Hacon of Norway had been baptized at the Court of our King Athelstan. At first he sent for a bishop and priests from England; a few of his intimate companions received baptism, and two or three churches were built in the district more immediately subject to him. Then at the Froste Thing, the winter assembly of the whole people, the king proposed to them to accept baptism. One of the bonders replied, in the name of his fellow-chiefs, “The ancient faith which our fathers and forefathers held from the oldest times, though we are not so brave men as our ancestors, has served us to the present time. If you intend to take the matter up with a high hand, and try to force us, we bonders,” he said, “have resolved among ourselves to part with you, and take some other chief, under whom we may freely and safely enjoy the faith which suits our inclinations.” The following winter four of the bonders bound themselves by oath to force the king to sacrifice to the gods, and to root out Christianity from Norway. The churches were burnt, and the priests stoned, and when the king came to the Yule Thing, he consented to taste the horseflesh of the sacrifice, and drink to the gods.
When Olaf Tryggveson gained the throne of Norway, having been baptized in England, he began by destroying the temples in his own territory, and declared that he would make all Norway Christian or die. The crisis came at the Midsummer Althing, held at Mære, where was an ancient temple; and thither all the great chiefs and bonders, and the whole strength of the heathen party, assembled. At a preliminary meeting of the bonders, Olaf proposed to them to adopt the Christian religion; they demanded, on the other hand, that he should offer sacrifice to the gods. He consented to go with them to the temple, and entered it with a great number of his own adherents; and when the sacrifice began the king suddenly struck down the image of Thor with his gold inlaid axe so that it rolled down at his feet; at this signal his men struck down the rest of the images from their seats, and then came forth and again demanded that the people should abandon their belief in gods who were so powerless. The people surrendered, and “took baptism.” Subsequently, Olaf Haraldson (1015), learning that the old sacrifices were still secretly offered at Mære, and other places, surprised a party at Mære, who were engaged in the forbidden worship, put their leader to death, and confiscated the property of the rest. Then Olaf went to the uplands, and summoned a Thing. Gudbrand, a powerful chief of the district, sent a message-token summoning the peasants far and wide to come to the Thing, and resist the king’s demand to abandon their ancient faith. Gudbrand had a temple on his own land, in which was an image of Thor, made up of wood, of great size, hollow within, covered without with ornaments of gold and silver. At the first meeting, Sigurd the Bishop, arrayed in his robes, with his mitre on his head, and his staff in his hand, preached to the assembly about the true faith and the wonderful works of God. When he had finished, one of the bonders said: “Many things are told us by this horned man, with a staff in his hand, crooked at the top like a ram’s horn; since your God, you say, is so powerful, tell him to make it clear sunshine to-morrow, and we will meet you here again, and do one of two things—either agree with you about this matter, or fight you.” Accordingly, on the morrow, before sunrise, the assembly came together again to the Thing-field, Olaf and his followers on one side, and Gudbrand and his men bringing with them into the field the great image of Thor, glittering with gold and silver, to which the heathen party did obeisance. Olaf had given instructions beforehand to one of his chiefs, Kolbein the Strong, who usually carried besides his sword a great club. “Dale Gudbrand,” said the king, “thinks to frighten us with his god, who cannot even move without being carried. You say that our God is invisible, turn your eyes to the east, and behold his splendour,” (for the sun was just rising above the horizon). And when they all turned to look, Kolbein the Strong acted upon his instructions; he struck the idol with his war-club with such force that it broke in pieces, and a number of mice ran out of it among the crowd. Olaf taunted them with the helplessness of such a god; and Gudbrand admitted the force of the argument. “Our god will not help us, so we will believe on the God thou believest in.” He and all present were baptized, and received the teachers whom King Olaf and Bishop Sigurd set over them, and Gudbrand himself built a church in the valley.
There was a great temple at Upsala, with idols of Thor, Woden, and Frigga, which was afterwards converted into a church (see Snorre Sturlusun’s “Heimskringla,” translated by S. Lang, with notes by R. B. Anderson, vol. i. pp. 103-105, 110, and vol. iv. p. 40).
Temples and sacrifices seem to imply the existence of priests; but it is remarkable that, in the collisions between Hakon and the Olafs and the heathenism of Norway, there is no mention of a single priest.
[16] Bede, “Eccles. Hist.,” ii. 14.
[17] Ibid., ii. 16.
[18] Bede, iii. 3.
[19] Ibid., iii. 5.
[20] Ibid., iii. 14.
[21] Ibid., v. 6. There are other indications that travellers sometimes took tents on their journeys through the thinly inhabited country.