worflTippers in Iceland *, Denmark,
Norway, England, Scotland, the Orkneys,
the Ferro iilands, and in Greenland,
and even had a church dedF
cated to him in Conilantlnople. His
Saga is full of miracles, faid to have
been wrought by him. It was unani-
mouily agreed, that the tenth of January,
the day on which he died, and
the third of July, when he was eleiled
bifliop, iliould both be annually celebrated.
His body was taken out of
the grave on the thirteenth of Auguft
1198, and put into a coffin plated
with gold and iilver ; and it was refolved
to keep this day alfo as a feftb
val. The proteftant bifliop Giflur Ej-
narflbn, afterwards, from a miftakeii
zeal, caufed the precious ornaments
with which the box was adorned to be
broken off, and had it covered with
copper gilt, and it is ftill preferved in
* Blihop Finnfen in his Ecclefiaftical Hiftory mentions
(vol. I. p. 298, note b.)> That biihop Thorlak
had been likewife worihipped as a faint in Sweden,
but there are no veftiges of this found in the old Swe-
didi Calendars. T he tenth of January is coniecrated
to Paulus Eremita, and Auguft the thirteenth to Hip*
politus and Lociis Martii.
the
the church o f Skallholt, as a piece o f
antiquity. In the year 17 15 , biffiop
John Widalin ordered the pretended
relique to be buried, and only a bit o f
his ikull is ffiewn, which, however, i f
elofely examined, will be found to be
neither more nor lefs than a piece
of cocoa-iliell. Arcimboldus, fo famous
in the north for his fale o f
indulgences, was much too attentive
to his intereft to have negleded Iceland.
In 15 1 7 he had his own agent
there, who was, however, more coldly
received by bifliop Stephen JoniTon
than he expeded.
The Icelanders firft received their
own biiliops in the year 1057 at Skali-
hok, and at Hoolum in 1 107. They
were originally under the jurifdiHioii
of the archbiftiop of Bremen and Hamburgh
; but ill the year 1103 or 4,
they became fubordinate to Azerus %
firft archbiftiop o f Lund in Scania,
and in 1152 to the bifliop o f Dron-
theim. The Icelanders preferve the
memory o f their prelates both in their
"7 Icelandic annals he Is commonly called
Aufur. ^
annual
ir