download - Sage's Lore Library

SACEED EDIFICES. 213
tice— ^upon the extremity of the promontory. After
Ms death, some of those who attended the court
would not take the trouble to go out upon the roeks
to attend to the calls of nature ; thereupon arose a
battle between those refractory persons and the in-
habitants of Thorsnes. The Assembling-place (|)ing-
voUr) became deiiled with blood, and this gave occasion
for it to be removed higher up the promon-
tory, for the ground upon which it had been could
not now be considered, holier than any other.*
"When the Norse chieftain Thorhadd the Old, wha
had been hofg05i at Mseri in Throndheim, went over
to Iceland, he took down the temple beforehand and
carried with him the hof-mold (mold or earth under
the foundations of the temple) together with the
sacred columns. He settled on St65var-fj6r5, on
the eastern coast of Iceland, whither he transferred
the sacredness of Mseri (Mserina helgi) to the whole
Fj6r8. lie allowed no living being to be killed
there, except the cattle that he rec[uired to be
slaughtered for his household.f
It was not lawful to bear arms into the tem-
ples. "When King Olaf Tryggvason went into the
temple at Mseri, it is related that those of his men
and the countrymen who followed him were unarm-
ed ;
the king himself had only a gold-mofinted staff
or mace in his hand.:]: The Northman Hrafn had
to give up to the Icelandic chieftain and hof-go6i
Ingemund a splendid sword in forfeiture, because
* Eyrb. S. 4, 9, 10.
f Landnmb. tV. 6.
i 01. Tr. S. in Fornm. S. II. let.
10*