TRAVELS IN ICELAND. 



97 



disposed people borrowed from the ancient forms of catholic 

 worship : there then arose an ancient species of necromancy, 

 notwithstanding all the severity employed to prevent it, and to de- 

 stroy every thing which related to its operations. They endea- 

 voured to combine with this the pagan system of magic, but they 

 failed for want of knowing it : they were, therefore, obliged to 

 invent their own characters ; and it was easy for the malevolent 

 to use imprecations, and to raise pretended evil spirits, in order 

 to produce an effect upon weak minds. The superstitious peo- 

 ple gave credit to these projects, and suffered themselves to be 

 deluded by such frauds and gesticulations. This kind of ma- 

 gicians had greatly increased since the seventeenth century, which 

 may be attributed to two well-known causes. The first is, that the 

 prejudiced, and the persons in authority in the country, beiug too 

 rational to fear such proceedings, endeavoured to maintain the 

 opinion which the people at large had conceived of the effects of 

 magic, in order to keep them in a state of dependence. In this 

 they perfectly succeeded : for they were not only feared, but 

 were considered to be greater sorcerers than those who directly 

 professed the art of magic. When they perceived that this stra- 

 tagem succeeded, they considered that it would be much better 

 for the people to retain these ideas ; because this strengthened 

 their own power, and augmented the veneration which was paid to 

 them. They did not indeed employ themselves with magic ; but, 

 on certain occasions, they knew how to give to suspicious cere- 

 monies or events a mysterious appearance, from which they de- 

 rived advantage : they made the people believe that they had di- 

 vined such circumstances before-hand, and that they were so 

 well informed in this art as to be able to produce great effects 

 by occult means. Others still more cunning asserted, that if 

 they examined and interrogated the magicians, it was only for 

 form ; since those knew already what those had done, and the means 

 they had employed. Thus the people believed that there were 

 several kinds of witchcraft, which the learned and people of 

 rank were alone able to understand by means of Latin and other 

 foreign books. 



In order to give an idea of some of their species of magic, we 

 shall begin by that which they call Finskgalder ; which, as they 

 asserted, was brought into the country by an Icelandic magician 

 who had made a voyage to Lapland for the purpose. This con- 

 sisted in possessing a spirit which bore the form of a worm or a 

 fly : but the pretended voyage never took place, ft was also 

 said that queen Gunnhild and others went to Lapland for the 

 express purpose of studying magic, and assisting at the opera- 

 tions of the sorcerers. 



-Another kind consisted in interpreting the songs of birds; 



OLAFSEN-] N 



