The people made sacrifices to the Alfar (Alfa-blót) mentioned in the earlier Edda, as well as to the Asar and Disir, who we have seen were closely related to the former.[[330]] These sacrifices, of which there are few accounts, and which seem to have been made in houses, are perhaps traces of a religion previous to that of Odin of the North.

King Olaf Haraldsson sent as messengers to Olaf, King of Sweden, Björn, his marshal, and the Icelandic scald Sigvat. After leaving Norway they went across the Eidaforest.

“Then they went through Gautland, and one evening came to a farm called Hof. The door was shut and they could not enter; the husband and wife said it was holy there, and they went away. Then they came to another farm; the housewife stood at the door and asked them not to go in, saying they were holding Alfa-blót. Sigvat sang:—

Do not go farther in,

Wretched man;

I fear the wrath of Odin,

We are heathens.”

(St. Olaf’s Saga, c. 92.)

We have seen that the Alfar, from whom some people claimed their descent, as others did from the Asar, were of two kinds, and dwelt at Alfheim, not far from the Urd well by the ash Yggdrasil. They made the fetter Gleipnir, with which the Fenris-wolf was kept tied; also the ship Skidbladnir, Odin’s spear Gungnir, and Sif’s golden hair, &c.

“Why is gold called the hair of Sif? ‘Loki, son of Laufey, had, through cunning, cut off all the hair of Sif (wife of Thor). When Thor knew it he took Loki and would have crushed every bone in him if he had not sworn to get the Svartalfar (black Altar) to make hair of gold for Sif which would grow like other hair. Thereafter Loki went to the Dvergar, called the sons of Ivaldi,[[331]] and they made the hair and Skidbladnir and the spear of Odin, Gungnir. Then Loki staked his head to the Dverg Brok that his brother Sindri would not be able to make three things as good as these. When they came to the smithy, Sindri laid the skin of a swine on the hearth and asked Brok to blow (the bellows), and not to stop before he had taken from the hearth what he had put on it. When he had left the forge and Brok had made the bellows blow, a fly[[332]] sat down on his hand and pecked at it; he continued until the smith took from the hearth a boar with golden bristles. Then Sindri put gold on the hearth and asked him to blow and not to stop till he came back. He went, and the fly came and sat down on his neck and pecked twice as hard, but he blew until the smith took from the hearth a gold ring called Draupnir. Then Sindri laid iron on the hearth and asked him to blow, as this would be of no use if he stopped it. Then the fly settled down between his eyes and pecked at his eyelids. When the blood ran down into his eyes so that he saw nothing he swept away the fly as quickly as he could, and the bellows fell down; then the smith came and said that now all that was on the hearth had been made nearly useless. He took a hammer from it and gave all these (three) things to his brother Brok, and asked him to take them to Asgard for the wager.... Loki gave to Odin the spear Gungnir, to Thor the hair for Sif, to Frey Skidbladnir.... Then Brok gave the ring (Draupnir) to Odin, and said that every ninth night eight rings equally heavy would drop from it; he gave the boar to Frey, and said it could run over sea and air by night and day faster than any horse, and that the night or mijrk-heimar (the black world) would never get so dark but there would be enough light from the shining of its mane. He gave the hammer to Thor, and said that whatever he met, however large the object was, he might strike it with the hammer and it would never fail; if he threw it at anything it would never miss, and never go so far as not to come back into his hand’” (Skáldskaparmal, 35).