I.—THE COUNTRY AND PEOPLE. 
symbol for the power of imagination. Historically, 
conceive it implies that the worship of the Aesir and Vani 
was already conjoined when the Suiones came to Lake 
Malar. At any rate, Fr remained a special patron of the 
Sveas, and expresses, it seems to me, something of thei 
character—their love of ease and peace and wealth. H; 
was also specially venerated at Trondhjem, in Norway, 
Another feature of the worship of the Bronze Age has 
already been referred to in passing, the habit of throwing 
the spoils of victory into a sacred lake. Swords and spear: 
and armour were bent and broken in pieces, conquered 
enemies, captives and slaves, were killed and thrown inte 
such lakes in the later Bronze Age, and the earlier Irop 
Age—no doubt. as offerings to the god or gods. 
It is natural to compare with this the passage of Tacitus 
(Germ., ch. 40), which mentions certain tribes, amongs 
whom he numbers the Anglii, as all worshipping ‘‘Nerthus 
that is to say, mother earth,” a deity which is evidently the 
female form of the northern Niord. He then describes 2 
sacred wood in an island, which is supposed to be Riigen. 
in the midst of which is a lake where secret rites are per 
formed at her annual festival, which ended with washing 
of the image of the goddess in the lake, and the drowning 
of the slaves who ministered in the rite. A lake now called 
the Hertha-see, on the promontory of Jasmund, is often 
visited by antiquarian pilgrims as the scene of this gloomy 
festival, as many English readers have been reminded by 
a recent story (Elizabeth in Riigen, p. 235). Other Latin 
historians describe the devotion of captives and spoils in 
sacred lakes or rivers, and we may believe that this form 
of worship was widely spread. The cave of Grendel, at 
the bottom of a deep lake, described in the poem of 
Beowulf, fills up the picture. The god or demon of the 
16 
1 See J. E. D. Bethune’s Specimens of Swedish and Germar 
Poetry, p. 74 foll., Lond. 1848. 
4See S. H.2 Vol. i., p- 118, for the Bronze Period ; ibid. 
167 for the Iron,