Odins-day, the ancients termed severally the holy day of Jove or of Mercury.  If, therefore, according to the distinction implied in the interpretation I have quoted, we take it that Thor is Jove and Odin Mercury, it follows that Jove was the son of Mercury; that is, if the assertion of our countrymen holds, among whom it is told as a matter of common belief, that Thor was Odin’s son.  Therefore, when the Latins, believing to the contrary effect, declare that Mercury was sprung from Jove, then, if their declaration is to stand, we are driven to consider that Thor was not the same as Jove, and that Odin was also different from Mercury.  Some say that the gods, whom our countrymen worshipped, shared only the title with those honoured by Greece or Latium, but that, being in a manner nearly equal to them in dignity, they borrowed from them the worship as well as the name.  This must be sufficient discourse upon the deities of Danish antiquity.  I have expounded this briefly for the general profit, that my readers may know clearly to what worship in its heathen superstition our country has bowed the knee.  Now I will go back to my subject where I left it.

Ancient tradition says that Starkad, whom I mentioned above, offered the first-fruits of his deeds to the favour of the gods by slaying Wikar, the king of the Norwegians.  The affair, according to the version of some people, happened as follows:—­

Odin once wished to slay Wikar by a grievous death; but, loth to do the deed openly, he graced Starkad, who was already remarkable for his extraordinary size, not only with bravery, but also with skill in the composing of spells, that he might the more readily use his services to accomplish the destruction of the king.  For that was how he hoped that Starkad would show himself grateful for the honour he paid him.  For the same reason he also endowed him with three spans of mortal life, that he might be able to commit in them as many abominable deeds.  So Odin resolved that Starkad’s days should be prolonged by the following crime:  Starkad presently went to Wikar and dwelt awhile in his company, hiding treachery under homage.  At last he went with him sea-roving.  And in a certain place they were troubled with prolonged and bitter storms; and when the winds checked their voyage so much that they had to lie still most of the year, they thought that the gods must be appeased with human blood.  When the lots were cast into the urn it so fell that the king was required for death as a victim.  Then Starkad made a noose of withies and bound the king in it; saying that for a brief instant he should pay the mere semblance of a penalty.  But the tightness of the knot acted according to its nature, and cut off his last breath as he hung.  And while he was still quivering Starkad rent away with his steel the remnant of his life; thus disclosing his treachery when he ought to have brought aid.  I do not think that I need examine the version which relates that the pliant withies, hardened with the sudden grip, acted like a noose of iron.