CEREMONIES ATTENDING SACRIFICES. 349 



" Sigurd Hlada-jarl was a very great sacrifice! 1 , as his father 

 Hakon had been ; he kept up all the sacrificing-feasts in 

 Thrandheim on the king's behalf. It was an old custom 

 when a sacrifice was to take place that all the boendr should 

 come to the temple, and take with them the provisions needed 

 while the feast lasted. Every man was to bring ale; there 

 were also slaughtered all kinds of small cattle, as well as 

 horses. All the blood which came therefrom was called lilaut 

 (sacrifice blood), the vessels for holding it hlaut-bowls, and the 

 twigs, hlaut-twigs. With them the altars had to be reddened 

 all over, and also the walls of the temple inside and outside; 

 then the men were to be sprinkled with them, but the flesh 

 had to be boiled for people to eat. 



" Fires were to burn on the middle of the temple floor, and 

 kettles to be put on them ; the drinking-horns had to be 

 carried around the lire. The chief who made the feast had 

 to consecrate the horns, and all the sacrifice-food. The horn 

 (toast) of Odin must be drunk first, for the victory and power 

 of their king ; and then the horn of Njord and Frey, for a 

 good year and peace. Many ussd to drink Bragi's horn next 

 to these. Men also drank horns for those of their kinsmen who 

 had been great men ; these were called minni (memorial 

 horns). Sigurd jarl was a most open-handed man ; he did a 

 very famous deed, as he held a great sacrificing feast at 

 Hladir, and himself alone paid all the costs '"' (Hakon Adalstein- 

 fostri (Hkr.), ch. 16). 



It was customary to try and find out the decrees of fate or 

 the will of the gods by a kind of divination or casting of lots 

 with chips dipped in the blood of sacrifices : the most common 

 way of making inquiry was by Blotspdn (sacrifice chip) and by 

 lots (lilu) both methods of casting lots, but differently per- 

 formed the former of which apparently meant the throwing 

 these sacred chips of wood. 



Mention is made of the use of scales with lots in them, on one 

 side favourable, on the other side unfavourable; if the favour- 

 able one went higher up than the other, it was a good omen. 



Einar, an Icelander, and one of Hakon jarl's scalds, wanted 

 to leave him and join Sigvaldi his foe at the battle of. the 

 Jomsvikiug, for he thought he had not as much honour with 

 the jarl as formerly. 



" When Hakon saw that ho was going, he shouted for him 

 to come and speak with him, and so he did ; the jarl took two 



