"'Now did Landolf go to work joyfully; by day he wrought, and at night he preached, and taught in the Billing's house, and in all the country round. No longer than three months after, the little wooden church was done--the first in this whole region; and the same day that Landolf consecrated it, Harm the Billing with five sons and three daughters, and the greater part of the friends of his family and of his farm servants, received holy baptism, the water for which was fetched out of the neighbouring Oerze. Now, of course, that church is no longer standing; it was burnt down afterwards by the heathen Wends, and in its place the large stone church in Hermannsburg was built. But to this day the field where that first church stood belongs to the Hermannsburg parsonage, and is still called _the cold church_. "'This was the foundation of the Christian Church in our valley of the Oerze; and as Landolf had come from Minden, the whole Oerze valley was attached to the see of Minden, while the rest of the Lüneburg country came to belong to the see of Verden. "'Now the faithful Landolf laboured on indefatigably. He sent one of his new converts to Minden and Münster, to get more helpers from thence for his work. Twelve came, who were put under Landolf; and now for the first time the work could be taken hold of vigorously. Landolf must have lived and laboured until 830 or 840, and so blessed was his agency that the whole country of the Horzsahzen was converted to Christianity. It is brought forward as a proof of this, that at the great May diets held at the stone-houses the following laws were unanimously enacted: no more horse's flesh to be eaten; no more human sacrifices to be brought; no more dead to be burned; and all Woden's oaks to be hewn down. And in truth these laws do show the dominance of Christianity, for precisely these things named were the peculiar marks of heathenism. Of the interior condition of Christianity, little is told; only it is remarked that the entire change in the country was so great and manifest, that the bishops Willerich of Bremen and Helingud of Verden sent priests to convince themselves with their own eyes whether what they had heard with their ears was true; and these messengers had found not a single heathen left in the whole region. As a good general, Landolf moreover understood how everywhere to seize the right points where with the most effect heathenism might be grappled with and overthrown. He always went straight to the heart of the old religion. We have already seen how his first church was built by the Billing's sacrifice stone. Westward from Hermannsburg is what is called the Winkelberg, upon which was the burying-place of the heathen priests, for the most part cultivated land now, but the twice seven so-called Hühnen graves are still to be seen there. At the foot of this hill he established what was called the _Pfarrwohrt_, where the spiritual courts should be holden; and close by