It was the old way, when a sacrifice was to be, that all the franklins should come to the place where the temple was, and carry thither the victuals that they wished to have as long as the feast lasted. All were to have a drinking together, and there were also slaughtered all kinds of cattle and also horses.
And all the blood that came thereof was then called sortilege-blood, and sortilege-bowls those wherein the blood stood, and sortilege-twigs that were made like a sprinkler. With this blood were all the altars to be sprinkled withal, and also the walls of the temple without and within, and also sprinkled on the people, but the meat was seethed for the entertainment of the people.
There had to be fires in the midst of the floor of the temple, and kettles over them, and the toasts were carried across the fire.
And he that made the feast or was chief had to make a sign over the toast and the sanctified meat.
First must come Woden's toast: that was drunk to victory and power of the king; and then Niard's toast; and Frey's toast for good seasons and peace.
It was many men's wont to drink Brage's toast after that.
Men also would drink a toast to their kinsmen that had been laid in their barrows, and that was called the memory toast.[268]
This description applies more especially to the great Yule-festivities, but its more prominent features, the gathering, the sacrificial slaughter, the blood-sprinkling, the toasts, and the feasting, were evidently common usages, though places and occasions probably developed varieties of customary worship. On the same occasions, the will of the gods was ascertained by the casting of lot or other processes of sortilege. Vows were pledged and oaths were registered.
A ring of two-ounce weight or more must lie on the altar in every head temple. This ring every godë (temple-official) must carry in his hand to any law-moot that he himself was to preside over, and he must first redden it in the blood of the sacrificial beast which he sacrificed there himself.[269]
In the myth Ragnarok the Sibyl has told of the end of all things, even of the divinities; how the twilight shall settle down upon the life of the Anses; how their strength shall wither and age steal upon them; and how at last Swart, the lord of the fire-world, shall come to the attack wrapped in flames.
Swart from the south comes
With flaming sword;
Bright from his blade
The sun is blazing.
Stagger the stony peaks,
Stumble the giants;
Heroes fare Helward
And heaven yawns.[270]
It is an awful picture that the prophetess unrolls for us of all the personified forces of destruction mustering to do battle against the gods. The forces of evil win, for weakness has stolen upon the world in the "twilight" preceding the final conflict: "an age of lust, of ax and sword, and of crashing shields, of wind and wolf ere the world crumbles."[271] Then comes the end of all things:
Swart is the sun,
Earth sinks in the ocean,
The shining stars
Are quenched in the sky.
Smoke and steam
Encircle the Ash-tree,
Flame-tongues lick
The lofty heaven.[272]
The prophecy of destruction as well as an expressed hope of future regeneration shows quite clearly the result of Christian influence on thought and imagery. The poem must consequently have been produced after the North had come under the spell of Western culture, some time, perhaps, in the tenth century. Less than a century later the "twilight of the gods" had set in.