The notion of taking someone’s life for the commission of a crime is one of the oldest legal concepts in the world. Indeed, law-codes have existed in the past that placed this form of justice as the primary means of maintaining order, which we see today as more a mark of tyrants than a proper application of the law. We find this as well amongst our Germanic ancestors, starting with the account in Tacitus’ Germania, ch.12:
Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt, ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames caeno ac palude, iniecta insuper crate, mergunt.
‘Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged into the mire of the morass, with a hurdle put over him.’
Placing the punishment within the context of religious practice, the destruction of shrines and temples is particularly disgraceful and harmful. Protecting the sacred space was one of the principal duties of the priesthood, and their authority was unquestioned in this regard. This would lead to one being cursed and slain for their transgression, for sacred areas are meant to be inviolate, and the state quickly avenged their destruction. In Landnamabók part 2, ch. 12, there is a great feud that takes place when Þórgrím and Ásgeir refused to obey the law of not relieving oneself on holy grounds, his being Þórsnes in Iceland. A fight broke out on the grounds, and blood was shed, from which a settlement came to move the holy site and make peace.
There are also runic inscriptions that describe the curses and punishments one must receive for violating a holy stead. These are from the 6th-7th century runestones at Stentoften and Bjǫrketorp in the Blekinge province of southern Sweden. These two stones were originally part of a ritual monument, though only Bjǫrketorp remains in its original context. Stentoften commemorates a sacrificial feast held by a local king and was originally surrounded by five uninscribed stones arranged in a pentagon; Bjǫrketorp still stands in a triangle together with two other, uninscribed, standing stones. Here are the inscriptions:
Stentoften: […]14 herma-lausaʀ argjú, wéla-dauðé, sá þat briutiþ.
‘[…] Restless with degeneracy, in treacherous death, [is] he [who] destroys this [monument].’
Bjǫrketorp: ú·þarba spǫ: argju hearm-lausʀ, úti eʀ wéla-dauðé, sá’ʀ þat brýtʀ.
‘Prophecy of harmful things: With degeneracy restless, outside is in treacherous death, he who destroys this [monument].’
These correlate with the law from the Lex Frisionium, cited above, which describes the sacrifice of the individual for their desecration:
Qui fanum effregerit, et ibi aliquid de sacris tulerit, ducitur ad mare, et in sabulo, quod accessus maris operire solte, finduntur aures eius, et castratur, et immolatur Diis quorum templa violavit.
‘If anyone breaks into a shrine and steals sacred items from there, he shall be taken to the sea, and on the sand, which will be covered by the flood, his ears will be cleft, and he will be castrated and sacrified to the god, whose temple he dishonored.’
Earlier in the same code of law (V.1)we find a list of crimes that one must receive the death penalty for:
Campionem; et eum, qui in praelio fuerit occisus; et adulterum; et furem, si in fossa, qua domum alterius effodere conatur, fuerit repertus; et eum, qui domum alterius incendere volens, facem manu tenet, ita ut ignis tectum vel parietem domus tangat; qui fanum effregit; et infans ab utero sublatus et enecatus a matre.
‘The duelist, who is killed in combat; and the adulterer and he who is caught in a ditch, through which he is undermining the house of another; and he who attempts to set fire to the house of another, who has the torch in his hand, while the flames reach the roof or wall of the house; he who demolishes a shrine; and the child expelled from the womb that is strangled [or: killed without nutrition] by the mother.’
These are the crimes that could lead one to the gallows, or buried in a bog, or burned to death. The seriousness by which our ancestors held their faith, to the point of executing those who defile their sacred grounds, should not go unnoticed. Placed in the same category as one who commits murder or one who seduces the wife of another, or one who aborts a child. These were indeed important concepts to our polytheist forebears, and should be recognized as such.
Excerpt from: Æfinlǫgr: The Book of Sedian Law: Puryear, Mark, Hrafnakonr, Aðakán Jamesarson: 9798307965320: Amazon.com: Books