An old account of the heathen period in Gotland (off the eastern coast of Sweden) begins with the words, 'before that time and long after men believed in groves and grave-mounds, holy places and enclosures, and in the heathen gods.' The prominence here given to sacred places appears to be in accordance with the facts recorded elsewhere. In the early Christian law of Norway, for example, cairns (_hörgar_) as objects of worship are condemned along with grave-mounds, and sacred cairns are also named in some Icelandic sources. In these also a single stone is sometimes mentioned as being worshipped, the most notable instance being that in _Kristni Saga_, where it is said, 'At Giljá,' in the north of Iceland, 'stood the stone that the family had worshipped, and alleged that their _ár_-man lived in it. Codran declared that he would not be baptized until he knew which was the more powerful, the bishop or the _ár_-man in the stone. The bishop then went to the stone, and chanted over it till it broke asunder. Then Codran considered that the _ár_-man was vanquished.' (The precise meaning of '_ár_-man' here is uncertain: usually the word means 'steward,' but in this case it may be derived from _ár_ in the sense of good or plentiful years.) Of an Icelandic settler in the tenth century it is also told that he 'took Flateydale up to the War-stones (_Gunnsteinar_), and worshipped them.' Close beside him was another settler who worshipped a grove, while one in another part of the island, who is described as a great sacrificer, paid his devotions to a waterfall, into which all remains of food were thrown. In connection with this worship of natural objects may be noticed the curious belief in Iceland that certain families passed after death into hills or hillocks in their district. This is told, for example, of Thorolf who settled Thorsness and had great reverence for the hill there: 'He called it Holy-fell, and believed that he would go there when he died, and all his kinsmen on the ness.' Even the kinsmen of Aud, who was a Christian, had great religious faith in some hillocks on which she had erected crosses: 'They believed that they should die into these hillocks, and Thord Gellir was led into them before his sons took their place among men, as is told in his saga.' CHAPTER III TEMPLES AND IMAGES