is recorded as having taken formal possession of an unoccupied piece of land for the behoof of a temple which he had built there. As has already been mentioned, the inner part of the temple was more particularly the sacred place, where stood the altar and the images of the gods. The main part of the building served as a kind of hall, in which were held the entertainments which followed upon the sacrifices, and at which the flesh of the slain animals was eaten. As in the ordinary halls, there were fires in the middle of the floor and seats down each side. In some of the sagas dealing with prehistoric times in Sweden mention is made of a _dísar-sal_ (in connection with the worship of the _dísir_: see p. 33). What relation this had to the usual temple is not clear: it has been supposed to be no more than another name for the temple-hall, but this is not at all certain. The temple being a holy place, there were naturally certain restrictions attached to it, of which a prominent one was that no weapons were to be taken inside it. This is clearly illustrated by an incident in _Vatnsdæla Saga_, where Ingimund enters the temple first, and Hrafn the Norwegian follows him, wearing his sword. Then Ingimund turned to him, and said, 'It is not the custom to carry weapons in the temple, and you will come under the wrath of the gods unless you make amends for it.' When Olaf Tryggvason entered the temple of Mærin in Thrandheim, he carried a gold-mounted staff, but his own men and those belonging to the district were weaponless. Another offence which is frequently mentioned is that of slaying a man in a holy place; in this connection, however, the regular word used is not _hof_ but _vé_, which has a more general meaning. One who committed this offence incurred the penalty of outlawry, and was designated by the name of _vargr í véum_, 'wolf in holy places.' The same view of bloodshed as a crime against the sanctity of a holy place is illustrated in the cases of Thorsness and Stödvar-firth in Iceland, where the killing of anything was forbidden. In the case of Thorsness it was decided, after a battle had taken place there, that it was defiled by the blood that had fallen on it, and 'was now no more holy than other places.'