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194: EELIGION OF THE NOETHMEN.
to do both, good and evil to the people who lived in
their vicinity. Therefore men sought to gain their
friendship by sacrifices (Alfablot) and by services,
whenever the Elves might demand them.
When the Icelander Thorvard Eysteinsson had
been severely wounded in a holmgang with Kormak
Augmundsson, and his wound was very difficult to
heal, he applied to a certain Thordis Spakona for
counsel. She told him that at a short distance
there was a mound in which the Elves lived. He
must get the blood of the ox that Kormak, accord-
ing to common usage, had slaughtered as an offer-
ing after the duel; with this blood he must sprinkle
the mound and at the same time give the Elves a
banquet of the flesh ; then he should become
healed. Her advice was followed and Thorvard
speedily recovered his health.* Sighvat, the Skald
of Olaf the Saint, on a journey through, Gothland,
stopped at a country house to find shelter for the
night, but the mistress, who was standing in the
door, forbade him, for they were just then engaged
in "Alfablot " or sacrifices to the Elves-f In Hrolf
Ganger's Saga, which in reality is a fiction of the
fourteenth century, but which in single fragments
throws light on the customs and the modes of think-
ing of olden times, there are also found traces of the
Elfen-faith. Once, when Hrolf, the hero of the
Saga, has been long in pursuit of a stag which it
had been enjoined upon him to take, he comes
towards evening to a clearing in the woods and there
* KormakB S. 22.
. t Snorri: 01. HeL S. 92.