Northern mythology

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102 SWEDISH TRADITIONS.
suddenly heard a child crying in the mountain, and the
mother^ a giantess, singing to appease it
" Hush, my babe, hush !
Thy father, Finn, comes home to-mon*ow
Then shalt thou play with sun and moon.
And with St. Lars' two eyes."
St, Lawrence now knew the giant^s name, and so had
power over him. When the Trolls were aware of this, they
both came down into the undercroft, where each seized a
pillar, with the intention of throwing down the whole edifice;
but St. Lawrence, making the sign of the cross,
cried out :
" Stand there in stone till doomsday !
^'
They
instantly became stone as they are yet to be seen ; the
giant embracing one pillar, and his wife, with a child on
her arm, another ^
THE CHURCH-GRIM AND THE CHURCH-LAMB.
Heathen superstition did not fail to show itself in the
construction of Christian churches.
In laying the foundation,
the people wovild retain something of their former religion,
and sacrificed to their old deities, whom they could
not forget, some animal, which they buried alive, either
under the foundation or without the wall. The spectre of
this animal is said to wander about the churchyard by
night, and is called the Kyrkogrim, or Church-grim.
A tradition has also been preserved, that under the altar
in the first Christian churches a lamb was usually buried,
which imparted security and duration to the edifice.
is
Tliis
an emblem of the genuine Church -lamb, the Saviour of
the world, who is the sacred corner-stone of his church
and congregation. When any one enters a church at a
1
See the story of King Olaf, p. 39, and of Esbern Snare and Kalhindborg
church in Danish Traditions. The original is manifestly the Eddaic
story of the builder that engaged to fortify Asgard.