triangular ornaments, most of them enclosing three dots, which, as the marks of the trinity or the triune Thor, so generally adorned bracteates mountings and other articles of ornament in the Middle Age of Iron. The head and hammer of Thor and the swastika are regularly met with on the rune-stones and trinkets. Especially was it the custom in the Viking times to carry small Thor's hammers of silver, very often attached to silver-chains round the neck. Such a hammer from Scania is adorned on the top with the head of Thor's bird the eagle.

The peculiarly Northern trifid or trefoil brooches must have originated in Odin's mark, the triskele, which is also frequently used in the middle of them. This sign appears also on many ornaments weapons and occasionally rune-stones. Odin himself, either alone or with other gods, is represented on not a few rune-stones, but mostly in Sweden.7 A large bautastone standing on a barrow at Ramsjö in Upland represents Odin on Sleipner fighting with his spear against the Worm of Midgarth and the Fenris-wolf. Their gaping maws signify that Odin will be swallowed by them. On a rune-stone at Leberge in Östergötland we see Vidar raising the dead Odin from the ground, and planting his iron-shod foot in the maw of the Fenriswolf, after which, according to the Edda, he slew it.3 Besides the remarkable rune-stones at Sanda in Gotland, previously alluded to, on which the trinity Thor Odin 6 "Arts," fig. 240.

7 Odin was reputed the inventor of runes, as well as god of battles. Hence the frequency of runes on swords.

8 Cf. Vafthruthnis-mal, v. 210 (C. P. B. i. p. 208): also Volospá 161-5 (ib. p. 200).

and Frey is carved,—the last with a large goose bending over him,—a rune-stone at Habblingbo, also in Gotland, represents Odin on Sleipner, with two Valkyries hovering above him, while a third is handing him his meadhorn. A similar rune-stone at Laivide, in Gotland, shows the Ancient Odin holding his mead-horn and driving Sleipner in his battle-chariot. On his shoulder and over the horse is his raven; at the top hovers a Valkyrie with a shield, and by the foreleg of the horse stands one of Odin's wolves. On the stone at Tjängvide,9 also in Gotland, under a representation of Odin similar to that on the Habblingbo stone, we also see Frey's Ship of the Air Skithbladnir with the gods on board, which is repeated on the Habblingbo stone just mentioned, where the hull of the ship is adorned with ornaments of the trinity.

The death of Odin's son Balder is commemorated on a large stone preserved by the side of two rune-stones at Hunestad in Scania. The carving on this has been shown to represent the giantess Hyrroken, who launched Balder's ship from the land at his burial-a feat which no one else could perform. She is pictured, just as the Edda describes her, on a wolf with vipers for reins. On one of the rune-stones standing near we see a helmed man in a short cloak with a huge axe, undoubtedly Thor, who is said to have slain Hyrroken with his hammer or axe, because the gods feared her strength, after her exploit at Balder's burial. Two stones set up immediately in front and originally belonging to the same magnificent monument may also with reason be looked upon as having represented some of the other

9 O. Montelius, Kult. Schwed., fig. 115.

dangerous monsters, partly in the shape of wolves, which it was Thor's special duty to watch, particularly the Fenris-wolf the Worm of Midgarth and Hel. Here again we clearly recognise in the stone-pictures, easily understood by all at that time, the antiquity of the Baldermyth and its deep significance to the people of the North.

Frey's marks are commoner now than Odin's, especially the cross, which is inscribed on numerous objects and trinkets in particular. The horses and birds often carved with them on Swedish rune-stones must certainly have reference, sometimes at least, to Freya's sacred animals the horse and goose. On each of the gilded saddles found at Möllemosegaard in Fÿen and elsewhere in Denmark, as well as on stirrups 10 overlaid with gilded metal from Velds in north Jutland, we also see long-necked birds undoubtedly intended for geese. The horses' heads and figures of horses on many saddles seem to point also to Frey. Similarly Freya's marks appear regularly along with Frey's, and as was customary in earlier times-mostly on ornaments, occasionally in connexion with phallic emblems.

On some tolerably late bracteates in Sweden, which have been copied from Cufic coins, the tree Yggdrasil is distinctly stamped between sacred signs on the rim. On a larger scale Yggdrasil is repeated several times with Frey's marks on a silver beaker found at Fejö in Laaland, which dates from the eighth or ninth century, and is decorated with many interlaced ornaments. In the top of the tree two birds—a hawk and an eagle-are perched on a single spot, while at 10 Arts," fig. 230.

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the side Thor's eagle Odin's raven and Freya's cat are depicted. Some smaller silver beakers found in the same spot are engraved with ornaments of the trinity.

Such pictures of the gods and sacred marks had evidently sunk deep into the minds of the old Northmen. The first Christian teachers very adroitly sought to engraft Christian ideas as far as possible on the heathen, to smooth the way for the transition. No wonder then that mixtures of heathen and Christian motives appear, and that the heathen marks and even the pictorial representations of heathen legends continued into the Christian period. But it is stranger to find them so often and so late used in the very churches and on purely ecclesiastical objects. The triskele or Odin's mark and the marks of Thor-the swastika and hammer-as well as the ancient wheelfigures enclosing Frey's and Freya's signs are met with here and there on baptismal fonts sepulchral monuments and churches right into the twelfth century in Denmark. Here too, as elsewhere, they have been, to some extent at least, transferred to Christ or the Christian Trinity. Nor are there wanting in Denmark obvious representations of heathen legends, though mostly secular. An evident confusion or similarity between heathen and Christian ideas is shown in Denmark by the large rune-stone set up in honour of Gorm and Thyra at Jellinge with its image of Christ surrounded by ornaments formed of the triskele and interlaced work. So too in Sweden on a much later baptismal font in the church of Östra Eneby the Christian Trinity is depicted as Three Persons

adorned with haloes-each halo containing a cross. They are seated side by side in a frame, just as the heathen Trinity is represented with Odin Thor and Frey in one frame on the rune-stone at Sanda in Gotland.

But the church buildings fonts seats &c. in Sweden and Norway were beyond comparison more frequently and recently than in Denmark decorated with the old marks and with larger wood carvings and corresponding sculptures of the heathen legends of gods and heroes. They recall the Völsungs and Gjukungs, and how King Gunnar with his harp lulled the snakes in the snake-pit to sleep. A favourite subject is the famous hero Sigurd Fafnesbane, who slew the dragon which brooded over a vast hoard of gold-a deed which is also glorified on several ancient rock-engravings and rune-stones in Sweden.

Thus in the transition from the prehistoric to the purely historic times in the North the contemporary memorials shed additional light on the way in which heathenism, after being undermined and finally overthrown in Denmark, must have rallied and long maintained its last forces in the higher North, in Sweden and Norway, until at last compelled, but not before the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to retreat entirely before the steady irresistible advance of Christianity throughout the whole domain of the Scandinavian people. Finmark and Lapland on the contrary long continued in barbarous heathenism. Like the temples of Denmark previously, the large pagan temples and houses of sacrifice in Sweden (at Upsala and many other