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THE -VVOESHIP OF NATUEAl OBJECTS. 233
then Nortlimen, it is by no means clear what signi-
ficance they attached to it—whether they imagined
a Deity in any manner incarnated in the animal—or
whether they regarded it riierely as sacred to a certain
Deity—or iinally, whether they imagined it by
any magic spells to be endowed with supernatural
powers.- "Without doubt, the worship of animals was
most frequently regarded from one of the two last-
mentioned points of view, and was usually in the
nearest connection with the belief in sorcery.
Of inanimate things we find Mounds, Stones,
Groves, and Waterfalls mentioned as objects of wor-
ship with some individuals.
Sacrifices to Moixnds cannot have been of very
rare occurrence ; for in the Christian Code of the
" Older Gula-Thing Laws " they are expressly forbidden,
along with sacrifices to heathen Gods and
altars. In the somewhat fabulous Saga of Ketil
Hseng, a mound of Good Seasons (Arhaugr, *. e..
Mound of Fruitfulness) is mentioned, to which the in-
habitants of Gestrekaland (in Sweden) sacrificed, in
order to obtain favorable seasons, and upon which
the snow never lay.* No doubt such sacred mounds
were the graves of men who had been deified after
death, or else they were thought to be the dwelling-
places of the Elves.f
The Icelandic settler Eyvind, son of LoSin Aungul
of Halogaland, is said to have sacrificed to some
stones, called Gunnsteinar, which marked the bound-
» Ketil Hsenga S. 5 in Fornald. S. II.
f See Ohap. XVIII.