Norse pagan worship
Encyclopedia
Norse pagan worship is the traditional religious rituals practiced by Norse pagans
in Scandinavia
in pre-Christian times. Norse paganism
was a folk religion
(as opposed to organised religion) that had the survival and regeneration of society as its main purpose. Thus the cult was decentralized and tied to the village and the family, although evidence of great national religious festivals exists. The leaders - for instance the chiefs - managed the cult on behalf of society. On each farm it was the head of the family and nation-wide it was the king. Pre-Christian Scandinavians thus had no word for religion
in a modern sense. The closest counterpart is the word sidr, meaning custom. This meant that during the conversion period
, Christianity
was called nýr sidr (the new custom) while paganism was called forn sidr (ancient custom). The centre of gravity of pre-Christian religion lay in religious practice, that is sacred acts, rituals and worship of the gods.
Norse religion was at no time homogeneous but was a conglomerate of related customs and beliefs. These could be inherited or borrowed, and although the great geographical distances of Scandinavia were a basis for cultural differences people understood each other's customs, poetic traditions and myths. Sacrifice
played a huge role in most of the rituals we know about today. Thus communal feasting on the meat of sacrificed animals, together with the consumption of beer
or mead
, played a large role in the calendar feasts. In everyday practice other foodstuffs like grain are likely to have been used instead. The purpose of these sacrifices was to ensure fertility
and growth. However, sudden crises or transitions such as the birth of a child, wedding
s and burials could also be the reason. In those times there was a clear distinction between private and public cult and the rituals were thus tied either to the household and the individual or to the structures of society.
It is not known today how much the known myths correspond to religious beliefs of Scandinavians in pre-Christian times, nor how people acted towards them in everyday life. The heathen Scandinavians did not leave any written sources on their religious practice and Christians described it as superstition
and devil worship. Thus, Christian texts on Norse paganism are marked by misunderstandings as well as dissociation from the heathen religion while the archaeological
sources are hard to interpret without using the written material.
Recent research has had a tendency to down-tone the importance of great public festivals involving the population of large regions and instead stress the importance of more local feasts in the life of the individual. Though they are written in a later Christian era the Icelandic sagas are of great importance as sources to everyday religion. Even when the Christian influence is taken into account they draw an image of a religion closely tied to the cycle of the year and the social hierarchy
of society. In Iceland
the local secular leader had the title of gothi
, which originally meant priest but in the Middle Ages was a term for a local secular leader.
Ceremonial communal meals in connection with the blót sacrifice
are mentioned in several sources and are thus some of the most described rituals. Masked dancers, music, and singing may have been common parts of these feasts. As in other pre-Christian Germanic societies but in contrast to the later situation under Christianity, there was no class of priest
s: everyone could perform sacrifices and other cultic acts. Thus there are likely to have been great regional differences across Scandinavia, but the overall common cultural norms meant that it was normally the person with the highest status and the greatest authority (the head of the family or the leader of the village) who led the rituals. The sources indicate that sacrifices for fertility, a safe journey, a long life, wealth etc. were a natural and fully integrated part of daily life in Scandinavian society, as in almost all other pre-modern societies across the world.
The worship of female powers is likely to have played a greater role than the medieval sources indicate, because those texts were written by men and pay less attention to religious practices in the female sphere than those connected to the male. A trace of the importance of goddesses can be found in place-name material that has shown that there are often place names connected to the goddess Freyja near place names connected to the god Freyr
. Fertility and divination
rituals that women could take part in or lead were also among those which survived the longest after Christianisation.
Different types of animals or objects were connected to the worship of different gods. Thus, for instance, horses and pigs played a great role in the worship of Freyr
. This did not mean that the same animal could not also play a role in the worship of other deities. For instance the horse was also an important part of the Odin
cult. One of the most important objects in Norse paganism was the ship. Archaeological sources show that it played a central role in the cult from the petroglyph
s and razors from the bronze age
to the rune stones of the viking age
. Interpretation of the meaning of the ship in connection to the mythological material is only possible for the late period, when it was mainly associated with death and funerals.
Several written sources mention statues or idol
s of heathen gods. They are mostly described as anthropomorphic or more plausibly as wooden staves or poles with a face carved at the top. For instance Ahmad ibn Fadlan
writes about such poles in his description of a Scandinavian sacrifice at the Volga. This account has a suggestion of the mythological connection but it is impossible to decipher it. No such large statues from the Viking age have been found, but only small figures and amulets. This may be because larger statues were deliberately destroyed. After Christianisation the possession of such figures was banned and severely punished. Many accounts of missionaries have the destruction of heathen idols as their climax, symbolising the triumph of the Christian god over weak, devilish native gods. The sagas sometimes mention small figures that can be kept in a purse. Such figures are known from archaeological findings across Scandinavia. They include hammer-shaped jewelry, golden men or figures of gods.
Sources from different periods also tell that chariots were used in fertility rituals across Scandinavia over a very long period. In his Germania
, Tacitus
refers to a sacred chariot in the cult of Nerthus
. Also the Dejbjerg chariots from the Roman Iron Age
, the Oseberg ship
from the Viking age and the medieval tale about Gunnar Helming have survived until today. Maybe this motif can be traced as far back as the processions of the Bronze Age.
about which there is detailed information is the great temple at Uppsala
in modern Sweden
, which was described by the German chronicler Adam of Bremen
in a time where central Sweden was the last political centre where Norse paganism was practised in public.
connected to a fenced area with a smaller building. The hall is likely to have been associated with the great festivals and the fenced area to have contained a hörgr
. This complex is similar to others found in Scandinavia., such as Borg in Lofoten
, Uppsala
in Uppland
, Uppåkra
in Scania
, Gudme
in Funen
and Lejre
in Zealand. Since the 1970s, discoveries have significantly expanded knowledge about the public cult. The excavations have shown that large buildings were used for both secular and religious purposes from the 600's and into the Viking age and the Middle Ages. Such structures are likely to have been both religious and political and economic centres. The combination of religious festivals and markets has been common to most cultures through most of history since a society where travel is difficult and communication limited uses such occasions to get several things done at the same time. Thus the religious festivals were also the time and place for things
, markets and the hearing of court cases. The religious festivals have to be seen in the light of these other activities. In some places the same area was used for these festivals from the Roman Iron Age
until the Middle Ages, while in other places different locations were used in succession. Excavations of the complex at Tissø have shown that it grew from the 7th century until the 10th century. The most recent findings are from 1020 to 1030, when the great hall seems to have been dismantled.
Locally there were several kinds of holy places, usually marked by a boundary in the form of either a permanent stone barrier or a temporary fence of branches. Thus a holy space was created with rules of its own, like a ban on spilling blood on holy soil. The importance of these holy places should be understood in connection to the cosmological
ideas people had. Local society was seen as a mirror of the cosmos, so that the holy places in the village and in the fields were seen as mirroring Asgard
and Midgard
, while the forests, mountains and uninhabited moorland were all potentially dangerous places, analogous to Jotunheim. It is known that different types of divine forces were tied to different places and that there were different rituals connected to them. In addition to grove
s, texts mention holy wells and the leaving of offerings at streams, rocks and trees; these may have been to the landvættir
as well as or rather than the gods. There is no mention of worship of the jötnar and it is unknown whether there were places sacred to them.
The sources disagree about cult buildings, so there are varying opinions about their form and nature. However, it seems that for some buildings, sacral use was secondary. The Germanic languages
had no words in pre-Christian times that directly corresponded to the Latin
templum, the ancestor of the modern word temple
. Thus it has long been a topic for discussion whether there were buildings exclusively meant for religious purposes in pre-Christian Scandinavia. It is most likely that religious buildings were erected in some places as the words hörgr
and hof
are found in several place-names. Other sources suggests that the ritual acts were not necessarily limited to religious buildings. Whether "temples" were built is likely to have depended on local custom and economic resources. A hof or a hörgr did not need to be connected to one of the cult centres.
Other forms of cultic buildings were the hall
and the vé
. Place names containing the word sal (hall) occur in several places and it is possible that this word was used for the multi-functional halls. Earlier scholars often translated sal as barn or stable, which has been shown to be inaccurate. Such a hall is more likely to have been a long-house with only one room. This was a prestigious type of building used for feasts and similar social gatherings in the entire Germanic area. In place names the word sal is mostly connected to Odin
, which shows a connection with political power. Old place names containing the word sal may thus mean that a cultic hall once stood there. Another word for hall, höll, was used to describe another kind of sacral building, not meant for habitation but dedicated to special purposes like holding feasts. In the legend of Beowulf
Heorot is named as such. However the word höll is not found in place names and is likely to have been borrowed into East Norse from German or English in the late period.
The vé is another kind of holy place and is also the most unambiguous name used for holy places in Scandinavia. The word comes from the proto-Germanic *wîha, meaning "holy". Originally this word was used for places in nature but over time cultic buildings may have been built.
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Adam of Bremen
's description of the sacrifices and the cultic centre in Uppsala
is the best known account of pre-Christian rituals in Sweden
. There is general agreement that Gamla Uppsala
was one of the last strongholds of heathen religion in central Sweden and that the cultic centre there was still of great importance when Adam of Bremen wrote his account. Adam describes the temple as being gilded everywhere and containing statues of the three most important gods. The most important was Thor
, who was placed in the middle, with Odin
at one side and Fricco (presumably Freyr
) at the other. He tells that Thor reigned in the skies where he ruled rain, wind and thunder and that he provided good weather for the crops. In his hand he held a sceptre. Odin was the god of war and courage, his name meant "the furious" and he was depicted as a warrior. Fricco on the other hand was the god for peace and physical satisfaction and was thus depicted with a huge phallus
. Each god had his own priests and people sacrificed to the gods whose help they needed: Thor was called upon in times of famine and disease, Odin was called upon to gain victory and Fricco was called upon for fertile marriages.
According to Adam the temple at Uppsala was the centre for the national worship of the gods and every nine years a great festival was held there where the attendance of all inhabitants of the Swedish provinces was required, including Christians. At these festivals men and male animals were sacrificed by hanging. Adam recounts from Christian eye-witness accounts that up to 72 corpses could be hanging in the trees next to the temple during these sacrifices. He uses the Latin term triclinium
, meaning banquet hall, for the central cultic building and says that it was used for libation
s. In Roman culture such a building was not considered a temple proper, but it had a function similar to that of Heorot in the legend of Beowulf. For comparison the Iron Age hall at Berg in Lofoten had benches along three of the walls just like the Roman triclinium.
In recent times remains of a large building have been found in Uppsala
. It was 100 m long and was in use from 600 to 800. It was built on an artificial plateau near the burial mounds from the Germanic iron age
and was presumably a residence connected to the royal power which was established in the area during that period. Remains of a smaller building have been found below this house and the place is likely to have been in use as a cultic centre for very long time and the memory of the hall (sal) remains in the name Uppsala. The building was surrounded by a fence which could not have had any defensive function but could have marked the royal or sacral area. Around 900 the great hall burned down, but new graves were placed on the site. The traces of postholes under the medieval church have traditionally been interpreted as the site of the temple, but some scholars now believe the building was a later feast hall and that there was never a "temple" as such, but rather a hall used for used for banquets and political and legal functions as well as sacrifices. Gamla Uppsala was used for about 2000 years but the size and complexity of the complex was expanded up until the Viking age so that Uppsala in the period from 500 to 1000 was the centre of royal power and a location of a sizeable religious organisation.
Norse religion did not have any class of priest who worked as full-time cultic leaders. Instead there were different kinds of leaders who took care of different religious tasks alongside their secular occupation. From Iceland the terms goði
(gothi) and gyðja are known for "priest" and "priestess" while the terms vífill and lytir are primarily known from the East Norse area. However the title gothi is also known from Danish rune stones. The king or the jarl (earl) had overall responsibility for the public cult in his realm while the head of the household was responsible for leading the private cult.
Thus, religious as well as secular power in Norse society was centered on individuals. It was secured through ties of friendship and loyalty and meant that there never were any totally consolidated structures of power. The king could only exercise his power where he or his trusted representatives were personally present. A king thus needed to have homesteads throughout the realm as the physical seat of his government. It is unclear which of them were royal and which of them were owned by local aristocracy, but place names can give an indication. The common Swedish place name Husaby or Huseby could be an old term for a royal homestead. The same was true for leaders of lesser rank in the hierarchy; they too had to be present for the rituals to work.
The most known type of cultic leader is the gothi
, as several holders of this title appear in the Icelandic sagas. Because of the limited knowledge about cultic leaders there has been a tendency to regard the gothi and his female counterpart the gyðja as common titles throughout Scandinavia. However there is no evidence pointing to that conclusion. In historic times the gothi was a male politician and judge, i.e. a chieftain, but the word has the same etymological origins as the word "god," which is a strong sign that religious functions were connected to the title in pre-historic times. In pre-Christian times the gothi was thus both politician, jurist and religious expert.
Other titles of cultic leaders were þulr (thul), thegn, völva
and seiðmaðr (seid person). The term thul is related to words meaning recitation, speech and singing, so this cultic function could have been connected to a sacral, maybe esoteric, knowledge. The thul was also connected to Odin
, the god of rulers and kings, and thus poetry and the activities in the banquet halls. It is thus a possibility that the thul function was connected to the king's halls. Both the völva and the seiðmaðr were associated with seid.
was practised in Scandinavia. There has been great disagreement about why, for instance, two bodies were found in the Oseberg tomb
or how to interpret Ibn Fadlan's description of the killing of a female thrall at a funeral among the Scandinavian Rus on the Volga. The many discoveries of bog bodies
and the evidence of sacrifices of prisoners of war dating back to the Pre-Roman Iron Age
show that ritual killings in one form or another were not uncommon in Northern Europe in the period before the Viking age
. Furthermore, some findings from the Viking age can be interpreted as evidence of human sacrifice. Sagas occasionally mention human sacrifice at temples, as does Adam of Bremen. Also the written sources tell that a commander could consecrate the enemy warriors to Odin
using his spear. Thus war was ritualised and made sacral and the slain enemies became sacrifices. Violence was a part of daily life in the Viking age and thus took on a religious meaning like other activities. It is likely that human sacrifice occurred during the Viking age but nothing suggests that it was part of common public religious practise. Instead it was only practised in connection with war and in times of crisis.
s becoming common. Gold was a precious material and was thus connected to the ruler and his family. The changes are very remarkable and might be a sign that the change of religion in Scandinavia started in an earlier time than was previously believed and was closely connected to the establishment of kingdoms.
and crisis and life passage rituals. In the private sphere the rituals were led by the head of the household and his wife. It is not known whether thrall
s took part in the worship and in that case to what extent. The rituals were not limited to seasonal festivals as there were rituals connected to all tasks of daily life. Most rituals only involved one or a few persons, but some involved the entire household or the extended family.
. Unusually, no Scandinavian sources tell about rituals for the passage from child to adult.
Until very recent times a birth was dangerous to the mother as well as the child. Thus rites of birth were common in many pre-modern societies. In the Viking age
people would pray to the goddesses Frigg
and Freyja and sing ritual galdr
-songs to protect the mother and the child. Fate played a huge role in Norse culture and was determined at the moment of birth by the Norns
. Nine nights after birth, the child had to be recognised by the father of the household. He placed the child on his knee while sitting in the high seat. Water was sprinkled on the child, it was named and thus admitted into the family. There are accounts of guests being invited to bring gifts and wish the child well. Children were often named after deceased ancestors and the names of deities could be a part of the name. People thought certain traits were connected to certain names and that these traits were carried on when the names were re-used by new generations. This was part of ancestor worship. Putting the child on the knee of the father confirmed his or her status as a member of the clan and bestowed the rights connected to this status. The child could no longer be killed, or exposed by the parents, without its being considered murder. Exposing children was a socially accepted way of limiting the population. The belief that deities were present during childbirth suggests that people did not regard the woman and the child as excluded from normal society as was the case in later, Christian, times and apparently there were no ideas about female biological functions being unclean.
As a prelude to marriage the family of the groom sent the groom and several delegates to the family of the bride to propose. Here the date of the betrothal was set. This was the first legally binding step between the families and the occasion was used to negotiate the inheritance and property relations of the couple as well as the dowry
(heimanfylgja) and wedding present (mundr) from the groom's family. Those were the personal property of the bride. Usually the bride's family were less wealthy than the groom's but in most cases the difference was not great. Thus the dowry was an investment by the bride's family that made it possible for her to marry into a more powerful family. When an agreement on these matters had been reached, the deal was sealed at a feast. These conditions were reserved for the dominating class of freeholders (bóndi/bœndr), as the remaining parts of the population, servants, thrall
s and freedmen were not free to act in these matters but were totally dependent on their master.
The wedding
(brudlaup) was the most important single ritual in the process. It was the first public gathering of the two families and consisted of a feast that lasted for several days. Anything less than three days was considered paltry. The guests witnessed that the process had been followed correctly. The sources tell very little about how a wedding was related to the gods. It is known that the goddess Vár
witnessed the couple's vows, that a depiction of Mjolnir could be placed in the lap of the bride asking Thor
to bless her, and that Freyr
and Freyja were often called upon in matters of love and marriage, but there is no suggestion of a worship ritual. From legal sources we know that leading the couple to the bridal couch was one of the central rituals. On the first night the couple was led to bed by witnesses carrying torches, which marked the difference between legal marital relations and a secret extra-marital relationship.
Ancestor worship was an element in pre-Christian Scandinavian culture. The ancestors were of great importance for the self-image of the family and people believed that they were still able to influence the life of their descendants from the land of the dead. Contact with them was seen as crucial to the well-being of the family. If they were treated in the ritually correct way, they could give their blessings to the living and secure their happiness and prosperity. Conversely, the dead could haunt the living and bring bad fortune if the rituals were not followed. It is not clear whether the ancestors were seen as divine forces themselves or as connected to other death-related forces like elves
.
The status of the dead determined the shape of the tomb and the burial mound
s were seen as the abode of the dead. They were places of special power which also influenced the objects inside them. The evidence of prehistoric openings in mounds may thus not indicate looting but the local community's efforts to retrieve holy objects from the grave, or to insert offerings. Since the excavation of a mound was a time- and labour-consuming task which could not have happened unnoticed, religious historian Gro Steinsland
and others find it unlikely that lootings of graves were common in prehistoric times. There are also several mythological tales and legends about retrieval of objects from burial mounds and an account in Ynglingasaga of offerings to Freyr
continuing through openings in his burial mound at Uppsala.
The connection between the living and the dead was maintained through rituals connected to the burial place like sacrifice of objects, food and drink. Usually the graves were placed close to the dwelling of the family and the ancestors were regarding as protecting the house and its inhabitants against bad luck and bestowing fertility. Thus ancestor worship was of crucial importance to survival and there are signs that it continued up until modern times in isolated areas. Ancestor worship was also an element in the blót feasts
, where memorial toasts to the deceased were part of the ritual. Also elf blót was closely connected to the family.
s were unnamed collective entities. They were protective deities for areas of land and there were many religious rules for how to deal with them to avoid conflicts. This was used by Egil Skallagrimson. When he was driven from Norway
into exile in Iceland
he erected a nithing pole
(níðstang) to frighten the Norwegian land wights and thus bring bad luck to Norway as revenge for the Norwegian king's treatment of him. According to the saga the cursing pole consisted of a gaping horse's head mounted on top of a pole which he drove into the ground at the beach.
In the Viking age women are likely to have played the main role in the wight cult. This cult included sacrifices of food and drink on certain locations either near the farm or other places like waterfalls and groves where wights were believed to live. During Christianisation the attention of the missionaries was focused on the named gods and thus worship of the more anonymous collective groups of deities was allowed to continue for a while and could have later escaped notice by the Christian authorities. The wights also lived on in folklore
as nixies and tomte
r.
The Blót was an important type of ritual in the public as well as the private cult. The word blót is connected to the verb blóta, which is related to English bless. In the Viking age the main meaning of the word had become to sacrifice.
rather than religion. This is connected to the general disparagement of magic in the Christian medieval sources, such as the sagas. Seid was an element of a larger religious complex and was connected to important mythological tales. Freyja is said to have taught it to Odin
. Thus Seid is today considered as an important element of Norse religion. It is hard to determine from the sources what the term meant in the Viking age but it is known that Seid was used for divination
and interpretation of omen
s for positive as well as destructive purposes.
and they were thus used in different ritual circumstances.
edda
s tell almost nothing about the rituals connected to the deities described. While the saga
s contain more information on ritual acts, they rarely connect those to the mythology. All these texts were written in Iceland after the Christianisation and it is likely that much knowledge about the rituals had then been lost after the native religion had been banned by Christian laws. The mythological tales survived more easily, and the information found in them is probably closer to pagan originals.
An example of how sagas have been used as indirect sources for religious practice is Snorri Sturluson
's Heimskringla
. For instance in the first part of the tale of the Norwegian kings he tells about the rituals Odin
instituted when he came to the Scandinavian peoples. This account is likely to describe rituals in the Odin cult. According to Snorri Odin required that a sacrifice be held for a good year at the beginning of winter, one for rebirth at mid-winter and one for victory in the summer. All dead were to be cremated on a funeral pyre together with all their belongings and all cremated in this way would join him in Valhalla
together with their belongings. The ashes were to be spread either at sea or on the ground. This is similar to other written and archaeological sources on burial customs, which thus substantiate each other. Graves are the most common archaeological evidence of cultic acts and they are an important source of our knowledge about the ideas about death and thus cosmology held by the bereaved. This material is very useful in forming a general view of the structural relations and long-time developments in the religion. By comparing it to other archaeological findings and written sources, new perspectives can be formed.
Another source is found in toponyms. In recent years research has shed new light on pagan rituals among other things by determining the location of pagan shrines. The name of a location can tell us about its history. Thus for instance the name of the city Odense
means Odin's vé (shrine) and the name Thorshøj which can be found in several places in Norway means "Thor's hof" (temple). The basis point for the interpretation of placenames is that they were not just practical measures people used to make their way but also constituted a symbolic mapping of the landscape. Thus toponyms can contribute with knowledge about the culture of previous societies for which there are no other sources. Toponyms tell about which deities people connected to the place and worshipped there as well as names for holy places can be found for instance in the suffixes -vé, -sal,-lund, -hørg and -hov or -hof. One of the most common terms was vé, meaning an area that was consecrated and thus outside the sphere of the profane and where special rules applied. The distribution of toponyms in middle Sweden containing the names of the deities Freyr
and Freyja may be a trace of a prehistoric sacral kingdom in the Mälaren region
associated with the two fertility deities and the idea of a sacred marriage. There are difficulties involved in the use of toponyms, since words often have both a sacral and a non-sacral meaning; for instance the word hørg can mean stone altar as well as stony soil.
Many images can also be interpreted as depictions of ritual acts. For instance the bracteate
s from the Germanic Iron Age
can be interpreted as depictions of rituals connected to the cult of Odin
such as seid and magic
.
However, in principle material remains can only be used as circumstantial evidence to understanding Norse society and can only contribute concrete knowledge about the time's culture if combined with written sources. For instance, the sources point to the existence of cultic specialists within the public cult. The titles of these specialists have been found on rune stones, thus confirming their position within society.
As mentioned before, several tales from the sagas contain remains of pre-Christian rituals. Often the stories are not of a religious nature but include singular incidents that reflect religious life. An example is Snorri's account of how the Christian king of Norway Haakon the Good
tried to avoid taking part in the pagan feasts. It was traditionally one of the king's duties to lead a blót feast each fall. At this feast sacrificed horse meat was served and Haakon could not take part in this since Christians were not allowed to eat that kind of meat. He tried to escape with his Christian friends but was forced into the hall and placed in the high seat. When the beer was served a fight was close to breaking out when the king made the sign of the cross over it instead of invoking Odin
. A fight was only avoided because a supporter of the king said the king had only consecrated the beer to Thor
by making the sign of Mjolnir over it. After this incident the king lost many of his supporters. The following year the king was forced to take part in a pagan feast in Trøndelag
where he had to eat the sacrificial meat and was forbidden to bless his beer with the sign of the cross. This account is often used as evidence of the ruler's role as a cultic leader. However, it is an important point that medieval sources have to be understood according to the environment they were written in. For instance Margaret Clunies Ross
has pointed out that the descriptions of rituals appearing in the sagas are recycled in a historicised context and may not reflect practice in pre-Christian times. This can be seen by their often being explained in the texts rather than just described. From this she deduces that the readers were not expected to have direct knowledge of pagan rituals. They are also explained in terms of Christian practice; for example a hlautteinn used for sprinkling participants in a blót being described as "like an aspergillum
".
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...
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,...
in pre-Christian times. 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...
was a 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...
(as opposed to organised religion) that had the survival and regeneration of society as its main purpose. Thus the cult was decentralized and tied to the village and the family, although evidence of great national religious festivals exists. The leaders - for instance the chiefs - managed the cult on behalf of society. On each farm it was the head of the family and nation-wide it was the king. Pre-Christian Scandinavians thus had no word for 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...
in a modern sense. The closest counterpart is the word sidr, meaning custom. This meant that during the conversion period
Christianization of Scandinavia
The Christianization of Scandinavia took place between the 8th and the 12th century. The realms of Scandinavia proper, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, established their own Archdioceses, responsible directly to the Pope, in 1104, 1154 and 1164, respectively...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
was called nýr sidr (the new custom) while paganism was called forn sidr (ancient custom). The centre of gravity of pre-Christian religion lay in religious practice, that is sacred acts, rituals and worship of the gods.
Norse religion was at no time homogeneous but was a conglomerate of related customs and beliefs. These could be inherited or borrowed, and although the great geographical distances of Scandinavia were a basis for cultural differences people understood each other's customs, poetic traditions and myths. Sacrifice
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
played a huge role in most of the rituals we know about today. Thus communal feasting on the meat of sacrificed animals, together with the consumption of beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
or mead
Mead
Mead , also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash, which is strained immediately after fermentation...
, played a large role in the calendar feasts. In everyday practice other foodstuffs like grain are likely to have been used instead. The purpose of these sacrifices was to ensure fertility
Fertility
Fertility is the natural capability of producing offsprings. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population. Fertility differs from fecundity, which is defined as the potential for reproduction...
and growth. However, sudden crises or transitions such as the birth of a child, wedding
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
s and burials could also be the reason. In those times there was a clear distinction between private and public cult and the rituals were thus tied either to the household and the individual or to the structures of society.
It is not known today how much the known myths correspond to religious beliefs of Scandinavians in pre-Christian times, nor how people acted towards them in everyday life. The heathen Scandinavians did not leave any written sources on their religious practice and Christians described it as 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....
and devil worship. Thus, Christian texts on Norse paganism are marked by misunderstandings as well as dissociation from the heathen religion while the archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
sources are hard to interpret without using the written material.
Worship of the gods
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
of society. In 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...
the local secular leader had the title of gothi
Gothi
A goði or gothi is the Old Norse term for a priest and chieftain. Gyðja signifies a priestess.The name appears in Wulfila's Gothic language translation of the bible as gudja for "priest", but in Old Norse it is only the feminine form gyðja that perfectly corresponds to the Gothic form...
, which originally meant priest but in the Middle Ages was a term for a local secular leader.
Ceremonial communal meals in connection with the blót sacrifice
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
are mentioned in several sources and are thus some of the most described rituals. Masked dancers, music, and singing may have been common parts of these feasts. As in other pre-Christian Germanic societies but in contrast to the later situation under Christianity, there was no class of priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s: everyone could perform sacrifices and other cultic acts. Thus there are likely to have been great regional differences across Scandinavia, but the overall common cultural norms meant that it was normally the person with the highest status and the greatest authority (the head of the family or the leader of the village) who led the rituals. The sources indicate that sacrifices for fertility, a safe journey, a long life, wealth etc. were a natural and fully integrated part of daily life in Scandinavian society, as in almost all other pre-modern societies across the world.
The worship of female powers is likely to have played a greater role than the medieval sources indicate, because those texts were written by men and pay less attention to religious practices in the female sphere than those connected to the male. A trace of the importance of goddesses can be found in place-name material that has shown that there are often place names connected to the goddess Freyja near place names connected to the god Freyr
Freyr
Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...
. Fertility and divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
rituals that women could take part in or lead were also among those which survived the longest after Christianisation.
Different types of animals or objects were connected to the worship of different gods. Thus, for instance, horses and pigs played a great role in the worship of Freyr
Freyr
Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...
. This did not mean that the same animal could not also play a role in the worship of other deities. For instance the horse was also an important part of the Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
cult. One of the most important objects in Norse paganism was the ship. Archaeological sources show that it played a central role in the cult from the petroglyph
Petroglyph
Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s and razors from the bronze age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
to the rune stones of the viking age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
. Interpretation of the meaning of the ship in connection to the mythological material is only possible for the late period, when it was mainly associated with death and funerals.
Cultic statues and images
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
s of heathen gods. They are mostly described as anthropomorphic or more plausibly as wooden staves or poles with a face carved at the top. For instance Ahmad ibn Fadlan
Ahmad ibn Fadlan
Ahmad ibn Fadlān ibn al-Abbās ibn Rāšid ibn Hammād was a 10th century Arab traveler, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Arab Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars...
writes about such poles in his description of a Scandinavian sacrifice at the Volga. This account has a suggestion of the mythological connection but it is impossible to decipher it. No such large statues from the Viking age have been found, but only small figures and amulets. This may be because larger statues were deliberately destroyed. After Christianisation the possession of such figures was banned and severely punished. Many accounts of missionaries have the destruction of heathen idols as their climax, symbolising the triumph of the Christian god over weak, devilish native gods. The sagas sometimes mention small figures that can be kept in a purse. Such figures are known from archaeological findings across Scandinavia. They include hammer-shaped jewelry, golden men or figures of gods.
Sources from different periods also tell that chariots were used in fertility rituals across Scandinavia over a very long period. In his Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...
, Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
refers to a sacred chariot in the cult of Nerthus
Nerthus
In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with fertility. Nerthus is attested by Tacitus, the first century AD Roman historian, in his Germania. Various theories exist regarding the goddess and her potential later traces amongst the Germanic tribes...
. Also the Dejbjerg chariots from the Roman Iron Age
Roman Iron Age
The Roman Iron Age is the name that Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius gave to a part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia, Northern Germany and the Netherlands....
, the Oseberg ship
Oseberg ship
The Oseberg ship is a well-preserved Viking ship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway.-Burial mound:...
from the Viking age and the medieval tale about Gunnar Helming have survived until today. Maybe this motif can be traced as far back as the processions of the Bronze Age.
Public cult
Although no details are known, it is possible to form an unclear image of some of the rituals and religious practices through interpretation of the sources that have survived. The sources are heterogeneous since the written accounts are from the late heathen period and written in a Christian context. Thus it is also hard to determine whether a ritual was private or public. The only heathen shrineHeathen hofs
Heathen hofs or Germanic pagan temples were the temple buildings of Germanic paganism; there are also a few built for use in modern Germanic neopaganism...
about which there is detailed information is the great temple at Uppsala
Temple at Uppsala
The Temple at Uppsala was a religious center in Norse paganism once located at what is now Gamla Uppsala , Sweden attested in Adam of Bremen's 11th century work Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and in Heimskringla, written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century...
in modern Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, which was described by the German chronicler Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. He is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum .-Background:Little is known of his life other than hints from his own chronicles...
in a time where central Sweden was the last political centre where Norse paganism was practised in public.
Centres of faith
Remains of so-called multifunctional centres have been discovered in several places in Scandinavia. Near Tissø, archaeologists have unearthed a complex consisting among other things of a central hallMead hall
In ancient Scandinavia and Germanic Europe a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room. From the fifth century to early medieval times such a building was the residence of a lord and his retainers. The mead hall was generally the great hall of the king...
connected to a fenced area with a smaller building. The hall is likely to have been associated with the great festivals and the fenced area to have contained a hörgr
Hörgr
A hörgr or hearg was a type of religious building or altar possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse paganism...
. This complex is similar to others found in Scandinavia., such as Borg in Lofoten
Lofoten
Lofoten is an archipelago and a traditional district in the county of Nordland, Norway. Though lying within the Arctic Circle, the archipelago experiences one of the world's largest elevated temperature anomalies relative to its high latitude.-Etymology:...
, Uppsala
Uppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
in Uppland
Uppland
Uppland is a historical province or landskap on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea...
, Uppåkra
Uppåkra
Uppåkra is a village located five kilometres south of Lund in Scania in southernmost Sweden.-History:Uppåkra was situated on the ancient main road between Trelleborg and Helsingborg in what was to become the Danish kingdom. The original foundation of Uppåkra is dated to the first century AD,...
in Scania
Scania
Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...
, Gudme
Gudme
Gudme is a town in central Denmark with a population of 935 , located in Svendborg municipality on the island of Funen in Region of Southern Denmark. Until January 1, 2007, it was the site of the municipal council of the now former Gudme municipality.Gudme was an important site during the Iron Age...
in Funen
Funen
Funen , with a size of 2,984 km² , is the third-largest island of Denmark following Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy, and the 163rd largest island of the world. Funen is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 454,358 inhabitants . The main city is Odense, connected to the...
and Lejre
Lejre
Lejre is a town with a population of 2,343 and a municipality on the island of Zealand in east Denmark. It belongs to Region Sjælland. The town's Old Norse name was Hleiðra. The municipality has an area of 240 km² and a total population of ca. 26,603 . Its mayor is Mette Touborg, representing the...
in Zealand. Since the 1970s, discoveries have significantly expanded knowledge about the public cult. The excavations have shown that large buildings were used for both secular and religious purposes from the 600's and into the Viking age and the Middle Ages. Such structures are likely to have been both religious and political and economic centres. The combination of religious festivals and markets has been common to most cultures through most of history since a society where travel is difficult and communication limited uses such occasions to get several things done at the same time. Thus the religious festivals were also the time and place for things
Thing (assembly)
A thing was the governing assembly in Germanic and introduced into some Celtic societies, made up of the free people of the community and presided by lawspeakers, meeting in a place called a thingstead...
, markets and the hearing of court cases. The religious festivals have to be seen in the light of these other activities. In some places the same area was used for these festivals from the Roman Iron Age
Roman Iron Age
The Roman Iron Age is the name that Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius gave to a part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia, Northern Germany and the Netherlands....
until the Middle Ages, while in other places different locations were used in succession. Excavations of the complex at Tissø have shown that it grew from the 7th century until the 10th century. The most recent findings are from 1020 to 1030, when the great hall seems to have been dismantled.
Locally there were several kinds of holy places, usually marked by a boundary in the form of either a permanent stone barrier or a temporary fence of branches. Thus a holy space was created with rules of its own, like a ban on spilling blood on holy soil. The importance of these holy places should be understood in connection to the cosmological
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
ideas people had. Local society was seen as a mirror of the cosmos, so that the holy places in the village and in the fields were seen as mirroring Asgard
Asgard
In Norse religion, Asgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is the country or capital city of the Norse Gods surrounded by an incomplete wall attributed to a Hrimthurs riding the stallion Svadilfari, according to Gylfaginning. Valhalla is located within Asgard...
and Midgard
Midgard
Midgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is an old Germanic name for our world and is the home of Humans, with the literal meaning "middle enclosure".-Etymology:...
, while the forests, mountains and uninhabited moorland were all potentially dangerous places, analogous to Jotunheim. It is known that different types of divine forces were tied to different places and that there were different rituals connected to them. In addition to grove
Sacred grove
A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...
s, texts mention holy wells and the leaving of offerings at streams, rocks and trees; these may have been to the landvættir
Landvættir
Landvættir are spirits of the land in Norse mythology and in Germanic neopaganism. They protect and promote the flourishing of the specific places where they live, which can be as small as a rock or a corner of a field, or as large as a section of a country.-The nature of landvættir:Some scholars...
as well as or rather than the gods. There is no mention of worship of the jötnar and it is unknown whether there were places sacred to them.
The sources disagree about cult buildings, so there are varying opinions about their form and nature. However, it seems that for some buildings, sacral use was secondary. The Germanic languages
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
had no words in pre-Christian times that directly corresponded to the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
templum, the ancestor of the modern word temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
. Thus it has long been a topic for discussion whether there were buildings exclusively meant for religious purposes in pre-Christian Scandinavia. It is most likely that religious buildings were erected in some places as the words hörgr
Hörgr
A hörgr or hearg was a type of religious building or altar possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse paganism...
and hof
Heathen hofs
Heathen hofs or Germanic pagan temples were the temple buildings of Germanic paganism; there are also a few built for use in modern Germanic neopaganism...
are found in several place-names. Other sources suggests that the ritual acts were not necessarily limited to religious buildings. Whether "temples" were built is likely to have depended on local custom and economic resources. A hof or a hörgr did not need to be connected to one of the cult centres.
Other forms of cultic buildings were the hall
Mead hall
In ancient Scandinavia and Germanic Europe a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room. From the fifth century to early medieval times such a building was the residence of a lord and his retainers. The mead hall was generally the great hall of the king...
and the vé
Vé (shrine)
In Germanic paganism, a vé or wēoh is a type of shrine or sacred enclosure. The term appears in skaldic poetry and in place names in Scandinavia , often in connection with a Norse deity or a geographic feature. The name of the Norse god Vé, refers to the practice...
. Place names containing the word sal (hall) occur in several places and it is possible that this word was used for the multi-functional halls. Earlier scholars often translated sal as barn or stable, which has been shown to be inaccurate. Such a hall is more likely to have been a long-house with only one room. This was a prestigious type of building used for feasts and similar social gatherings in the entire Germanic area. In place names the word sal is mostly connected to Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
, which shows a connection with political power. Old place names containing the word sal may thus mean that a cultic hall once stood there. Another word for hall, höll, was used to describe another kind of sacral building, not meant for habitation but dedicated to special purposes like holding feasts. In the legend of Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...
Heorot is named as such. However the word höll is not found in place names and is likely to have been borrowed into East Norse from German or English in the late period.
The vé is another kind of holy place and is also the most unambiguous name used for holy places in Scandinavia. The word comes from the proto-Germanic *wîha, meaning "holy". Originally this word was used for places in nature but over time cultic buildings may have been built.
Gamla Uppsala
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. He is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum .-Background:Little is known of his life other than hints from his own chronicles...
's description of the sacrifices and the cultic centre in Uppsala
Uppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
is the best known account of pre-Christian rituals in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. There is general agreement that Gamla Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 16,231 inhabitants in 1991.As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political centre...
was one of the last strongholds of heathen religion in central Sweden and that the cultic centre there was still of great importance when Adam of Bremen wrote his account. Adam describes the temple as being gilded everywhere and containing statues of the three most important gods. The most important was Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
, who was placed in the middle, with Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
at one side and Fricco (presumably Freyr
Freyr
Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...
) at the other. He tells that Thor reigned in the skies where he ruled rain, wind and thunder and that he provided good weather for the crops. In his hand he held a sceptre. Odin was the god of war and courage, his name meant "the furious" and he was depicted as a warrior. Fricco on the other hand was the god for peace and physical satisfaction and was thus depicted with a huge phallus
Phallus
A phallus is an erect penis, a penis-shaped object such as a dildo, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. Any object that symbolically resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic...
. Each god had his own priests and people sacrificed to the gods whose help they needed: Thor was called upon in times of famine and disease, Odin was called upon to gain victory and Fricco was called upon for fertile marriages.
According to Adam the temple at Uppsala was the centre for the national worship of the gods and every nine years a great festival was held there where the attendance of all inhabitants of the Swedish provinces was required, including Christians. At these festivals men and male animals were sacrificed by hanging. Adam recounts from Christian eye-witness accounts that up to 72 corpses could be hanging in the trees next to the temple during these sacrifices. He uses the Latin term triclinium
Triclinium
A triclinium is a formal dining room in a Roman building. The word is adopted from the Greek τρικλίνιον, triklinion, from τρι-, tri-, "three", and κλίνη, klinē, a sort of "couch" or rather chaise longue...
, meaning banquet hall, for the central cultic building and says that it was used for libation
Libation
A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit or in memory of those who have died. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in various cultures today....
s. In Roman culture such a building was not considered a temple proper, but it had a function similar to that of Heorot in the legend of Beowulf. For comparison the Iron Age hall at Berg in Lofoten had benches along three of the walls just like the Roman triclinium.
In recent times remains of a large building have been found in Uppsala
Uppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
. It was 100 m long and was in use from 600 to 800. It was built on an artificial plateau near the burial mounds from the Germanic iron age
Germanic Iron Age
The Germanic Iron Age is the name given to the period 400–800 in Northern Europe and it is part of the continental Age of Migrations.-Germanic Iron :...
and was presumably a residence connected to the royal power which was established in the area during that period. Remains of a smaller building have been found below this house and the place is likely to have been in use as a cultic centre for very long time and the memory of the hall (sal) remains in the name Uppsala. The building was surrounded by a fence which could not have had any defensive function but could have marked the royal or sacral area. Around 900 the great hall burned down, but new graves were placed on the site. The traces of postholes under the medieval church have traditionally been interpreted as the site of the temple, but some scholars now believe the building was a later feast hall and that there was never a "temple" as such, but rather a hall used for used for banquets and political and legal functions as well as sacrifices. Gamla Uppsala was used for about 2000 years but the size and complexity of the complex was expanded up until the Viking age so that Uppsala in the period from 500 to 1000 was the centre of royal power and a location of a sizeable religious organisation.
Cultic leaders
Gothi
A goði or gothi is the Old Norse term for a priest and chieftain. Gyðja signifies a priestess.The name appears in Wulfila's Gothic language translation of the bible as gudja for "priest", but in Old Norse it is only the feminine form gyðja that perfectly corresponds to the Gothic form...
(gothi) and gyðja are known for "priest" and "priestess" while the terms vífill and lytir are primarily known from the East Norse area. However the title gothi is also known from Danish rune stones. The king or the jarl (earl) had overall responsibility for the public cult in his realm while the head of the household was responsible for leading the private cult.
Thus, religious as well as secular power in Norse society was centered on individuals. It was secured through ties of friendship and loyalty and meant that there never were any totally consolidated structures of power. The king could only exercise his power where he or his trusted representatives were personally present. A king thus needed to have homesteads throughout the realm as the physical seat of his government. It is unclear which of them were royal and which of them were owned by local aristocracy, but place names can give an indication. The common Swedish place name Husaby or Huseby could be an old term for a royal homestead. The same was true for leaders of lesser rank in the hierarchy; they too had to be present for the rituals to work.
The most known type of cultic leader is the gothi
Gothi
A goði or gothi is the Old Norse term for a priest and chieftain. Gyðja signifies a priestess.The name appears in Wulfila's Gothic language translation of the bible as gudja for "priest", but in Old Norse it is only the feminine form gyðja that perfectly corresponds to the Gothic form...
, as several holders of this title appear in the Icelandic sagas. Because of the limited knowledge about cultic leaders there has been a tendency to regard the gothi and his female counterpart the gyðja as common titles throughout Scandinavia. However there is no evidence pointing to that conclusion. In historic times the gothi was a male politician and judge, i.e. a chieftain, but the word has the same etymological origins as the word "god," which is a strong sign that religious functions were connected to the title in pre-historic times. In pre-Christian times the gothi was thus both politician, jurist and religious expert.
Other titles of cultic leaders were þulr (thul), thegn, völva
Völva
A vǫlva or völva is a shamanic seeress in Norse paganism, and a recurring motif in Norse mythology....
and seiðmaðr (seid person). The term thul is related to words meaning recitation, speech and singing, so this cultic function could have been connected to a sacral, maybe esoteric, knowledge. The thul was also connected to Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
, the god of rulers and kings, and thus poetry and the activities in the banquet halls. It is thus a possibility that the thul function was connected to the king's halls. Both the völva and the seiðmaðr were associated with seid.
Human sacrifice
It has been a topic for discussion whether human sacrificeHuman sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
was practised in Scandinavia. There has been great disagreement about why, for instance, two bodies were found in the Oseberg tomb
Oseberg ship
The Oseberg ship is a well-preserved Viking ship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway.-Burial mound:...
or how to interpret Ibn Fadlan's description of the killing of a female thrall at a funeral among the Scandinavian Rus on the Volga. The many discoveries of bog bodies
Bog body
Bog bodies, which are also known as bog people, are the naturally preserved human corpses found in the sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe. Unlike most ancient human remains, bog bodies have retained their skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of the surrounding area...
and the evidence of sacrifices of prisoners of war dating back to the Pre-Roman Iron Age
Pre-Roman Iron Age
The Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe designates the earliest part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia, northern Germany, and the Netherlands north of the Rhine River. These regions feature many extensive archaeological excavation sites, which have yielded a wealth of artifacts...
show that ritual killings in one form or another were not uncommon in Northern Europe in the period before the Viking age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
. Furthermore, some findings from the Viking age can be interpreted as evidence of human sacrifice. Sagas occasionally mention human sacrifice at temples, as does Adam of Bremen. Also the written sources tell that a commander could consecrate the enemy warriors to Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
using his spear. Thus war was ritualised and made sacral and the slain enemies became sacrifices. Violence was a part of daily life in the Viking age and thus took on a religious meaning like other activities. It is likely that human sacrifice occurred during the Viking age but nothing suggests that it was part of common public religious practise. Instead it was only practised in connection with war and in times of crisis.
Developments
Excavations of the cultic centres have shown that public religious practise changed over time. In Southern Scandinavia the great public sacrificial feasts that had been common during the Roman Iron Age were abandoned. In the 6th century the great sacrifices of weapons were discontinued. Instead there are traces of a cult that was tied more to the abode of a ruler. This change is among other things shown by golden plates and bracteateBracteate
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...
s becoming common. Gold was a precious material and was thus connected to the ruler and his family. The changes are very remarkable and might be a sign that the change of religion in Scandinavia started in an earlier time than was previously believed and was closely connected to the establishment of kingdoms.
Private cult
The rituals of the private cult mostly paralleled the public. In many cases the line between public and private cult is hard to draw, for instance in the cases of the yearly blót feastsBlót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
and crisis and life passage rituals. In the private sphere the rituals were led by the head of the household and his wife. It is not known whether thrall
Thrall
Thrall was the term for a serf or unfree servant in Scandinavian culture during the Viking Age.Thralls were the lowest in the social order and usually provided unskilled labor during the Viking era.-Etymology:...
s took part in the worship and in that case to what extent. The rituals were not limited to seasonal festivals as there were rituals connected to all tasks of daily life. Most rituals only involved one or a few persons, but some involved the entire household or the extended family.
Rites of passage
These rituals were connected to the change of status and transitions in life a person experiences, such as birth, marriage and death, and followed the same pattern as is known from other rites of passageRites of Passage
Rites of Passage is an African American History program sponsored by the Stamford, Connecticut US public schools. The program consists of an extra day of schooling on Saturday for 12 weeks, service projects, and a culminating educational trip to Gambia and Senegal. Gambia and Senegal are the...
. Unusually, no Scandinavian sources tell about rituals for the passage from child to adult.
Birth and naming
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
people would pray to the goddesses Frigg
Frigg
Frigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power...
and Freyja and sing ritual galdr
Galdr
Galdr is one Old Norse word for "spell, incantation", and which was usually performed in combination with certain rites. It was mastered by both women and men and they chanted it in falsetto .-Etymology:...
-songs to protect the mother and the child. Fate played a huge role in Norse culture and was determined at the moment of birth by the Norns
Norns
The Norns in Norse mythology are female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men, a kind of dísir comparable to the Fates in classical mythology....
. Nine nights after birth, the child had to be recognised by the father of the household. He placed the child on his knee while sitting in the high seat. Water was sprinkled on the child, it was named and thus admitted into the family. There are accounts of guests being invited to bring gifts and wish the child well. Children were often named after deceased ancestors and the names of deities could be a part of the name. People thought certain traits were connected to certain names and that these traits were carried on when the names were re-used by new generations. This was part of ancestor worship. Putting the child on the knee of the father confirmed his or her status as a member of the clan and bestowed the rights connected to this status. The child could no longer be killed, or exposed by the parents, without its being considered murder. Exposing children was a socially accepted way of limiting the population. The belief that deities were present during childbirth suggests that people did not regard the woman and the child as excluded from normal society as was the case in later, Christian, times and apparently there were no ideas about female biological functions being unclean.
Marriage
As it was the core of the family, marriage was the most important social institution in pagan Scandinavia. A wedding was thus an important transition not only for the couple but also for the families involved. A marriage was a legal contract with implications for among other things inheritance and property relations, while the wedding itself was the solemnization of a pact in which the families promised to help each other. Because of this the male head of the family had the final say in these matters. However it is clear from the sagas that the young couple also had a say since a good relationship between the spouses was crucial to the running of a farm. A wedding was a long and collective process subject to many ritual rules and culminating in the wedding feast itself. The procedures had to be followed for the divine powers to sanction the marriage and to avoid a bad marriage afterwards. However accounts in the sagas about the complicated individual emotions connected to a marriage tell us that things did not always work out between the spouses.Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
(heimanfylgja) and wedding present (mundr) from the groom's family. Those were the personal property of the bride. Usually the bride's family were less wealthy than the groom's but in most cases the difference was not great. Thus the dowry was an investment by the bride's family that made it possible for her to marry into a more powerful family. When an agreement on these matters had been reached, the deal was sealed at a feast. These conditions were reserved for the dominating class of freeholders (bóndi/bœndr), as the remaining parts of the population, servants, thrall
Thrall
Thrall was the term for a serf or unfree servant in Scandinavian culture during the Viking Age.Thralls were the lowest in the social order and usually provided unskilled labor during the Viking era.-Etymology:...
s and freedmen were not free to act in these matters but were totally dependent on their master.
The wedding
Wedding
A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage or a similar institution. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnic groups, religions, countries, and social classes...
(brudlaup) was the most important single ritual in the process. It was the first public gathering of the two families and consisted of a feast that lasted for several days. Anything less than three days was considered paltry. The guests witnessed that the process had been followed correctly. The sources tell very little about how a wedding was related to the gods. It is known that the goddess Vár
Var
Var, VAR, VAr, VaR or var can mean:VAR* Varna Airport IATA airport code* Vacuum arc remelting, a process for production of steel and special alloys...
witnessed the couple's vows, that a depiction of Mjolnir could be placed in the lap of the bride asking Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
to bless her, and that Freyr
Freyr
Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...
and Freyja were often called upon in matters of love and marriage, but there is no suggestion of a worship ritual. From legal sources we know that leading the couple to the bridal couch was one of the central rituals. On the first night the couple was led to bed by witnesses carrying torches, which marked the difference between legal marital relations and a secret extra-marital relationship.
Ancestor worship
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
.
The status of the dead determined the shape of the tomb and the burial mound
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
s were seen as the abode of the dead. They were places of special power which also influenced the objects inside them. The evidence of prehistoric openings in mounds may thus not indicate looting but the local community's efforts to retrieve holy objects from the grave, or to insert offerings. Since the excavation of a mound was a time- and labour-consuming task which could not have happened unnoticed, religious historian Gro Steinsland
Gro Steinsland
Gro Steinsland is a Norwegian scholar of medieval studies and history of religion and since August 2009 has been the Scientific Director of the Centre for Advanced Study of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters....
and others find it unlikely that lootings of graves were common in prehistoric times. There are also several mythological tales and legends about retrieval of objects from burial mounds and an account in Ynglingasaga of offerings to Freyr
Freyr
Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...
continuing through openings in his burial mound at Uppsala.
The connection between the living and the dead was maintained through rituals connected to the burial place like sacrifice of objects, food and drink. Usually the graves were placed close to the dwelling of the family and the ancestors were regarding as protecting the house and its inhabitants against bad luck and bestowing fertility. Thus ancestor worship was of crucial importance to survival and there are signs that it continued up until modern times in isolated areas. Ancestor worship was also an element in the blót feasts
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
, where memorial toasts to the deceased were part of the ritual. Also elf blót was closely connected to the family.
Wight worship
Land wightLandvættir
Landvættir are spirits of the land in Norse mythology and in Germanic neopaganism. They protect and promote the flourishing of the specific places where they live, which can be as small as a rock or a corner of a field, or as large as a section of a country.-The nature of landvættir:Some scholars...
s were unnamed collective entities. They were protective deities for areas of land and there were many religious rules for how to deal with them to avoid conflicts. This was used by Egil Skallagrimson. When he was driven from Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
into exile in 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...
he erected a nithing pole
Nithing pole
A nithing pole , sometimes normalized as nithstang or nidstang, was a pole used for cursing an enemy in Germanic pagan tradition.-History and usage:...
(níðstang) to frighten the Norwegian land wights and thus bring bad luck to Norway as revenge for the Norwegian king's treatment of him. According to the saga the cursing pole consisted of a gaping horse's head mounted on top of a pole which he drove into the ground at the beach.
In the Viking age women are likely to have played the main role in the wight cult. This cult included sacrifices of food and drink on certain locations either near the farm or other places like waterfalls and groves where wights were believed to live. During Christianisation the attention of the missionaries was focused on the named gods and thus worship of the more anonymous collective groups of deities was allowed to continue for a while and could have later escaped notice by the Christian authorities. The wights also lived on in folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
as nixies and tomte
Tomte
A tomte , nisse or tonttu is a mythical creature of Scandinavian folklore. The tomte or nisse was believed to take care of a farmer's home and children and protect them from misfortune, in particular at night, when the housefolk were asleep...
r.
Types of rituals
Far from all types of Norse pagan rituals are known in detail. Below is an introduction to most known types of rituals.Blót
The Blót was an important type of ritual in the public as well as the private cult. The word blót is connected to the verb blóta, which is related to English bless. In the Viking age the main meaning of the word had become to sacrifice.
Seid
In academia Seid was traditionally written about in a degrading fashion and considered magicMagic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
rather than religion. This is connected to the general disparagement of magic in the Christian medieval sources, such as the sagas. Seid was an element of a larger religious complex and was connected to important mythological tales. Freyja is said to have taught it to Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
. Thus Seid is today considered as an important element of Norse religion. It is hard to determine from the sources what the term meant in the Viking age but it is known that Seid was used for divination
Divination
Divination is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic standardized process or ritual...
and interpretation of omen
Omen
An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change...
s for positive as well as destructive purposes.
Runes
The sources mention runes as powerful symbols connected to OdinOdin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
and they were thus used in different ritual circumstances.
Sources on Norse paganism and their interpretation
The sources of our knowledge about Norse paganism are varied, but do not include any sacred texts that prescribe rituals or explain them in religious terms. Knowledge about pre-Christian rituals in Scandinavia is thus composed from fragments and indirect knowledge. For instance the mythologicalNorse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
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...
s tell almost nothing about the rituals connected to the deities described. While the saga
Saga
Sagas, are stories in Old Norse about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, etc.Saga may also refer to:Business*Saga DAB radio, a British radio station*Saga Airlines, a Turkish airline*Saga Falabella, a department store chain in Peru...
s contain more information on ritual acts, they rarely connect those to the mythology. All these texts were written in Iceland after the Christianisation and it is likely that much knowledge about the rituals had then been lost after the native religion had been banned by Christian laws. The mythological tales survived more easily, and the information found in them is probably closer to pagan originals.
An example of how sagas have been used as indirect sources for religious practice is Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...
's Heimskringla
Heimskringla
Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...
. For instance in the first part of the tale of the Norwegian kings he tells about the rituals Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
instituted when he came to the Scandinavian peoples. This account is likely to describe rituals in the Odin cult. According to Snorri Odin required that a sacrifice be held for a good year at the beginning of winter, one for rebirth at mid-winter and one for victory in the summer. All dead were to be cremated on a funeral pyre together with all their belongings and all cremated in this way would join him in Valhalla
Valhalla
In Norse mythology, Valhalla is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin. Chosen by Odin, half of those that die in combat travel to Valhalla upon death, led by valkyries, while the other half go to the goddess Freyja's field Fólkvangr...
together with their belongings. The ashes were to be spread either at sea or on the ground. This is similar to other written and archaeological sources on burial customs, which thus substantiate each other. Graves are the most common archaeological evidence of cultic acts and they are an important source of our knowledge about the ideas about death and thus cosmology held by the bereaved. This material is very useful in forming a general view of the structural relations and long-time developments in the religion. By comparing it to other archaeological findings and written sources, new perspectives can be formed.
Another source is found in toponyms. In recent years research has shed new light on pagan rituals among other things by determining the location of pagan shrines. The name of a location can tell us about its history. Thus for instance the name of the city Odense
Odense
The city of Odense is the third largest city in Denmark.Odense City has a population of 167,615 and is the main city of the island of Funen...
means Odin's vé (shrine) and the name Thorshøj which can be found in several places in Norway means "Thor's hof" (temple). The basis point for the interpretation of placenames is that they were not just practical measures people used to make their way but also constituted a symbolic mapping of the landscape. Thus toponyms can contribute with knowledge about the culture of previous societies for which there are no other sources. Toponyms tell about which deities people connected to the place and worshipped there as well as names for holy places can be found for instance in the suffixes -vé, -sal,-lund, -hørg and -hov or -hof. One of the most common terms was vé, meaning an area that was consecrated and thus outside the sphere of the profane and where special rules applied. The distribution of toponyms in middle Sweden containing the names of the deities Freyr
Freyr
Freyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...
and Freyja may be a trace of a prehistoric sacral kingdom in the Mälaren region
Mälaren
Lake Mälaren is the third-largest lake in Sweden, after Lakes Vänern and Vättern. Its area is 1,140 km² and its greatest depth is 64 m. Mälaren spans 120 kilometers from east to west...
associated with the two fertility deities and the idea of a sacred marriage. There are difficulties involved in the use of toponyms, since words often have both a sacral and a non-sacral meaning; for instance the word hørg can mean stone altar as well as stony soil.
Many images can also be interpreted as depictions of ritual acts. For instance the bracteate
Bracteate
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...
s from the Germanic Iron Age
Germanic Iron Age
The Germanic Iron Age is the name given to the period 400–800 in Northern Europe and it is part of the continental Age of Migrations.-Germanic Iron :...
can be interpreted as depictions of rituals connected to the cult of Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
such as seid and magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
.
However, in principle material remains can only be used as circumstantial evidence to understanding Norse society and can only contribute concrete knowledge about the time's culture if combined with written sources. For instance, the sources point to the existence of cultic specialists within the public cult. The titles of these specialists have been found on rune stones, thus confirming their position within society.
As mentioned before, several tales from the sagas contain remains of pre-Christian rituals. Often the stories are not of a religious nature but include singular incidents that reflect religious life. An example is Snorri's account of how the Christian king of Norway Haakon the Good
Haakon I of Norway
Haakon I , , given the byname the Good, was the third king of Norway and the youngest son of Harald Fairhair and Thora Mosterstang.-Early life:...
tried to avoid taking part in the pagan feasts. It was traditionally one of the king's duties to lead a blót feast each fall. At this feast sacrificed horse meat was served and Haakon could not take part in this since Christians were not allowed to eat that kind of meat. He tried to escape with his Christian friends but was forced into the hall and placed in the high seat. When the beer was served a fight was close to breaking out when the king made the sign of the cross over it instead of invoking Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
. A fight was only avoided because a supporter of the king said the king had only consecrated the beer to Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
by making the sign of Mjolnir over it. After this incident the king lost many of his supporters. The following year the king was forced to take part in a pagan feast in Trøndelag
Trøndelag
Trøndelag is the name of a geographical region in the central part of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag. The region is, together with Møre og Romsdal, part of a larger...
where he had to eat the sacrificial meat and was forbidden to bless his beer with the sign of the cross. This account is often used as evidence of the ruler's role as a cultic leader. However, it is an important point that medieval sources have to be understood according to the environment they were written in. For instance Margaret Clunies Ross
Margaret Clunies Ross
Margaret Clunies Ross is the McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney. Her main research areas are Old Norse-Icelandic Studies and the history of their study. Since 1997 she has led the project...
has pointed out that the descriptions of rituals appearing in the sagas are recycled in a historicised context and may not reflect practice in pre-Christian times. This can be seen by their often being explained in the texts rather than just described. From this she deduces that the readers were not expected to have direct knowledge of pagan rituals. They are also explained in terms of Christian practice; for example a hlautteinn used for sprinkling participants in a blót being described as "like an aspergillum
Aspergillum
An aspergillum is a liturgical implement used to sprinkle holy water. It comes in two common forms: a brush that is dipped in the water and shaken, and a perforated ball at the end of a short handle...
".
Literature
- Andrén, Anders (1991); Förhållandet mellam texter, bilder och ting, in Steinsland et al. (ed.) Nordisk hedendom ISBN 87-7492-773-6
- Brink, Stefan (1999); "Fornskandinavisk religion – förhistoriska samhälle", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (ed.) Religion och samhälle i det förkristna Norden. ISBN 87-7838-458-3
- Bæksted, Anders (1994); Nordiske guder og helte, (2nd ed.) ISBN 87-567-4717-9
- Clunies Ross, MargaretMargaret Clunies RossMargaret Clunies Ross is the McCaughey Professor of English Language and Early English Literature and Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney. Her main research areas are Old Norse-Icelandic Studies and the history of their study. Since 1997 she has led the project...
(1994); Prolonged echoes, vol 1. ISBN 87-7838-088-1 - Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole (2005); "Skibet i kulten", in Capelle et al. Ragnarok
- Ellis Davidson, Hilda R. (1990); Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (1st ed. 1964) ISBN 0-14-013627-4
- Grambo, Ronald (1991); "Problemer knyttet til studiet af seid", in Steinsland et al. (ed.); Nordisk hedendom ISBN 87-7492-773-6
- Gräslund, Anne-Sofie (1999); "Gamla Uppsala ställning i den förkristna kulten", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (ed.); Religion och samhälle i det förkristna Norden. ISBN 87-7838-458-3
- Hansen, Lars Ivar (1999); "Politiske og religiøsa sentre i Nord-Norge", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (red.); Religion och samhälle i det förkristna Norden. ISBN 87-7838-458-3
- Hoftun, Oddgeir (2001); Norrön tro og kult ifölge arkeologiske og skriftlige kilder, Oslo. ISBN 82-560-1281-1
- Hoftun, Oddgeir (2004); Menneskers og makters egenart og samspill i norrön mytologi, Oslo. ISBN 82-560-1451-2
- Hoftun, Oddgeir (2008); Kristningsprosessens og herskermaktens ikonografi i nordisk middelalder, Oslo. ISBN 978-82-560-1619-8
- Holmberg, Bente (1991); "Om sakrale sted- og personnavne", in Steinsland et al. (ed.); Nordisk hedendom ISBN 87-7492-773-6
- Hyenstrand, Åka (1999); "Teofora ortnanm och förkristna organisation", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (ed.); Religion och samhälle i det förkristna Norden. ISBN 87-7838-458-3
- Lagerlöf, Agneta (1991); "Gravskicksförändringar = religiösa förändringar = samhällsförändringar?" in Steinsland et al. (ed.); Nordisk hedendom ISBN 87-7492-773-6
- Jørgensen, Lars (2005); "Hov og hørg ved Tissø", in Capelle et al. Ragnarok
- Näsström, Britt-Mari; "Blóta, sóa och senda. Om offer i fornskandinavisk religion", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (ed.); Religion och samhälle i det förkristna Norden. ISBN 87-7838-458-3
- Roesdahl, Else (1998); Vikingernes verden 6th ed. ISBN 87-00-35666-2
- Sigurdsson; Jón Vidar (1994); "Forholdet mellem verdslig og religiøs magt på Island i fristatsperioden", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (ed.); Myte og ritual i det før-kristne Norden. ISBN 87-7838-053-7
- Steinsland, GroGro SteinslandGro Steinsland is a Norwegian scholar of medieval studies and history of religion and since August 2009 has been the Scientific Director of the Centre for Advanced Study of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters....
(2005); Norrøn religion. ISBN 82-530-2607-2 - Stokkelund, Marie (1994); "Myter, runer og tolkning", in Schjødt, Jens Peter (ed.); Myte og ritual i det før-kristne Norden. ISBN 87-7838-053-7