These preliminaries concluded, the business of the day began.  Though this wild race sacrificed human beings, they did not treat their victims with the coldblooded cruelty of the Druids, who slaughtered them as if they were oxen or sheep; their custom was to burn their captives; and it is not for critics, whose pious forefathers kindled the fires of Smithfield, to assert that their practice was wholly barbarous.  In the present case a pyre, some twelve feet high, was built at the foot of a huge granite boulder, near the sea-coast:  it was constructed of dry wood, and was drenched with combustible materials.  Jean was bound firmly to a strong hurdle, made of birch stems and withies securely lashed together.  Judith, Garthmund, and the principal elders, placed themselves under the venerable oak; the people stood at a respectful distance.  Twelve stalwart warriors bore the litter on which the prisoner was stretched, and placed it on stone trestles planted for the purpose in the intervening space.  Then the priests arrived; twelve old men whose white locks and beards, and snowy dresses, gave them a venerable appearance which was soon belied by their performances.

Halting when they reached the victim, the priests faced the oak, and chanted a solemn, wailing dirge; this, which might have been a farewell to the spirit whose departure they were preparing to accelerate, was not unimpressive.  Then one stepped forward whose voice was yet clear and loud; he passed a warm eulogy on the qualities of the captive, whom he described in exaggerated phrases as a sage in council, and a hero in battle, endowing him also with every domestic virtue which seemed in his eyes worthy of enumeration.  This discourse was followed by a warlike song in honour of Thor and Odin, and it was during the course of this hymn that it became clear from their rolling eyes and unsteady gait that the old men were in a state of no ordinary excitement.  All night they had been feasting their deities, and the solemnity had involved deep potations; now, as the rapid movements of a dance which accompanied the inspiriting words sent the fumes into their heads, they appeared to be beside themselves.  The bystanders, however, attributing their frenzy to religious fervour, and not unaccustomed to such manifestations, looked on unmoved.  The music ceased; and the song of triumph gave way to a hideous scene over which it were painful to dwell.  The drunken old men, with incredible agility, whirled round the prostrate form of Jean.  There was no question now of eulogizing his virtues:  he was accused, in language which seemed devil-born, of every crime, every infamy, of which the human race is capable; held up to scorn and ignominy, he was cursed and execrated with a shower of blasphemy and obscenity; a by-stander, contemplating his calm, clear face, the lips parted in prayer, gleaming amidst the contorted features of the screaming miscreants, might have believed him to be already passing, unscathed, through the terrors of purgatory.