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^30 EELIGION OF THE NOETHMEN.
CHAPTER XXn.
THE WOESHIP OF THE DEAD, AND OF NATUEAL OBJECTS.
It was not merely the JEsir and the spiritual
beings allied to them that the heathen Northmen
we find they also
made the object of their worship ;
placed confidence in departed human beings as well
as animate or inanimate na,tural objects, and even
worshiped them.
A few noble and virtuous men, who, during life,
had effected much good in their circle, were some-
times worshiped after death as guardian spirits of
the country or the region in which they had lived
and labored for good. Thus King Olaf Gu5r65sson
of Yestfold, who dwelt at Gierstad, was worshiped
after his death by his former subjects ; they sacri-
ficed upon his burial-mound and called him Geir-
sta5a-alfr, or Geirstad's Spirit.* Of another Northman,
Grim Kamban, the first settler who made a
permanent residence on the Faroe Islands, it is like-
wise related that " after his death they sacrificed to
him on account of the favor in which he stood."t
It is related of the Swedes that at the time when
Ansgarius proclaimed Christianity in Sweden, they
* f 4ttr af Olafi QeirstaSa-ilfi.
f
Landnmb. I. 14.