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to Thor, during the feast of Iuul, fat oxen and horses; to Frigga the largest hog they could get[1]; to Odin horses, dogs, and falcons, sometimes cocks, and a fat bull. When they had once laid it down as a principle that the effusion of the blood of these animals appeased the anger of the gods, and that their justice turned aside upon the victims those strokes which were destined for men; their great care then was for nothing more than to conciliate their favour by so easy a method. It is the nature of violent desires and excessive fear to know no bounds, and therefore when they would ask for any favour which they ardently wished for, or would deprecate some public calamity which they feared, the blood of animals was not deemed a price sufficient, but they began to shed that of men. It is probable that this barbarous practice was formerly almost universal, and that it is of a very remote antiquity: It was not entirely abolished among the northern nations till towards the ninth century, because before that time they had not received the light of the gospel, and were ignorant of those arts which had softened
- ↑ Matrem Deûm venerantur Æstii: insigne superstitionis, formas aprorum gestant. Tacit. Germ. c. 45.
