"Terribly. Don't you remember? they always thought they must die when the Angel of Jehovah appeared to them? And how should people who never heard of Christ guess that God is so good as He is? They feel that they are sinners--how should they know that He will forgive?" "But to think to please Him by such awful sacrifices!" said Flora. "I suppose the idea was, to give him the most precious thing there was." "I shall ask Mr. Murray," said Flora. "It is all a puzzle to me. In the first place, I do not believe such heathen people know they are sinners." "Yes, they do. Certainly they do, all the world over, and this is one of the ways they show it. 'How beautiful' among them must be 'the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!--that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation!'" "What a pity you hadn't lived in Landolf's time!" said Flora. "There are enough heathen left," said her brother, "and worse than those old Saxons. Theirs was not a bad specimen of heathen mythology, by any means. And yet, think of believing one's self given over to the tender mercies of Woden and Thor!" "And yet by your account people were better than they are now!" "Some people--and some people," answered Meredith. "I must ask Mr. Murray about that. I do not understand it." "We shall get work enough ready for him by the time he comes. Well, go on with your Saxon mythology and be done with it. I do not think it is very interesting." "Maggie and I are of a different opinion. But it was rather Norse mythology. Sweden and Norway and Denmark were all of one race and one faith. Norsemen carried it to Iceland, and it is odd enough that from Iceland we get our best accounts of it." Maggie had mounted up with her knees in a chair and her elbows on the table, leaning over towards Meredith, and now begged he would tell about Thor. "Thor was the thunderer." "What do you mean?" "The god of thunder and lightning. He was the son of Odin, or Woden. He is represented driving in a car drawn by two goats and with a great hammer in his hand. This hammer was forged by the dwarfs, Kobolds, I suppose, who dwelt in the centre of the earth." "What did he want a hammer for?" "To strike withal. And when Thor's hammer came down, that made the thunder, don't you see? and his stroke was the thunderbolt." "I should think they would have been frightened to death in a thunder-storm." "Not an expression those old Saxons knew anything about." "Well, I should think they would have feared Thor." "There is no doubt but they did. Those poor captives at the stone-houses were slaughtered in honour of Woden and Thor, don't you remember? But he was also the god of fire, and the god of the domestic hearth. Listen to this: 'Among the pagan Norsemen, Thor's hammer was held in as much reverence as Christ's cross among Christians. It was carved on their gravestones; and wrought of wood or iron, it was suspended in their temples.'"