Northern mythology

SWEDISH TRADITIONS. 61
whose descendants was the celebrated Queen Margaret,
ob. A.D. 1412.
CHRISTIAN-HEATHEN TRADITIONS OF TROLLS, ETC.
The first light of Christianity was insufficient to dispel
all the darkness of heathenism. There still remained on
the public ways and in fields small oratories built over
some pagan idol_, for the accommodation both of travellers
and of those employed in the fields. From these oratories
or ^ scurds/ as they were called,
the heathen images were
indeed removed, but those of saints were set up in their
place, and many a neophyte prayed sometimes to the
Virgin Mary, St. Peter and other sanits, and at others to
Thor and Freyia. The Christians, therefore, strove now
with all their might to suppress among the people all faith
in these heathen deities, condemning them as spirits of
hell that sought the ruin of mankind. The spectres of
heathenism. Trolls and Elves, together with those, in their
mounds or barrows, who had died in the time of idolatry,
were represented as bugbears to Christian men, so that
they were always held in fear, and trembled on their way,
particularly by night, for the ' evil meeting,^ that is, the
meeting with Trolls or Elves, whence, it was said, many
diseases and troubles were caused to mortals ; nor was
self-interest behindhand in finding remedies for all such
calamities. The simple people paid dearly to monks, trollwives
and exorcising women for these remedies, consisting
in superstitious mummery with incense and spells, performed
in crossways, churches, and at Elf-stones.
At such
places strange prayers were said, mingled with the invocation
and misuse of the names of Jesus and the saints.
These prayers, which were for the most part composed in
the monasteries, were sometimes in rime. We could adduce
some that have been in use even in our time ; but,
as ofi"ensive to Christian ears, they had better be forgotten.