257 



the oath was — So help me Ereyr, Njord, and the Almighty As : a for- 

 mula found both in the ' Eyrbyggia Saga/ cap. ii., and in the 'Laudnama- 

 Bok/ p. 300." 



It is a somewhat earlier period of our own history which gives us 

 confirmation of this method of swearing, and its solemnity as well as 

 inviolability. Most nations have esteemed one mode of adjuration 

 more binding and more sacredly restrictive than the rest. The Eoman 

 Styx is too well known to need much illustration, as the imprecation 

 which the gods themselves could not break with impunity : as, 



" Adjuro Stygii caput implacabile fontes;" 



Virgil, JEn. xii., 186; 



and also, 



" Di cujus jurai'e timent et fallere numen." 



Eut water in general, or chalybeate springs, seem sometimes to 

 have the same inviolable virtue, as in Eumenius, " Panegyr., Constant.," 

 c. xxi. : — Jam omnia te vocare ad se templa videntur prsecip aequo 

 Apollo, cujus ferventibus aquis, perjuria puniuntur quse te maxima 

 oportet odisse." 



The oath of Odin in the Orkneys, when broken in the case of a se- 

 duced female, was punished with increased severity by the elders of a 

 Scotch presbytery, even in the last century ; but the most characteristic 

 and most sacred oath of the hot-headed and ever-armed Highlander was 

 by his dirk, for the elucidation of which we must refer to SirW. Scott's 

 own note on the subject, in the 8vo. edition of " Waverley" (note 21^, 

 p. 153). 



The passage referred to from our own history on this topic is an in- 

 teresting event in the life of our great Alfred, as related by Asser, 

 Griles' translation (p. 58) — "Also they (the Danes) swore an oath over 

 the Christian relics which, with King Alfred, were next in veneration 

 after the Deity himself" But Asser is rightly corrected by the Saxon 

 Chronicle of the year 876 ; though these piratical invaders seem to have 

 despised even the most solemn obligation of their own temples : — 



"And in this same year the army of the Danes in England swore 

 oaths to King Alfred upon the holy ring, which before they would not 

 do to any nation ; and they delivered to the king hostages from among 

 the most distinguished men of the army, that they would speedily de- 

 part from his kingdom. And notwithstanding this, that part of the 

 army which was horsed stole away by night from the fortress to Exeter." 



Eor the frequency of these rings in temples we may instance, 

 amongst many other discoveries of them about Druidical circles or 

 cromlechs, the large number of twenty-five exhumed from beneath one 

 of the monolithic pillars of the great Temple of Carnac, in Brittany, 

 which were engraven and oifered for sale throughout Europe about five 

 years since. 



But that the practice of ring swearing was not altogether foreign to 

 our own island, the oath to Odin, already adduced, seems to prove ; and 

 the following passage from the " Gloucester Book of the Brit. Archeeo- 

 log. Association," p. 62, will render it indisputable : — 



