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Chapter 3. Midgard 74
their footprints might be seen on the ashes of the hearth, and in Iceland elves
were said to visit houses in a similar way.” 22
Davidson later presents a case from the Orkneys where an ancestral spirit (haugbui
or “hogboy”) dwelling in a mound near a farm was periodically offered milk or wine
for his protective services. When a farmer desecrated the dwelling place, a revenge
of six cows was exacted. The most interesting part of the story, however, is that it
took place as late as the beginning of the 20th century. 23
Because the Vikings moved about often settling in new places, they were occasionally
confronted with land-holdings which had no ancestors underneath. This
happened in the case of the early Germanic invasions into Celtic or Baltic lands,
Iceland, and Greenland. Since access to power/ luck was of greatest importance,
they resorted to other methods. It is commonly reported, for example, that Viking
invaders would “rape” the women of a country being invaded. So much so, in fact,
that the idea of “rape” was often synonymous with “Viking invasion,” and there is no
doubt that these invaders most likely enjoyed their work. The end product of such
a brutal practice, however, was that the lineages of the invaders and the inhabitants
of the country being invaded were intertwined, giving the Vikings access to the
power/ luck of that land. Often the women who were raped were the daughters and
wives of local leaders meaning that the lineage being interacted with was strong. If
the Vikings were simply brutal barbarians as some scholars believe, then why not
rape and torture or kill the women or perhaps keep them as personal concubines?
Usually, the women were left in their homelands to raise the illegitimate children of
the invaders.
There were other occasions when the country being “invaded” had no inhabitants,
such as Iceland.
“In early Iceland the dead could hardly be pictured as waiting in their
mounds for an opportunity to visit the living. There seems little doubt
that the natural world in both Celtic and Germanic areas was held to be
peopled with independent spirits dwelling in rocks, waterfalls, springs, and
mountains. These were prepared to befriend the living and make the land
fertile, but violence and bloodshed were offensive to them, in contrast to
the battle-spirits. No doubt the dead in their graves might also help the
living, and the spirit of a dead king, in particular, might possess such powers.
Iceland, however, was without kings or ancestors, and there seems to have
been a vigorous belief in a host of supernatural powers in wild places as well
as on the farms, and in natural hills as well as in burial places. The spirits
22 Davidson, H .R. E., Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe, p.114,1988.
23 ibid.