Neopaganism in Scandinavia
Encyclopedia
Neopaganism
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...

 in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

 is dominated by revivals of Norse paganism
Norse paganism
Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...

 (Ásatrú
Ásatrú
is a form of Germanic neopaganism which developed in the United States from the 1970s....

, Forn Sed, Nordisk Sed, Folketro).

Norway

The Åsatrufellesskapet Bifrost formed in 1996 (Asatru
Ásatrú
is a form of Germanic neopaganism which developed in the United States from the 1970s....

 fellowship "Bifrost
Bifröst
In Norse mythology, Bifrost or Bilröst is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard and Asgard, the realm of the gods...

"; as of 2011, the fellowship has some 300 Faithful) and Foreningen Forn Sed the fellowship has about 50 Faithful formed in 1999. They have been recognized by the Norwegian government as a religious society, allowing them to perform "legally binding civil ceremonies" (i. e. marriages). Forn Sed is a member of World Congress of Ethnic Religions
World Congress of Ethnic Religions
The European Congress of Ethnic Religions , formerly known as the World Congress of Ethnic Religions , is an organisation for the cooperation between associations which promote the indigenous ethnic religions of Europe...

.

Sweden

In Sweden, the Swedish Forn Sed Assembly (Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige) formed in 1994. At presently it is the largest national organization for forn sed.
A number of independent local groups (blotlag) also exist. Some of these used to be part of Nätverket Forn Sed when it was operational.

Iceland

Ásatrúarfélagið was recognized as a religious organization by the Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic government in 1973. Its first leader was farmer and poet Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson
Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson
Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson , a native of Iceland, was instrumental in helping to gain recognition by the Icelandic government for the pre-Christian Norse religion...

. It is the largest non-Christian religious organization in Iceland
Religion in Iceland
Religion in Iceland was initially the Norse paganism that was a common belief among mediaeval Scandinavians until Christian conversion. Later, the nation became half-Christian and then more fully Christian. This increasing Christianization culminated in the Pietism period when non-Christian...

 and has some 1,700 Faithful, making up approximately 0.6% of the total population.

Folklorism versus reconstructionism

Folketro (Danish, Norwegian) or Folktro (Swedish) is the Scandinavian for "folk religion
Folk religion
Folk religion consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of an organized religion, but outside of official doctrine and practices...

" or "superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

", referring to Scandinavian folklore
Scandinavian folklore
Scandinavian folklore is the folklore of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Swedish speaking parts of Finland.Collecting folklore began when Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden sent out instructions to all of the priests in all of the parishes to collect the folklore of their area...

 in particular. In Scandinavian neopagan discourse, the term is used for a religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 that consists of a folklore that is believed to be the descendant of historical Norse paganism
Norse paganism
Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...

. Folktro is considered a living tradition and that does not include the use of reconstructionism
Polytheistic reconstructionism
Polytheistic reconstructionism is an approach to Neopaganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and gathering momentum in the 1990s to 2000s...

 in any way, nor the use of historical sources such as the Edda
Edda
The term Edda applies to the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, both of which were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age...

 or notation of folklore. The term is in conscious contrast to Asatru
Ásatrú
is a form of Germanic neopaganism which developed in the United States from the 1970s....

, the reconstructionist revival of medieval Norse polytheism. Preferred terms are fornsed "old custom" or nordisk sed "Nordic custom", avoiding the connotation of hard polytheism evoked by reconstructionist approaches centered on the Aesir. Attention is rather given to traditional song, dance
Folk dance
The term folk dance describes dances that share some or all of the following attributes:*They are dances performed at social functions by people with little or no professional training, often to traditional music or music based on traditional music....

, folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 and festival
Festival
A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

s.

Critics refer to the Folketro movement as Funtrad (for Fundamentalistisk Traditionalisme "fundamentalist traditionalism". Not to be confused is the "radical traditionalism" of the New Right
New Right
New Right is used in several countries as a descriptive term for various policies or groups that are right-wing. It has also been used to describe the emergence of Eastern European parties after the collapse of communism.-Australia:...

, which invokes national mysticist or occultist notions of a "Pan-Indo-European tradition" rather than the unpretentious focus on regional customs advocated by Folketro. Proponents of Folketro include:
  • Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed
    Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed
    Samfälligheten för Nordisk Sed is a religious organisation of Nordisk Sed in Sweden. It is one of the proponents of the Folktro approach to Heathenry. The regional units where known as gäll until 2007 when the organisation was re-structured. Samfälligheten was formed in the early 1990s, originally...

    , Sweden
  • Foreningen Forn Sed, Norway

A similar approach is current in Baltic neopaganism
Baltic neopaganism
The Baltic countries were the last part of Europe to be Christianized, and vestiges of paganism blend into a Neopaganism movement that is largely independent of Western Asatru.*Romuva in Lithuania*Dievturība in Latvia...


External links

  • http://www.mmedia.is/odsmal/
  • http://asetrofaellesskabet.dk/
  • http://www.fornsidr.dk/
  • http://www.bifrost.no/
  • http://www.forn-sed.no/
  • http://www.asatrosamfundet.se/
  • http://www.nordisksed.se/
  • http://www.asatru.is/
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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