Pine Needles Author:Susan Warner Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. "'THE morning after the sacrificial feast at the Deep Moor, Landolf with the Billing and the free men travelled on to the May diet, which was to b... more »e held at the seven stone- houses, and before noon came to the place. There were an enormous crowd of free men assembled, priests, nobles, and commons. The place lies in the middle of a vast, level heath, on the soft declivity of a rising ground, which on the other side falls away sharply down to a boggy dell. I have already described the stone-houses. There are seven of them, a number which must have been held sacred among the Saxons. At least in our country the so-called " Huhnen" graves, in which our forefathers lie buried, are always found either alone, or constantly by sevens together in a wide circle. The spot on which the stone-houses stand must have been sacred to Woden, for in the chronicle it is called " Wuotanswohrt," and wohrt in Saxon always means a secluded, enclosed, sacred place, especially devoted to the administration of justice; for courts of justice were held under the open sky and always by day, as though to denote that justice is of heavenly origin, courts the light of sunshine and shuns the darkness. The word wohrt is connected with wehreri (which means, to keep off, Maggie)? ' because everything unholy must be kept off from it, on which account also such places were hedged in. Of the transactions at this May diet, it is only told that a great sacrifice was offered, this time consisting of fourteen men, two of whom were slaughtered upon each of the stone-houses in the manner already described; that then cases of law were decided according to the ancient usage; then the stateof things between the Saxons and the Franks was considered; and at this opportunity Landolf, who as guest of the Billing had bee...« less