on my journey, to choose precipitous paths and by-roads, where I may break my neck.”  “Nevertheless,” said the priestess, “the goddess will be highly offended if you disobey her commands, nor can I conceal from you that she may personally assault you.”  “It will be at her own peril if she should be so audacious,” said the champion, “for I will try the power of this axe against the strength of beams and boards.”  The priestess chid him for his impiety; but being unable to compel him to obey the goddess’s mandate, they again relapsed into familiarity, which advanced to such a point that a clattering noise within the tabernacle, as of machinery put in motion, intimated to the travellers that Freya, who perhaps had some qualities in common with the classical Vesta, thought a personal interruption of this tete-a-tete ought to be deferred no longer.  The curtains flew open, and the massive and awkward idol, who, we may suppose, resembled in form the giant created by Frankenstein, leapt lumbering from the carriage, and, rushing on the intrusive traveller, dealt him, with its wooden hands and arms, such tremendous blows, as were equally difficult to parry or to endure.  But the champion was armed with a double-edged Danish axe, with which he bestirred himself with so much strength and activity, that at length he split the head of the image, and with a severe blow hewed off its left leg.  The image of Freya then fell motionless to the ground, and the demon which had animated it fled yelling from the battered tenement.  The champion was now victor; and, according to the law of arms, took possession of the female and the baggage.  The priestess, the divinity of whose patroness had been by the event of the combat sorely lessened in her eyes, was now easily induced to become the associate and concubine of the conqueror.  She accompanied him to the district whither he was travelling, and there displayed the shrine of Freya, taking care to hide the injuries which the goddess had received in the brawl.  The champion came in for a share of a gainful trade driven by the priestess, besides appropriating to himself most of the treasures which the sanctuary had formerly contained.  Neither does it appear that Freya, having, perhaps, a sensible recollection of the power of the axe, ever again ventured to appear in person for the purpose of calling her false stewards to account.

The national estimation of deities, concerning whom such stories could be told and believed, was, of course, of no deep or respectful character.  The Icelanders abandoned Odin, Freya, Thor, and their whole pagan mythology, in consideration of a single disputation between the heathen priests and the Christian missionaries.  The priests threatened the island with a desolating eruption of the volcano called Hecla, as the necessary consequence of the vengeance of their deities.  Snorro, the same who advised the inquest against the ghosts, had become a convert to the Christian religion, and was present on the occasion, and as the conference