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232 RELIGtON OP THE NOSTHMEIJ.
nar L65br6k and Ms sons, appears to have had great
faith in a cow which was called Sibilia (the ever-bel-
To this cow, says the account, they sacri-
lowing ?).
ficed greatly, and no one could endure to hear her
bellowing.. Therefore, the King was accustomed to
let her go in advance of his army, when he marched
forth against his enemies.* It is related of the Norwegian
Fylki-King Augvald, that he made special
sacrifices to a cow which he took with him whither-
soever he went, by sea or by land, and whose milk
he esteemed as a medicine. When he died the cow
was laid in a mound near his own.f Perhaps sacred
cows were symbols of the mythic cow Au5humla,
although there are no traces of her worship to be
found.
Small metallic images of both horses and oxen are
found in the heathen burial-mounds in Norway, and
may without doubt be regarded as relics of the wor-
ship of these animals.
When the Norse chieftain Floki VilgerSarson
was preparing to set out from K6galand in search of
Iceland, he set up a great sacrifice at Smorsund, and
sacrificed to three ravens, or consecrated them by
sacrifices, in order that they might show him the
way. By their direction, it seems, he found the land
he was seeking for.;]; Floki's oflfering, it may be presumed,
was actually to Odin, and for
of Odin were to show him the way.
this the birds
With regard to animal-worship aomng the hea-
* Eagnar L6Sbr. S. 8.
t
Snor. : 01. Tr. S. 11 ; 01. Tr. S. 197 in Fonim. S. II., p. 188.
:|: Landnmb. I. 2.