THE SACRIFICE OF KING DOMALDI. 



they would buy them back, and the poor had not property 

 enough to pay the tribute. Einar paid it, and for long 

 after the jarls possessed all the odals, until Sigurd Jarl gave 

 them up to the men of the Orkneys. Einar Jar! ruled long 

 over the Orkneys, and died on a sick bed " (Flateyjarbok, 

 p. 224, vol. i.). 



The custom of a man giving himself to Odin on a sick bed 

 by marking himself or being marked with the point of a spear, 

 probably arose from the disgrace which was supposed to attach 

 to a man who died unwounded in his bed, and not in battle. 

 Odin himself 1 followed this practice, which enabled a man to 

 come to Valhalla. . When tired of life, or of old age, men gave 

 themselves to Odin by throwing themselves from the rocks. 



Eirik the victorious, who fought against Styrbjorn, gave 

 himself to Odin in order to get the victory ; and Harald 

 Hilditonn was killed by Odin himself, because he had become 

 so old. 



The earliest account given of a human sacrifice in the North 

 is that of Domaldi, which, if we may trust the genealogies, 

 took place about the beginning of the Christian era. 



" Domaldi inherited and ruled the land after his father 

 Yisbur. In his days there was in Sweden great hunger 

 and famine ; then the Swedes made large sacrifices at TJppsalir. 

 The first autumn they sacrificed oxen, but the season did 

 not improve ; the second autumn they sacrificed men, but 

 the season was the same or worse ; the third autumn the Swedes 

 came in crowds to Uppsalir when the sacrifice was to take 

 place. The chiefs held their consultations, and agreed that 

 the hard years were owing to their king, and that they must 

 sacrifice him for good years, and should attack and slay him, 

 and redden the altars with his blood. And thus they did " 

 (Ynglinga Saga, ch. 18). 



" Before the holding of the Althing (in the year 1000) in 

 Iceland the heathens held a meeting, and resolved to sacrifice 

 two men from every district of the land (Iceland was 

 divided into four quarters), and to invoke their gods that 

 they should not let Christianity spread over the country. 

 Hjalti and Gizur had another meeting with the Christians, 

 and said they would have human sacrifices as many as the 



Ynglinga Saga, 10. 



