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174 THE SCANDINAVIANS, AND
BOOK in. countries is with us called after the goddess Easter,
CHAP^IL whose festival was coincident, and the days of the
week dedicated to Woden or Odin, to Thor and to
Freyja, retain their names nearly unchanged in
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
But at Stein-
ness, Hibbert asserts that the early missionaries
proceeded much farther in their anxiety to conciliate
Semicircular the prej udices of converts, inducing them to give to
tation of pagan a portion of the Christian church the outward form
of the pagan temple for it appears that not only did
they build their church adjoining
temple but they built the belfry
the extraordinary form of a semicircle. 1
the semicircular
of that church in
It may be
reasonably doubted whether the hypothesis on which
this assertion is founded be correct, although its
advocates might attempt to support their theory by
showing that at Egibsly and Birsa (two other of the
Orkney Islands) the churches had round towers close
to them, 2 which round towers are supposed to have
been erected by Irish monks introducing Christianity,
only the theory may be supported by pointing out that
The circle a
forS
a large number of churches in Norfolk and Suffolk built
e ndina-
before the Conquest, and ascribed to the Danes, were
vian temples.
built with circular
3
belfries, that it was a favourite
1
Description
of the Shetland
Isles, 4to, Edinburgh, 1822.
2 Celtic antiquities of Orkney,
by F. W. . L. Thomas, R. N.
Archaeologia, vol. 34, p. 117.
' Gale's History of Suffolk, Pre-
Norfolk :
face, p. 24. Worthing,
the steeple which was round is in
ruins. Essay towards a Topogra-
phical History of the Co. of ^Nor-
folk, by Rev. Francis Bloomfield,
continued by Rev. Charles Parkin,
London, 1805-1810, ten vols. Roy.
8vo. Hist, of Norfolk, vol. viii.,
p. 198. Grynhoe, at west end,
a tower of flint, round to roof, and
then octagon. lb., vol. vi., p. 103.
St. Ethelred's, Norwich round
-tccple, vol. x., p. 280.