at Esinberg. A young man, also, called Buo,
living in the same province, destroyed, by
fire, the gods belonging to the temple held
in the highest veneration, the same in which
the human victims were sacrificed. The
name of Thorcillus, too, who flourished about
the year 900, and was at that period the
Logman or chief magistrate in the island,
deserves to be commemorated, as superior
to the superstitions of his age and
country. He, finding himself drawing towards
the close of his existence, gave orders
that he should be taken into the air, and that
his face should be turned towards the sun;
when, having remained for some moments in
a kind of ecstacy, he expired, recommending
his soul to Him among the gods, who had
created the sun and the stars.
It was not till a . D. 974, in the reign of
Olaf % of Norway, that an attempt was
made at introducing the Christian religion.
Frederic, a Saxon bishop, arrived in 981,
and preached the gospel with such success,
that in 984 churches were built, and many
persons received baptism. Still, however,
no material progress was made; for Bishop
Thangbrandt and Stefr Thorgilsen, who
were sent from Germany in the year 997>
were received with stones, and they and
their religion abused with the keenest invectives
by the poets of that day. Through
the exertions of these, however, and other
missionaries, the light of Christianity began
more and more to shed its lustre upon the
minds of the people, so that, on the arrival
of Gissur and Hjatle in the year 1000, the
whole island became converted, without
bloodshed, though not without opposition;
and it was agreed, at a general assembly
of the inhabitants, that the worship of idols
should be abandoned, and the religion of
our blessed Saviour * embraced in its stead.
* It appears that, at this time, the rite of baptism
was celebrated at one of the hot-springs in the neighborhood
of the famous Snorralaug, noticed at p. 311
of this volume; for Eggert Olafsen, after speaking of
the Nyrdre-Reykia-dal, says, “ Huic collateralis Sydre-
Reykiadalur, vallis fontibus fervidis abundans: hie
est Kros-laug, balneae limpidae et salubres, in quibus
anno Christi millessimo, Islandiae occidentalis Incolae,
abominantes aquam frigidam, sacro baptismate abluti
sunt, unde balneis crucis nomen erat impositum.”
Enarrationes Historic# denaturdet constitutione Islandicc.
p. 31.