Not the least picturesque part of the prospect was the cavalcade of some thirty men and women returning in Indian file from the funeral. At last, wearied with waiting, we rode up the ugly rough ravine of Eilifsdalr, and turned to the right between the Esja and its northern outlier, Eyrarfjall. The latter showed sub-columnar and fan-shaped basalt in the foundations, with Palagonite, here yellow, there dark, overlying and underlying trap, whilst striated rocks everywhere appeared. On the left hand, or under Esja, were mounds mightily resembling moraine:[48] they were probably formed by the streams of frozen mud which carried with them boulder fragments, and either strewed them upon the plain or swept them out to sea. The most conspicuous of the natural tumuli, and crowned with a stone, is called, ‘Róstuhóll,[49] “battle holt,” or, as Hooker has it, “duel hill:” here Búi Andriðsson, for whom see the Kjalnesinga Saga, kept his foes at bay, and slew half-a-dozen with a sling.
We then forded the streams, and crossed the nasty swamps and the stony patches of the brook which flows to the Hvalfjörð. Farms were scattered everywhere about the sheltered valley. After two hours and a half of slow progress, we were joined by the Reverend, who, gallantly mounted, rode straight as a fox-hunting parson of the last generation, and we soon reached the ladder of red and green lavas which overlooks the firth. The immediate banks show the feature locally called Melarbakki,[50] horizontal lines bare of earth, regular as if heaped up by man, and generally with inclines too stiff to retain vegetation. We shall see the feature well displayed at Borðeyri and Grafarós. In Canada, and New England also, where the snow covering, which prevents radiation of heat, is blown away by winds, and the ground is frozen for a depth of two feet or more, the surface remains brown and barren throughout spring and summer.
Here we dismounted to collect the “Yaspis,” for which the place is famous, and which we had found scattered over the Esja range. The colours are bright red, blue, and blue-green, often prettily striped and branched; the sharp edges cut like obsidian, and the whole appears as impure opaque masses of quartz. According to Dr Hjaltalín, it remarkably resembles that of Hungary, and the dark spots upon the surface are oxide of copper, copper glance, or argentiferous copper. Zeolites were abundant, so were almonds of lime in basalt; chalcedonies, milk-white, red, yellow, green, and dark-brown, passing into cachalong and grades of chalcedony and quartz, “cloisonnés” with crystals of carbonate of lime, and superficially clad with capillary mesotype. We often heard in Iceland of the noble opal, which might be expected in a volcanic land—as at Aden, there are whole sheets of it, but none is noble. The Færoese consider it to be a transition between zeolite and chalcedony: I was told of fine specimens found there, but failed to see them.[51]
We then trotted merrily past Saurbær (sour mud or dirt-farm; perhaps farm of Saur), and were shown the Tíða Skarð (tide or hour col), so called because the congregation riding to mass could be seen when an hour distant. The path along the shore was tolerable, and we had to dismount only at a single swamp. After a total of four hours’ slow progress from Miðfell, we reached the main object of our journey, the celebrated Hof of Kjalarnes (Keel-ness), in the Kjósar or “choice” Sýsla. It was the great place of assembly in the south-west, and the chief of the twelve provincial “Things” before A.D. 928, when the Althing was removed to the confiscated estate of Thingvellir. We expected interesting ruins after reading of “Kialarness, remarkable for the remains of a Hof or idolatrous temple erected towards the close of the ninth century” (Henderson, ii. 3). The Crymogæa of “Arngrim Jonas” speaks with admiration of two Hofs in the north and south of the island. Each had an inner sacellum, or holy of holies, where the victims were ranged in semicircle about the idol-altar (Stalli): the latter was plated with iron, for protection against the pure, flint-kindled fire, which, as in a Parsee temple, perpetually burned there: it supported a brass bowl (blót bolli) to contain the blood, sprinkled with the blood-twig (blót grein) or asperges upon the bystanders. There hung up, likewise, a great silver ring, which they stained with blood, and which whoever took an oath on these occasions was required to hold in his hand. The “Baugr,” we are told, weighed two ounces, and was at times worn by the priest: it possibly symbolised Odin’s magic “Draupnir,” made by Brokkur, most skilful of the dwarfs. Till late years a specimen was to be seen at the Reykjahlíð churchlet. The “oath on the ring” was taken by dipping it in blood, often human, and by saying, after the solemn adjuration of heathen old Scandinavia, “So help me Freyr and Njördr, and that almighty Áss!” (ok hinn almáttki Áss, i.e., Thor);[52] and Norsemen of rank were buried with the Armilla sacred to Odin. “In one of these temples there was also, near the chapel, a deep pit or well into which they cast the victims.”
Mallet, and other trustworthy authors of his day, assimilated the ancient Scandinavian places of worship to those of the Persian Guebres and the old Teutons, who would not offend the gods by immuring them, or by roofing them in, which is not correct. The Hof was an enclosed building, whilst the Hörg, in whose centre stood the huge sacrificial stone, was open above. The Scandinavian temple, even that gold-plated wonder of the North, the fane of Thor at old Upsala, was nothing but a long wooden hall to contain the worshippers, with a sanctuary at one end, the true Aryan Estika,[53] where the “Blót,”[54] or pagan sacrifice, was performed by the priest or pontiff (hof-goði). The same was the case with the Kjalarnes temple, a rough timber building, burnt by Búi Andriðsson, the slinger.
The situation is right well chosen for effect. This Hof stood at the base of a stony land-tongue separated by swampy ground from the iron shore, lined and faced with diabolitos, or cruel little black rocks. Opposite sleeps the tranquil bay of Reykjavik, backed by its picturesque blue hills—a veritable Sierra, the backbone of this part of Iceland, all cones and pyramids, notches and saw-like teeth, resembling the sky-lines of El Safá. To the right is a rough rise of lava pushing out jagged points, and to the left towers the Esja pile, with its network of dykes and slides, an extinct Vesuvius faced by white cliffs. Farms and hay-fields are scattered about, probably occupying the same positions which looked upon the ancient heathen gods, with whose departure prosperity left the land. There is not a trace of the building, but the pasty-faced peasants showed us, below the rise, a bit of deep swamp covered with marsh-marigold, and this they called the Blót-Kelda, or victim well—possibly where men and beasts were sacrificially drowned.
After inspecting this humble marvel, we shook hands with the Reverend, and took boat for Reykjavik, where we arrived at 9.30 P.M.
I afterwards was shown the traditional site of the Thór Hof near Stykkishólm; and the utter absence of sign made me neglect to visit that of Vopnafjörð, whose door was translated to the church, the Hörg, at Krosshólar; and the fane of Goðaborg, with its sacrificial stone where “David of the wilderness” dwelt. In 1770, Uno Von Troil (Letter XVI.) offered a tempting list of northern antiquities, some of them possibly pre-historic or proto-historic.[55] But except in cairns, tumuli, and the kitchen-middens mentioned in various places, especially that near Snorri’s bath at Reykholt, I should expect little yield even from the spade.
The older Edda (Sigrdrífumál, st. 34) speaks of cairns—
“Let a mound be raised
For those departed;”