Thus Aun or On,
king of Sweden, is said to have sacrificed to Odin for length of
days and to have been answered by the god that he should live so
long as he sacrificed one of his sons every ninth year. He
sacrificed nine of them in this manner, and would have sacrificed
the tenth and last, but the Swedes would not allow him. So he died
and was buried in a mound at Upsala. Another indication of a similar
tenure of the crown occurs in a curious legend of the deposition and
banishment of Odin. Offended at his misdeeds, the other gods
outlawed and exiled him, but set up in his place a substitute, Oller
by name, a cunning wizard, to whom they accorded the symbols both of
royalty and of godhead. The deputy bore the name of Odin, and
reigned for nearly ten years, when he was driven from the throne,
while the real Odin came to his own again. His discomfited rival
retired to Sweden and was afterwards slain in an attempt to repair
his shattered fortunes. As gods are often merely men who loom large
through the mists of tradition, we may conjecture that this Norse
legend preserves a confused reminiscence of ancient Swedish kings
who reigned for nine or ten years together, then abdicated,
delegating to others the privilege of dying for their country.
Pages:
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797