Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/322

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CHRONICLE OF THE

birth, both men and women. Then it was the custom, with people of consideration, to choose with great care the man who should pour water over their children, and give them a name. Now when the time came that Thora, who was then at Moster, expected her confinement, she would go to King Harald, who was then living at Safim; and she went northwards in a ship belonging to Earl Sigurd. They lay at night close to the land; and there Thora brought forth a child upon the land, up among the rocks, close to the ship's gangway, and it was a man child. Earl Sigurd poured water over him, and called him Hakon^[1], after his own father, Hakon earl of Lade. The boy soon grew handsome, large in size, and very like his father King Harald. King Harald let him follow his mother, and they were both in the king's house as long as he was an infant.

Chapter XLI.
King Athelstan's message.

At this time a king called Athelstan had taken the kingdom of England. He sent men to Norway to King Harald, with the errand that the messengers should present him with a sword, with the hilt and

↑ It may be doubted if baptism with water was really an observance in the Odin religion. It could have no meaning to the Odin worshippers; and if really used must have been borrowed from Christianity, and used as a charm. It is very possible that all the passages about pouring water over a child, on giving it a name, are interpolated by the scald in relating the sagas, in order to avoid the awkwardness of making the immediate ancestors of those to whom he was relating them heathens who had died unbaptized. We find those who attained power and transmitted it to their descendants have had water poured over them at their birth; but of others nothing of the kind is related. Harald Haarfager, this Hakon, Olaf, Magnus, are stated to have been thus baptized; but we hear nothing of the baptism of any of Haarfager's other sons, who happened not to leave posterity in power after Christianity was established. Eric Bloodyaxe, his favourite and eldest son, appears not to have been baptized. Baptism does not appear connected with any thing in the Odin religion that we can gather from the Eddas. It is possibly a courtly compliment of the scald, to have given his heroes this Christain rite in telling their story to their Christianised descendants. We find, in Chapter 43., that Athelstan had Hakon baptized and instructed in the Christian faith; so that this first baptism seems doubtful.

[1] It may be doubted if baptism with water was really an observance in the Odin religion. It could have no meaning to the Odin worshippers; and if really used must have been borrowed from Christianity, and used as a charm. It is very possible that all the passages about pouring water over a child, on giving it a name, are interpolated by the scald in relating the sagas, in order to avoid the awkwardness of making the immediate ancestors of those to whom he was relating them heathens who had died unbaptized. We find those who attained power and transmitted it to their descendants have had water poured over them at their birth; but of others nothing of the kind is related. Harald Haarfager, this Hakon, Olaf, Magnus, are stated to have been thus baptized; but we hear nothing of the baptism of any of Haarfager's other sons, who happened not to leave posterity in power after Christianity was established. Eric Bloodyaxe, his favourite and eldest son, appears not to have been baptized. Baptism does not appear connected with any thing in the Odin religion that we can gather from the Eddas. It is possibly a courtly compliment of the scald, to have given his heroes this Christain rite in telling their story to their Christianised descendants. We find, in Chapter 43., that Athelstan had Hakon baptized and instructed in the Christian faith; so that this first baptism seems doubtful.

[1]