Along with the timber-buildings known as _hof_, there is frequent mention, both in the historical and legendary sources, of other sacred places called _hörgar_. In its simplest form the _hörg_ was evidently a kind of stone-altar or sacrificial cairn standing in the open air; in modern Norwegian and Icelandic the word is applied to a mountain-top. This is most clearly indicated by the words of _Hyndlu-ljóð_, where Freyja says of Ottar, 'He made me a _hörg_, piled up with stones; now these stones are turned to glass. He reddened it in the fresh blood of oxen. Ottar always believed in the goddesses.' In contrast to the burning of temples, the usual expression for the destroying of _hörgar_ is 'breaking,' which also indicates a structure of stones. In some cases, however, the name of _hörg_ seems to be applied to something more approaching the nature of the _hof_; this not only appears to be implied in the use of 'timbered,' which occurs in at least two poetic passages, but is also suggested by the wording of the old Norwegian law, 'if a man raises a mound (_haug_), or makes a house, and calls it a _hörg_,' etc. The stone altars or cairns would naturally be more primitive places of worship than the temples, but they continued in use along with these down to the disappearance of the old religion. The altar in the temple, indeed, was no doubt the representative of the earlier and ruder one in the open air, for both are spoken of as being 'reddened' with the blood of the sacrifice.