Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1943, Blaðsíða 137

EXPEDITION TO ICELAND IN 1939
131
“Apart from thís they [the Germaníc peoples] deem it incompatible
with the majesty af the heavenly host to confine the gods within walls,
or to mould them into any likeness of the human face: they consecrate
groves and coppices, and they give the divine names to that mysterious
something which is visible only to the eyes of faith.”
The scepticism which one would thus a priori cherish with
regard to Icelandic ruins pointed out as temple sites is highly
increased by the fact that the two serious scholars, Professor
Finnur Jónsson and Captain Daniel Bruun, who in the years
1907—°8 travelled in Iceland with their attention particularly
directed against the sites of the hofs, among 34 localities visited
which have been pointed out as sites of hofs, could only sanction
23 as such. Add to this that a large site near Lundur, which was
excavated and the results published in 1884, and which later
frequently has been mentioned as an instance of an Icelandic
temple, was re-excavated in 1939, when it appeared that the
site is completely without the features characteristic of the temples
and probably is a dwelling of the ordinary long-house type.
The most famous among all Icelandic hofs is Hofstadir ex-
cavated by Finnur Jónsson and Daniel Bruun in 1908 and having
entered the literature of the world as the finest known example
of a Norse temple. It is not, however, on any point distinct from
the dwellings of the hall type excavated in 1939, which undoubt-
edly are not temples, and a large number of sites in the whole
of Scandinavia which have never had this label pinned on to
them. Among the not very numerous relics from Hofstadir
there are a few pairs of scissors, several whetstones, some sinkers
for fishing and some gaming pieces. These are objects which one
would certainly not expect to find in a temple, but which com-
pletely correspond to what is found in the halls. Hofstadir and
with it the whole group of sites of long-houses that have been
designated as temples hence must be left out in the list of sacral
buildings and be designated as dwellings. Still the sacrificial feast,
which was of essential importance at pagan festivals, may very
well have been held in several of them, as also it is probable that
some of them may have been exclusively intended for festal halls,
in which both weddings and midwinter and sacrificial feasts were
held.
This is not to say that it would be impossible to point out
actual temples in Iceland. ¥e know another type of site con-
sisting of a small square building placed in a square enclosure.