“The Jarl and all his men were therefore baptized. Thereupon he became King Olaf’s man, and bound this with oath. Sigurd Jarl then took the country as fief from the king, and gave him as hostage his son Hvelp (whelp) or Hundi (dog), whom King Olaf had baptized with the name Hlödver, and taken to Norway. Thereupon King Olaf sailed from the Orkneys, and left behind learned men to teach the people in the holy faith. The king and the jarl then separated as friends” (St. Olaf’s Saga).
The later accounts of the struggle between the two creeds show how many crimes were committed avowedly in the name of conscience and religion, but really in that of superstition and ignorance, which brings with it bigotry, vandalism and murder, the curse of mankind; and we see that the people had a dislike to the adoption of Christian names.
“He (King Olaf, the Saint) had Hrærek blinded in both eyes and took him with him; he had the tongue of Gudröd, King of Dalir, cut out; Hring and two others he forced to give oaths that they would leave Norway and never come back” (St. Olaf, Heimskringla, c. 74).
“Olaf Tryggvason and Bishop Sigurd both went with many worships to Godey (god-isle), where Raud the Strong, a man of sacrifices, lived. Olaf attacked the loft where Raud slept, and broke it and went in. Raud was taken and tied, and of the men in there some were killed and others taken. Raud was led before the king, who bade him let himself be baptized; ‘then,’ said the king, ‘I will not take thy property, but be thy friend if thou wilt do this.’ Raud cried out against this, and said he would never believe in Christ, and blasphemed much. The king grew angry, and said Raud should die the most hideous death. He had him taken out and lashed to a beam, a stick was placed between his teeth to force open his mouth, in which a snake was placed; but it would not go in, and recoiled, because he blew against it. Then the king had a stalk of angelica put in Raud’s mouth; some say that the king put his war-horn into his mouth with the snake in it; he had a red-hot iron bar put on the outside of it. The snake recoiled into the mouth of Raud, and down his throat, and ate its way out of his side, and Raud died. The king took thence a large quantity of gold and silver and other loose property, weapons, and many costly things. He had slain or tortured all those of Raud’s men who would not be baptized” (Olaf Tryggvason, c. 87).
“Olaf Sviaking had a son by his queen who was born on the day of St. James’ vigil; when he was baptized the bishop called him Jacob. The Sviar disliked that name, and said that never had a Sviaking been called Jacob” (St. Olaf, c. 89).
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE LAND.
Division of the land—Supposed origin of the division—The odal—How land could become odal—Redemption of the odal—Laws in regard to redemption—Purchase of land and closing of the bargain—Existence of leaseholds—Commons—Rights of common—Laws regulating commons.
In old Sweden and Norway, and no doubt all over the North, the land was divided into Herad and Fylki. In Sweden there were small and large Herad; in Norway there were both Herad and Fylki, the latter probably corresponding to the larger Herad in Sweden.
We are unable to find how and when such division of land began to take place among the people: that a sudden emigration burst upon the country we have no proof whatever.
The word her (“host”) implies a certain number of people or families coming together for mutual protection or otherwise, and the whole was called host. These either took by force or settled peacefully upon certain tracts of land, which were then called Herad, probably on account of being the land of the her. In the course of time—perhaps for mutual protection, or for some other reason unknown to us—those Herad or Fylki, though entirely independent of each other in their internal affairs, were united together, and were called thjod, or veldi, which means a nation made up of different Fylki and Herad. So the land of the Swedes was called Svi-thjód, or Svia-veldi: and that of the Danes and Norwegians, Dana-veldi and Noregs-veldi.