Northern mythology

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APPENDIX. 209
sacred to Frey, because the swine is supposed to have first
taught mankind to plough the earth. This was led forth
well fattened and adorned ; and it w^as a custom to make
vows over the sacred hog, and pledge themselves to some
great enterprise, to be achieved before the next Yulemeeting
(Jula-mot). Feastings, bodily exercises, and Yulegames
occupied the whole of this month, whence it was
denominated skamte-manad (the merry month).
Midwinter sacrifice w^as the second grand festival,
and
took place on the first new moon after Yule-month, to
the honour of Goa or Goa.
This goddess was believed to
preside over the fertility of the earth, and to be a daughter
of Thor. Hence in many places, when thunder is heard,
the people still say, Goa is passing. After her the month
of February is called Goje-manad. At a later period this
sacrifice acquired the appellation of Disa-blot, when the
celebrated Queen Disa, whose memory is still preserved in
the traditions of the Swedish people, had not only partaken
in, but almost superseded, the worship of Frigg and Goa
at this festival. The story of Queen Disa is usually related
as follows :
When King Frey, or, according to other accounts, a
King Sigtrud, far back in the times of heathenism, ruled
in the North, the population, during a long peace, had so
greatly increased, that one year,
on the coming of winter,
the crops of the preceding autumn were already consumed.
The king therefore summoned all the commonalty to an
assembly, for the purpose of finding a remedy for the impending
evil, when it was decreed, that all the old, the
sickly, the deformed, and the idle should be slain and
offered to Odin. \'\Tien one of the king^s councillors,
named Siustin, returned from the assembly to his dwelling
in Uppland, his daughter, Disa, inquired of him what had
there taken place ; and as she was in all respects wise and
judicious, he recounted to her what had been resolved on.