Northern mythology

APPENDIX. 265
sacrifices inform us at the same time that prisoners of war
•—as in the time of Tacitus — purchased slaves or criminals
were especially chosen for sacrificed When a criminal
was sacrificed, his death was at
the same time the penalty
of his misdeeds. He was offered to the god whom, it was
believed,
he had particularly offended, and his execution,
decreed by the law, was reserved for the festival of that
divinity. This usage, which gives an insight into the intimate
connection between law and religion, and shows the
punishment of death among the Germans in a peculiar
light, is particularly conspicuous among the Frisians.
This people put criminals chosen for sacrifice to death in
various ways ; they were either decapitated with a sword,
or hanged on a gallows, or strangled, or drowned^. A
more cruel punishment awaited those who had broken into
and robbed the temple of a god^.
Of animals used for sacrifice, horses, oxen and goats are
especially mentioned. The horse-sacrifice was the most
considerable, and is particularly characteristic of the Germanic
races. The heads were by preference offered to the
gods, and were fixed or hung on trees. The hides also of
the sacrificed animals were suspended on sacred trees.
the North the flesh of the sacrifices was boiled, and the
door-posts of the temple were smeared with their blood^.
In
1 According to the Vita S. Wiilframmi (ob. 720) in Act. Bened. sec. 3,
pp. 359, 361, the individuals to be sacrificed were sometimes chosen by
lot. The accounts given in this Life seem rather fabulous, but are, nevertheless,
not to be rejected.
S. Willibrord and his companions, when they
had desecrated the sanctuary of Fosite, were subjected to the lot, and the
one on whom the lot fell was executed. Alcuini Vita S. Willibi'. c. 10.
Among the Slaves also human sacrifices were determined by lot. Jahrb.
fiir Slaw. Lit. 1843, p. 392.
2 Vita S. Wulframmi, p. 360.
3 Midler, p. 77. Lex Frisionum, Addit. Sap. Tit. 12. Qui fanum effregerit
et ibi aliquid de sacris tulerit, ducitur ad mare, et in sabulo, quod
accessus maris operire solet, finduntur aures ejus, et castratur, et immolatur
diis, quorum templa violavit.
**
Midler, p. 79.
N