I have been introducing you only to “new” Upsala, and to people and books that are not more than a thousand or fifteen hundred years old; but there is an old Upsala about three miles from the cathedral, which I have greatly enjoyed visiting. It is within easy walking distance on this bright June day, and I set out to find my own way to Gamla Upsala, which was not a difficult task in spite of my slight knowledge of the Swedish language, since the average Swede will take unlimited pains to tell a traveler what he wishes to know.
One of these polite gentlemen upon the street happened to hear me asking the way to Gamla Upsala. He was walking with his wife, and he told me to follow them and they would show me the way. I naturally supposed that they were going in that direction themselves, and trudged on behind them, since our limited knowledge of each other’s tongues did not allow much personal intercourse. They turned from one road into another, walking a good mile and a half, I should judge, until we came in sight of three singular mounds in the distance, a mile or more away. “These,” they said, pointing to them, “mark the site of Gamla Upsala.” Then they bade me a polite good afternoon and turned around to pursue their homeward journey. Apparently they had come all this way to show a solitary American the site of the ancient city and to make sure that he would not get lost on the straight and narrow road that leads to it.
As I approached the King’s Mounds, or Kungs Högar, I found that they were not unlike the Bin Tepe, or the Graves of the Thousand Kings on the Lydian plain, near old Sardis in Asia Minor. To be sure the tumuli of Lydia are for the most part far larger than the mounds of Gamla Upsala. Still these are very considerable tumuli, about sixty feet high and two hundred and twenty-five feet in diameter.
They are called the Mounds of Odin, Thor, and Frey, but you must not suppose, Judicia, that the old viking gods are buried here. By the way, where do you suppose such mythical personages are buried? But someone, not knowing who the ancient occupants of these graves might be, gave them these names, which certainly add to the interest of Gamla Upsala. I almost felt, as I scrambled to the top of Odin’s Hill, which is the largest of the three, that I was standing on the grave of one of the ancient gods.
Of course inquisitive moderns have not allowed the ancient bones in these tombs to rest in peace, but all that they found when they opened them were the half-burnt remains of some old kings whose names and dates nobody is wise enough to know, together with some pieces of gold and copper ornaments, some glass dishes, and bones of the kings’ horses and dogs, all of which were burnt apparently in the same great holocaust which consumed his mortal remains. Whether his wives had to share the fate of his horses and dogs, deponent saith not.
There is another interesting mound not far from Odin’s tumulus. It is twenty feet lower than his grave and has a large level space on the top. This is the hill where the ancient, open-air parliament was held and where, as late as the days of Gustavus Vasa, the kings were accustomed to address the people.
Gamla Upsala is now a very small hamlet with a little stone church, whose high and narrow windows and massive tower make it look more like a fort than a sanctuary. Upon this spot, we are told, once stood a splendid temple to the stalwart old gods who have given their names to the tumuli—Odin, Thor, and Frey. It is only a little more than a hundred years since this temple was destroyed and since priests still offered sacrifices, perhaps of human victims.
Let me close my story of Gamla Upsala with a sentence from the story of Adam of Bremen, who wrote his Chronicle in the very last days of heathendom, about the year 1070. “In this sacred house,” he says, “which everywhere is adorned with gold, the people worship the images of three gods, and this so that Thor, who is the mightiest of them, occupies the seat of honor in the middle, while Odin and Frey have their places on each side of him. When pest or famine is at hand, they offer to Thor’s image; when it is war, to Odin’s; at wedding celebrations, to Frey.”[3] Adam also relates that near the temple stood a grove in which the bodies of victims, human beings as well as beasts, were hung up, “and this grove is sacred in the eyes of the heathen.” He says that “every tree in it is held to be divine on account of the death or blood of those offered there.” What a tremendous gap in the history of the world is indicated by the little distance between Odin’s Mound and that homely Christian church! What a tremendous advance from the big Gamla Upsala of the eleventh century to the little Gamla Upsala of the twentieth!
Faithfully yours,
Phillips.