaws of all the children of chieftains with the exception of the eldest born; the necessity for the younger sons abandoning their home and native country, and roaming the ocean in search of plunder, being exactly equivalent, according to their opinion and customs, to criminal outlawry of whatever character. This, at least, many authors assert without hesitation.

Their domestic habits were fit consequences of such a state of society. There could exist no real tie of kindred, no filial or brotherly affection among men living under such a social system. The gratification of brutal passions and the most utter selfishness constituted the rule for all; and even the fear of an inexorable judge after death could not restrain them during life, as might have been the case among other pagan nations, since the hope of reaching their Walhalla depended for its fulfilment on murder or suicide.

With their system of warfare we are better acquainted than with any thing else belonging to them, as the main burden of their songs was the recital of their barbarous expeditions. It is, indeed, difficult for a modern reader to wade through the whole of their Edda poems, or even their long sagas, so full is their literature of unimaginable cruelties. Yet a general view of it is necessary in order to understand the horror spread throughout Europe by their inhuman warfare.

As soon as the warm breeze of an early spring thaws the ice on his rivers and lakes, the Scandinavian Viking unfurls his sail, fills his rude boat with provisions, and trusts himself to the mercy of the waves. Should he be alone, and not powerful enough to have a fleet at his command, he looks out for a single boat of his own nation—there being no other in those seas. Urged by a mutual impulse, the two crews attack each other at sight; the sea reddens with blood; the savage bravery is equal on both sides; accident alone can decide the contest. One of the crews conquers by the death of all its opponents; the plunder is transferred to the victorious boat; the cup of strong drink passes round, and victory is crowned by drunkenness.