download - Sage's Lore Library

THE WOESHIP OF NATURAL OBJECTS. 235
of more than two thousand, leaped over the water-
fall and were destroyed.* In many parts of Norway
the belief is still prevalent that a being, which
is universally called Fosse-Grim, has its abode in the
waterfalls. This superstition is evidently a relic of
the old heathen belief in a similar being, in which
the worship of waterfalls may have originated.
From all that is above quoted on the worship of
inanimate objects among the heathen Northmen,
we have every reason to presume that this idolatry
was most intimately connected with the belief in
Elves', and really originated in it.
* Landnmb. V. 6.