The gods continued to live in the popular imagination as great heroic figures that had flourished in the earlier ages of the race. Much that belonged to the worship of the Anses was carried over into the Christian life. The Scandinavian Christians on the Isle of Man evidently found nothing incongruous in placing heathen ornamentations on the cross of Christ. Sometimes the attributes of the ancestral divinities were transferred to the Christian saints. The red beard with which Christian artists soon provided the strong and virile Saint Olaf was probably suggested by the flaming beard of the hammering Thor.
FOOTNOTES:
[407] See Montelius, Kulturgeschichte Schwedens, 251-252.
[408] Birca is mentioned in an early life of Saint Ansgar (ca. 850); Langebek, Script. Rer. Danic., i., 444. Heathby and Skiringshall are alluded to in King Alfred's Orosius (Journeys of Ottar and Wulfstan).
[409] Bugge, Studier over de norske Byers Selvstyre og Handel, 4-5.
[410] Ibid. The great Bay (Folden Bay) is the modern Christiania Firth.
[411] On the commerce of the viking age see Montelius. Kulturgeschichte Schwedens, 266 ff.; Olrik, Nordisk Aandsliv, 52-53; Norges Historie, I., ii., 223 ff. (Bugge).