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VILMOS VOIGT could only be visited if one was tied up in fetters. Ihis is then a thousand-yearold motif concerning a “sacred grove” in Germanic mythology. (The complex problem of sacrifices would need a separate study.) All these ancient religious motifs stem from the Continental Germans. Early Scandinavian religion can be located in several different territories: today’s Norway, the central and southern parts of today’s Sweden, the northern regions of present-day Denmark, and, after the 9'* century AD, also Iceland. Historians of religion in Northern Europe find different cultures there already from about the Iron Age. There are numerous archaeological sites in Scandinavia that can be connected to religious rites. We do not deal here with the “rock-paintings” or with the origin of Scandinavian runes. In early place names (registered in later times, but representing the pre-Christian religion, many of them also traceable in recent place names), we find terms referring to nature, buildings, and religious background. A handful of these have been interpreted as places that were separated or reserved for various forms of religious activities. The best known of these are the following: *Al (Gothic alhs, Anglo-Saxon ealh/ alh) in Nordic place names, as for instance Aal, meaning simply “holy.” *Wi and wae, usually prefixed, like in the case of Vi-borg, might mean “(a kind of) shrine.” *Hargr (Anglo-Saxon heargh) is usually translated as “stone-sacrificetable,” and occurs in modern place names like Harreby. A hörgr probably had a wooden roof construction. Hof also had the meaning of “temple,” while its original meaning is very simple: “surrounded yard.”"® Even stald, originally meaning “constructed, erected,” was understood as “altar.” These old place names go back to the time before the birth of Old Icelandic texts. Thus it is worthwhile examining whether they occur in the Verse Edda. We know the songs of the Verse Edda from manuscripts of the 13" century but the songs were created many centuries earlier. Some of the terms listed above are absent from the vocabulary of the Verse Edda. In turn, vé is used, meaning “homeplace,” especially the “homeplace of a god.” Old Icelandic horgr is often used with the meaning of “heathen shrine.” The word hdéfhad two meanings: “dwelling” and “temple.” The term stallr was also used in both of its meanings: “construction” and “altar,” and was also employed as a more modern word for “crib.” A quite difficult passage of the Fjolsvinnsmdl 40:1-2 reads men blota ber a stallhelgum stap, or in English “(Ay they help award) to their worshippers, in hallowed stead if they stand.” The end of the sentence was interpreted 14 R. Maier - Ch. Saar - T. Capelle — A. Pesch, Opfer und Opferfunde, in RDA, Bd. 22, 2003, 107-127. 5 B. Bulitta, höfin RDA, Bd. 15, 2000, 59-61. + 110 + Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 110 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:16
