What is Old Norse Religion?

Where the recent release of video games like God of War Ragnarok or the popularity of TV series like Vikings, the culture and mythology of pre-Christian Scandinavia has once again become quite a hot topic of interest for a lot of people. And this is of course totally understandable because this is a fascinating world of different Gods, creatures, heroes, and stories about all these characters that have crept into popular culture during the last couple of years.

But what do we actually know about the religion, or perhaps religions, of the ancient Nordic peoples based on archaeology and actual scholarship? How much of what we see in movies or games is actually accurate? And how did the actual people who lived in this culture and in this region at that time conceive of and practice their religion?

Today, we're going to focus on the incredibly fascinating topic of Old Norse religion.

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When I say Nordic religion, I'm of course referring to something rather specific because religion in Scandinavia today is a very varied category. There are various different religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, all kinds of religions exist in the Nordic countries. And so, when we say Nordic religions, or at least when I say it in this context, I'm of course talking about the religion that existed in this region primarily before the arrival, or at least the dominance, of Christianity. You know, the religion with characters like Odin and Thor and the big snake and Yggdrasil.

Now, obviously, when we're dealing with an entire religious tradition, or maybe even traditions in this case, that existed for many centuries and obviously also changed across those centuries from time and from in different places, also, it's impossible to cover properly or to cover it with a single coherent narrative, so to say. We will have to focus in on specific things. But as always, the strategy in this episode is to give a very general overview of this religious and cultural tradition, and then hopefully, we can dive deeper into specific topics in later episodes.

The Norse peoples believed in a multitude of different gods and superhuman beings. It was, in other words, what we often call a polytheistic religion. The different gods and their family lines were often conceived of in very human ways. They had personalities, they could act in questionable ways, they fight, they fall in love, they have sex, they get cheated on, etc. In other words, their idea of gods appears similar to other ancient polytheistic religions, such as that in ancient Greece or perhaps ancient Egypt, and so on.

And indeed, the religious cults and many of the myths in the Nordic countries are part of a wider Indo-European heritage. There are often direct connections between myths and deities in the Nordic countries and other places, from the neighboring Germanic peoples all the way to Greece, Persia, and even India. This can be seen, for example, in the names of the gods. The Greek name for God or deity, *theos*, is directly connected to the name of the highest God in that Pantheon, the Greek Pantheon, Zeus. Or Jupiter in Roman religion. This word becomes *deus* in Latin. It is connected with the Sanskrit term for the gods, *devas*, etc. And the Norse god Tyr derives etymologically directly from that word, thus sharing origins with Zeus, even though Tyr plays a much different role in the Norse Pantheon than Zeus does in the Greek one.

In any case, the gods played a central role in the daily lives and societal structure for the ancient Norse peoples. The world was filled with supernatural creatures, not just gods, but giants, elves, *wetter*, and much else, and all with their special place in the cosmology, a cosmos that should be kept in its proper order.

The gods were a powerful group of beings and existed in different lines and different kinds. There was the Æsir, which included most of the gods that we know, such as Odin, Thor, and Baldr. But there was also another race of gods called the Vanir, which included figures like Freyr and Freyja. Sometimes all of the gods are referred to with the name Æsir, but in reality, they belong to either one of these two lines. These gods were powerful beings that, at least most of them, lived in Asgard. And the human beings who inhabited the realm of Midgard needed to make sure the gods were happy in order to keep the order and so that they could be protected.

For this reason, humans perform various rites, such as offerings, sacrifices, and other cultic practices, as a form of worship and exchange. In turn, the gods had to protect themselves, as well as human beings, sometimes from the inhabitants of Utgard, sometimes Jötunheimr, which included the arch-enemies of the gods, the Jötnar, or giants. We will dive deeper into the actual cosmology and mythology of this system later on, but this is the general outline, one that, of course, reminds us a lot about other polytheistic religions from different parts of the world.

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But how do we know what we know about ancient Norse religion? What are the sources from which scholars draw all this information? Well, this is, as always, a rather complicated question, but also one that is, of course, very important and central. There are a few key sources that scholars look to.

First of all, there is the archaeological findings. So, this would be places or objects that have survived from that period. This could be things like gravesites, or maybe a statue, or cultic objects that would have been used, and which can give us clues as to how this religion, or these religions, were actually practiced back then.

And then, of course, there are runestones, or runic inscriptions, like this one here. This is the Ysberga stone, or Ys in Western Sweden. It's from the 6th century, which means it's one of the earliest examples of one of the earliest surviving runestones in all of Sweden, which can be seen, for example, by the fact that the script used here, the runes, are actually the so-called Elder Futhark, so the older script before this large linguistic and cultural shift took place in the 6th-7th century. This is a really fascinating stone. The runes themselves, scholars know basically what it says, but they disagree on some some details and some some implications. To what I said, essentially, it's just a guy saying something like, "This is my name. This is what I'm called, and I have written these runes." So he might have been some sort of runic expert or ritual expert of some sort. We we aren't sure, of course. I think Jackson Crawford has made an excellent video. He was here, I think, last year, made a video about this very stone. So if you want more details about this runestone in particular, you can probably check his video.

Just like this one, runic inscriptions are usually rather short, but, in my opinion at least, aesthetically pretty beautiful. And short as they may be, they often also include important clues, important details about the gods, the myths, even historical events. And sometimes the runes will have images in them, like actual images. This one doesn't. It's a very simple one with simply with a Futhark script. But some of them will include images. So runes are also a very important source for, or source of information for, ancient Norse religion and culture.

Thirdly, there are place names. So, there are certain places in Scandinavia and Sweden that are named after the gods, like Óðins plan in Stockholm, for example, or words that have names that have these words as suffixes, like, like *hófr* or *lundr*, *vé*, that are words that indicate that these places may have been used for ritual or cultic practices in history.

And then, of course, there are the literary sources. So, this would be poems, stories, and sagas that would have been told, recited, basically during special occasions in ancient times or in medieval times, and then they would have been written down much later, usually in the Middle Ages. And the most famous and widely considered of these sources are the so-called Eddas. And there are two kinds of Edda, essentially.

First, there is the Poetic Edda, also known as the Elder Edda. And this is a collection of poems, essentially, from different time periods and different places. And the only reason why we consider it a, what we consider a sort of a whole, a single work, is because we find these poems, basically most of them, at least, in a single manuscript, what is called the Codex Regius, which was compiled around the 13th century. And again, these stories, or the poems, include a lot of the most famous stories and sagas about the heroes, the gods, you know, Ragnarök, the creation of the world, all these stories that we know and love are included in a lot of these poems. The dating of the poems is uncertain. Some of them may have been written or composed, or at least edited, in post-Christian times and would have been maybe influenced by things like Christian theology, whereas others probably date from much earlier, maybe as early as the 8th century, or maybe even earlier than that. So that's the Poetic Edda.

Then, secondly, there is the Prose Edda, also known as Snorri's Edda. And it's called this because it was essentially written by the 13th-century Icelandic Christian monk, Snorri Sturluson, in Swedish. He would have written this work sometime around 1220, or at least in the early to mid-13th century. And it's essentially this work is intended to show students how to write skaldic poetry. But in the process, Snorri actually includes a lot of important stories and myths from the Norse tradition, which makes this a very important source.

There is also a more advanced form of poetry known as skaldic poetry, which was composed by poets called skalds. And this is often considered a very high literary and aesthetic achievement, at least compared to the others. So these poems are very beautiful, a lot more advanced in that sense. But there, there's no collection, in the sense of the Poetic Edda, for instance, of these skaldic poetry. So these poems are scattered all over different places and from different times. But still, another important source, as well as many other famous sagas, like the Völsunga Saga, the Song of the Völsungs, for instance. So all of these kind of stories and sagas and poems are important literary sources that we use to to get some idea of the culture and religion of the ancient Norse.

But then there are also, of course, certain outside sources. So, we can consult sources like Roman writers that would have described the culture and religion of the Germanic peoples. There are stories by Christian missionaries that would have been sent into Northern Europe to spread Christianity, and they also tell us a lot about the culture that they encountered. And there is also the accounts of the famous Arab traveler, Ibn Fadlan. Now, these sources, of course, need to be viewed critically to some degree and approached carefully because of the inherent bias that they probably contain, because they're written by, again, by outsiders, by people who were often also critical of this religion or this culture. But still, they can be consulted, as long as we do it scientifically and with a critical, sort of historical critical mind. Those are also some important sources.

Almost all of these sources, with the exception of a few runic inscriptions, are from the period after a major cultural and linguistic shift that occurred around the 6th century, when the language of Scandinavia saw major changes, and the religious cult seems to become more influenced by the Germanic neighbors in the south. Any information about the religious tradition before the 6th century is therefore even harder to say anything about with certainty, except for a few educated guesses. So, what we can and will focus on in this episode is therefore religion as it was practiced during what is known as the Viking Age. So this is between the 8th century to the 11th, 12th century, roughly, basically.

So, based on all of these sources that I have just described to you, what do we actually know about religion in ancient Scandinavia?

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We have already covered some of the basics. It was a polytheistic religion, full of many gods, deities, and other superhuman creatures, and a mythology packed with fascinating stories about giant snakes, giants, the end of the world, drinking parties, and much else. Needless to say, the ancient Nordic people lived a life that was totally infused with this religious tradition. The gods were very real forces in people's lives, however they may have interpreted them, and there was an order to existence in which gods and humans figured that needed to be kept in order through ritual practices.

Now, as we've talked about in earlier episodes, we have to approach myths and mythology from the proper perspective. Today, in our culture, so influenced by the Abrahamic religions, we're used to there being a single, definite version of events when it comes to the origin of the world or in different sacred myths. This is not the case for most of the ancient mythologies. Myths are stories that are always changing and being altered based on the context. Many different versions of a story that still convey the same truth or message.

So, when we look at our sources for Norse mythology, we aren't surprised to see a huge diversity. To some extent, we can't even really consider the ancient Norse religion to be a "religion" at all, if by that we mean a sort of unified whole with certain characteristics, a model for religion that we are used to from the Abrahamic framework. Instead, it's all more of an interconnected web of religious phenomena that could look very different from place to place, from community to community, and in different times. Different people conceptualized and performed their religious beliefs and practices in different and diverse ways. There are many different versions and conflicting accounts when it comes to mythology, for example, which makes it hard to paint a complete or systematic picture. We can look at the main sources we have, such as the Poetic Edda, and base our generalizing discussion on that, but we must be aware that this is an incomplete picture, and there are many more variations on any given subject.

The ancient Norse people saw themselves as living in a reality made up of different worlds or homes. At the very center of the world is Asgard, the home of the gods, or at least the Æsir gods. And at the very center of Asgard, therefore, at the very, very center of the cosmos, is the giant tree known as Yggdrasil. This is perhaps the most common symbol for Norse religion as a whole. This tree kind of represents the tree of life. It's a kind of axis around which the world turns and from which everything happens. Since it is the gods in Asgard that, in a way, create the world tree. Symbolism is very common in religions around the world as it's a kind of axis mundi, or center point of the world, and as representing life itself. And Norse mythology is no different.

Yggdrasil takes nourishment from the wells at its roots, where we also find the mythical figures called the Norns. Three of which are named Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld, which makes sure that the tree is nourished and also is responsible for weaving the threads of fate, thus representing the life threads or fates of human beings and the world. The tree then takes that nourishment and spreads it to the world as its branches stretch far and wide. It's a profound image, in any case.

Outside of Asgard, that central world of the gods, we have the world where humans live, which is called Midgard. As the name suggests, this is a world in the middle, between Asgard and the world or worlds outside. You can kind of imagine this world as concentric circles with Asgard at its center, outside of which is Midgard, where humans live. And outside of Midgard is a place with more obscure names, one of which is Utgard, which literally means something like "the outside world" or "outside place." This is where all the other forces and beings live, forces that often oppose the gods in Asgard, especially the gods' arch-enemies, the Jötnar, or giants. Thus, Utgard is sometimes used synonymously with the word Jötunheimr, the home of the giants, but at other times it seems that Jötunheimr is simply a part of the larger category of Utgard. In this picture, the world we live in, Midgard, kind of stands between the gods in Asgard and their enemies on the other side, which become significant, of course, for our role in the cosmos.

This is a very general outline, but there is also often talk about the Nine Worlds, Asgard and Midgard being only two of these nine. Indeed, in the Völuspá, the first poem in the Poetic Edda and one of the most famous Norse texts, which recounts the whole history of the cosmos from creation to its end in Ragnarök, the Völva, or seer, describes it thus, using the translation of my YouTube colleague and scholar Jackson Crawford: "I remember the giants born so long ago in those ancient days. They raised me. I remember nine worlds, nine giantesses, and the seed from which Yggdrasil sprang." We don't get much more than that about these worlds, so this is somewhat of an obscure topic. But some scholars have suggested identifications for them based on mentions in other sources. If you've played God of War, for example, these will sound familiar to you. They are Asgard and Midgard, of course, Vanaheimr, the home of the Vanir group of gods, Álfheimr, the home of the elves, Jötunheimr, where the giants live, Múspellsheimr, which is a realm of fire, Svartálfaheimr, the home of the black elves, Niflheimr, a cold and dark place, sometimes identified with Hel, the realm of the dead, and then Valhalla, which is the home of the dwarves. Again, the relationship of these worlds and their place, etc., is often uncertain, but their names already give you an indication of the kinds of beings that occupy the Norse mythology aside from humans and gods: there are elves, giants, dwarves, and much else.

So, this is now quite a complex cosmology. The world has Yggdrasil and Asgard at its center, from which it springs outward into the different worlds. And at the very end of the world, in the farthest reaches of Utgard, there's the absolutely giant snake, or Midgard Serpent, that encircles the whole world and keeps it together. If this snake, who is actually a child of Loki and Angrboða, would die or be disturbed, the whole world would fall apart. The snake, in its ouroboros form, biting its own tail, which represents things like eternity, is central to Norse cosmology, as he's responsible for holding the whole cosmos together and will play an important role in Ragnarök as well.

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And that's another thing that is so fascinating about Norse mythology: that the whole history of the world, basically, is already mapped out, and we can find this in the sources, from the birth of the universe and the gods themselves, all the way to the end. It's a kind of inevitable cycle that is going to happen. Ragnarök is coming, and the gods need to prepare.

But let's back up a bit first. Where does all this begin? At the beginning of everything, before there was a world, or any gods, or really anything, there was a primordial void or chaotic state called Ginnungagap. From this void, there appeared two beings: a giant primeval being called Ymir, and the primeval cow, Auðumbla. Now, a few things happen next. From Ymir's body, there are born other beings, namely the first giants. Ymir is, in other words, the ancestor to all the giants. Meanwhile, Auðumbla starts licking the salt from rocks until it appears the head of a man. This was Búri, and the start of another line of beings. In turn, Búri then somehow has a son called Bor. Eventually, Bor and one of the offspring of Ymir, Bestla, get it on, so they say, and they have children, three of them, in fact, called Óðinn, Vili, and Vé. The first gods.

So, already from this beginning, we have two lines of beings: the giants and the gods. But at the same time, the gods are also created as offsprings of both Ymir and Auðumbla. So it's a little confusing, but these two lines of beings have always existed since this beginning, and they've basically always been fighting. In any case, the three god brothers eventually rebel and decide to kill Ymir, and from his body, they create the world as we know it. His legs are mountains, his blood becomes the waters, his flesh becomes the earth, etc. Not only does this explain the cosmic origin of the great conflict between gods and giants, after all, the giants will forever be pretty pissed that Odin and his brothers killed their father, but it also connects with many other cosmic origin myths from around the world, from Tiamat in ancient Mesopotamia to India and even in Egyptian mythology, we find the idea that the world was fashioned from the body of some divine or primordial being.

So, this is basically the origin of the world and of the gods. They are creations and offspring of Odin and his brothers. And so, at this point, the gods will want to settle down in Asgard and just enjoy their time, right? But unfortunately, something goes away. When suddenly there appears three female giants that really throws the gods for a loop. Now, this account, which is from the Völuspá, is really mysterious and strange, and it's hard to interpret. But what is clear is that with the appearance of these three female giants, the gods are really thrown for a loop. They have, there's a war that happens suddenly.

Now, because of this war between the gods and the giants, the gods are forced to create new beings to help them in this fight against their enemies. So they create the dwarves, for example. And there's a long line of dwarf figures in the Völuspá. The dwarves are basically created as beings that build weapons, that create weapons for the gods to fight. And then, of course, it is at this point that the gods also create the human being to be an aid, basically, to be of help to the gods.

The story of the creation of the human being differs in our different sources. In the Völuspá, it seems to imply that the human being was created by the dwarves, at least the human form was created by the dwarves and with earth. And then the gods blew spirits into the human, basically. In Snorri's Prose Edda, however, we are told that the gods created human beings from two tree trunks. Whatever the case, both of these stories agree that it was three gods that were responsible for the creation of the human being. Odin is always involved, no matter which story, but the other characters differ. So, in Snorri's account, it is Odin and his two brothers, who we met earlier, Vili and Vé. Whereas in the Völuspá, it is two other gods, so it's Odin, Hönir, and Lóðr.

In both stories, there are also two original human beings: Ask and Embla. And both of these names seem to refer etymologically to trees, again going back to the tree metaphor, somehow that human beings came from trees, were connected to trees in some way. The name Ask is, in fact, the name of a particular tree. Unfortunately, this is not an Ask, but the Ask tree is very important in Norse mythology because indeed, the tree Yggdrasil in the middle of Asgard is one such tree, but it's a very big Ask tree. This etymology is indeed interesting because it might, if we could speculate a little bit, it might at least refer to some kind of connection between Yggdrasil, the large Ask tree, as the sort of axis mundi of the universe, and the human being as some sort of, maybe there's some kind of microcosm-macrocosm situation going on here. Since the first human being, at least the male version, is called Ask, and that is also the name for the Ask tree that we find in the middle of Asgard, that sort of stretches the branches across the whole world, and it's really responsible for the maintenance of the world in many ways. It is the place that the entire world revolves around, and this is the kind of tree that is here is reflected in the name of the first human being. This is a really interesting connection, I think.

In the Völuspá, the event is described thus: "Three Gods, powerful and passionate, left Asgard for Midgard. They have found Ask and Embla, weak, fated in that land. They had no breath, no soul, no hair, no voice. They looked inhuman. Odin gave them breath, Hönir gave them souls, Lóðr gave them hair and human faces."

At this point, we've kind of reached the world as it stands today. And the Eddas and all the other sources we have contain many, many stories about these gods and humans and the relationships between them, way too many stories to go through in a short episode like this, of course. But as we said earlier, the mythology of the ancient Nordic peoples also included a vision of the inevitable future. Because indeed, the gods and all other beings have to prepare for a cataclysmic event called Ragnarök that is coming in the future. This event will be inaugurated by the death of Odin's favorite son, Baldr, at the hands of Loki, who is Odin's adoptive brother. And this will set in motion a chain of events that will culminate in what is known as Ragnarök, where the giants, led by Loki, and the Midgard Serpent, and Fenrir, who is this giant wolf creature, will engage in a cataclysmic war where the gods, where everyone will basically kill everyone. Odin will be swallowed by Fenrir, but then avenged by his son. Thor is going to battle the Midgard Serpent, and both are going to kill each other, basically. No one survives this event, and it throws the world into complete destruction.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, because the Völuspá also hints that after Ragnarök, there will be a kind of renewal, right? A new world is going to rise from the ashes of the old one. The Völva says: "I see the Earth rise a second time from out of the sea, green once more. Waterfalls flow, and eagles fly overhead, hunting for fish among the mountain peaks. The Æsir meet on Iðavöllr and regard the bones of the Midgard Serpent, and there they recall the great events of Ragnarök and Odin's old wisdom." The poem, which recounts a story spanning from the creation of the gods and the universe to its end and rebirth, and where the haunting words: "I see a hall standing there, more beautiful than sunlight, thatched with gold. At Gimlé, the bold men will dwell and enjoy cheer throughout their lives. Then the dark dragon will come flying down from the dark mountains. That glistening serpent, Níðhöggr, will bear corpses in his wings as he flies over that valley."

Now, I must retire. This is just a general account of some of the most popular and commonly retold aspects of the Norse mythological accounts. And in this world, there were many, many different gods that humans turned to to worship in different ways. The humans saw themselves as living in this world, a world full of different, again, gods and giants and large snakes and all kinds of creatures that were very much real to them and which shaped their lives in many ways. All of these myths and these stories and these characters were very real and prominent aspects of people's lives in the Nordic countries at this time, and life was, in many ways, characterized by this constant relationship with these gods and other forces in the universe.

Now, as we've said in previous episodes about basically any religion that isn't the big Abrahamic ones, it's important to keep in mind that myths and beliefs aren't necessarily as important as we may assume. To think that religion is primarily about what someone believes is a very Christian, and even Protestant Christian, way of looking at the subject. To the ancient Norse peoples, just like in many other traditions in the world, the stories and myths and what they believed, so to say, wasn't the central aspect of religion at all. There was no creed to believe in, no dogma, and no rites that were seen as "orthodox." And these things were very fluid and diverse, as we saw before.

Often, when we talk about these topics, we sometimes divide religions into religions of orthodoxy, or "right belief," literally, and orthopraxy, "right practice." And if we were to categorize Norse religion, ancient Norse religion, into one of these two, they would definitely fall into the latter, into orthopraxy. Because when it comes to the religion of these people, it was much more about what you did rather than what you believed. Believing in the myths or the stories or in the gods, it wasn't so much about the belief that was an aspect of it, of course, but it was much more about what you did, your relationship to the gods, the offerings you made to them, the rituals you performed.

This becomes perhaps most clear when we realize that there wasn't any equivalent word to our "religion" in the language of the ancient Scandinavians. The closest equivalent we have is the word *sætr*, which means something close to a custom, or perhaps, well, I think "custom" is a pretty good translation of it. And later, in later Christian times, it would also be referred to as *funn*, which means basically "old custom." And what's so important about this word, or the connotation of that word, is that it's very practical in nature, right? Custom means something that you do, something that you did. So this is very, very different from how we maybe conceive of religion, especially in a Christian or Protestant context, where religion is very much about belief or faith.

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So, what did they actually do then? Well, the relationship with the gods and other forces were maintained through things like offerings and various kinds of invocations. The cult was performed on a public and private level, but often took similar forms. Society in ancient Scandinavia and during the Viking Age was strongly family-based. Life was centered on the homestead, a plot of land where a family would live together, at least if they were wealthy enough. And within a family, there would be religious practices performed. As is usually the case, the different important life events were accompanied by rituals and customs. Birth, for example, involved different processes in which one sought help from higher powers like Freyja, who was the goddess associated with fertility, among other things. Similar proceedings took place in connection with weddings, as well as the death of a person.

Upon death, a person would be buried, often along with important belongings and objects, in a grave close to the homestead. In this way, the dead, even though they were not physically present, still played a role in the life of the family. Indeed, there seems to have been a pretty strong custom of ancestor worship. Families would make offerings at the gravesite of ancestors, give them food, or pour beer or ale over the grave. The dead were thus not completely annihilated, but lived on in some kind of afterlife, and the family maintained a relationship with the deceased in this way.

As for where the dead would go after the demise of the body, there are many different accounts and versions. The most famous afterlife concept is probably that of Hel, ruled over by the goddess of the same name. This was a kind of shadowy realm where the souls of the deceased would live after death, and it doesn't sound all that exciting. It's pretty similar to the Jewish concept of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible, or Aralu in ancient Mesopotamia.

Another famous place that dead people could go is Valhalla. This was the home of Odin, in particular, and associated with warfare and warriors. It was soldiers or people who died in combat that ended up here, in particular, and would continue to serve that role as soldiers fighting for Odin and the gods in Ragnarök. But there are also other possible kinds of afterlife in this culture, such as Helgafell, a beautiful mountain, you could go to the ocean with the goddess Rán, and even some sort of realm ruled over by Freyja. This is a good example to show the diversity and complex way that religions lack this function. There could exist various different ideas about something like the afterlife at the same time, without that being necessarily a problem. There was no dogma in that sense. Then people conceptualized of things in different ways.

In any case, the homestead and family home also included other kinds of rituals. Some of them included the gods that we know and love. For example, there seems to have been different practices that we could refer to as "magic." When a woman was to give birth, a ritual expert might perform some sort of magical spell of protection, which could, of course, involve the gods. There were different forms of divination, where sacred sticks would be thrown in the air, and then the placement in which they landed would be interpreted to foretell future events, and much else.

Just like in so many other cultures, protective amulets were used by everyday people. These could involve runes, which was the kind of writing used by these people that we've seen, but was also thought to contain certain magical powers. Another common amulet, it seems, was to wear a miniature version of Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, around your neck, which would presumably invoke the protection of the god Thor.

Different gods were, of course, associated with different things and so would be invoked for different purposes. Odin is obviously one of the most central gods and indeed often seen as the most powerful or the sort of leader of the gods. We saw in the creation account that he is one of the original ancestors of all the gods, and he does have a kind of leader position in the mythology. He's a very versatile god, associated with many different things, called by many names, and going under different disguises. Odin often visits humans without them realizing it. He visits them in disguise. Even in the Eddas, he is called by different names, which can get pretty confusing for those not familiar with the mythology and all these different names and traditions. But in his most "original" or "true" form, he is often depicted with only one eye, with his two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, and has a famous eight-legged horse named Sleipnir.

Odin is the god of warfare, and offerings to him would be made before battles, for example. But he's also the god of poetry, the god of *seiðr*, something close to shamanic practice, and the god of wisdom, specifically the mystical wisdom associated with death and runes. In fact, there is a very famous account in the Hávamál, one of the stories in the Poetic Edda, where Odin hangs himself on the world tree, thus being able to acquire the mystical knowledge of death and learn the secrets of the runes. A very fascinating god with many sides.

But while Odin is obviously a very important god, it seems to many scholars that he probably wasn't as popularly worshiped as you might expect. Indeed, while Odin seems to have been popular among the elites and specific groups like warriors or poets, to most "regular" people, other gods were more popular, such as Thor, Freyr, and Freyja.

Thor is Odin's son and a god of great strength. He's associated with thunder and has the role of upholding the order of the world, together with his famous hammer, Mjölnir. He often battles giants and other enemies to keep the world in order. He even has a few run-ins with the Midgard Serpent, like in the famous and quite comical scene where he accidentally catches the giant snake while out fishing one time. His companion then has to keep him from fighting and killing the serpent, which would make the world fall apart, and what really does kind of go against his whole purpose as the god of keeping the world together. Thor was a very popular god, and we have many figurines and other references to him across Scandinavia. As we saw, it was also popular among people to carry his hammer around their neck as a kind of amulet.

There are also the gods Freyr and Freyja, brother and sister, who are associated with similar themes and belong to that other group of gods, the Vanir. Freyr is a god of harvest, agriculture, and fertility, often invoked in contexts where those themes are relevant, like in springtime, for instance. His association with fertility can be seen from his depiction, often including an erect penis.

Freyja, likewise, is one of the most interesting of the goddesses. She might have very old origins in the religious traditions of Scandinavia, maybe even older than the other Indo-European deities. Like her brother, she's a goddess of fertility, a goddess of sex, love, and eroticism. But she's also more versatile than that. Similar to Odin, she's the goddess of *seiðr*, a kind of mystical practice that was usually performed and associated with women in particular. She's also a goddess of death and rules over one kind of afterlife that we mentioned earlier. The famous mythological stories frequently involve Freyja, thus perhaps the most central and popular of the goddesses in Norse mythology.

There are many other gods or divinities that we could talk about, but these are some of the most prominent and popular ones. We can explore the pantheon more in detail in future episodes.

But while the gods were obviously very important and played a major role in the private sphere, the other forces in the universe also played a major role. Indeed, the scholar Grønvik argues that in the private sphere of the homestead, rituals involving other collective forces, like elves, for instance, were a lot more prominent than those involving the actual gods, the latter of whom played a bigger role in the public cult, which we will get to soon.

For example, there was a collective group of beings called the *vættr*, which were supernatural spirits or creatures that lived and protected the land in particular. The *landvættir* were thought to be guardian creatures of a particular location. Any place had a number of *vættr* that looked after it. They could reside in waters, creeks, rocks, or caves, and it was the responsibility of people to keep the *vættr* happy, to stay on good terms with them, and to respect them. Thus, many sources tell us of how female members of the family would leave offerings of food and drink to the *vættr*, a practice that seems to have survived long after Christianization. If the people who resided in a particular location kept the *vættr* happy, that would also benefit them in different ways, perhaps their crops would be fruitful, for example. But if you got on the *vættr*'s bad side, maybe your crops would not be so happy. So the private sphere was filled with religious rituals.

But what about the public? How did society come together to maintain their relationship with the gods?

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The most central and important ritual was probably the *blót*. Now, this was essentially a ritual sacrifice where the community would come together at set times of the year and make offerings to the gods. There were three major *blót* festivals of the year. There was one in springtime, which would basically celebrate the coming of the summer months and the sort of transition between winter and summer. And in this ritual, Odin was the main god, because summer meant more seafaring and more wars, and Odin was particularly good at helping you with those kinds of things.

There was also a *blót* in the fall, which had the opposite function of basically giving Thanksgiving for the summer harvests and then all the things that they had received, and preparing for the darker winter months. And this *blót* was more so associated with the god Freyr, who is, as we said, the god of harvest and fertility.

And then, thirdly, was the midwinter *blót*, probably in connection to the solstice, which was also called by the name Yule. And this is, of course, really interesting because there might be certain aspects of this ritual, this tradition, that sort of carried over into the modern, particularly Nordic, ways of celebrating Christmas. Indeed, the very name for Christmas in Swedish today, for example, is still *jul*. And even certain practices like eating Christmas ham, which is a prominent aspect of Christmas here, might also stem back to pre-Christian times, because the pig was associated with the god Freyr, and eating the pig or eating pork might have been an aspect of this older Yule or winter *blót* festival. So there's some really interesting connections there.

Now, the word *blót*, or *blóta* which is the verb, the verbal form of the word, essentially means to sacrifice, but also with connotations of strengthening, to strengthen. And this is precisely what this ritual was. It was a way of offering to and sacrificing to the gods in order to strengthen them, and also to strengthen the relationship between the gods and humans. And this could be done in different ways. One could make offerings of food and drink, simply. But more often, it was done through animal sacrifice. Today, animal sacrifice in sort of neo-pagan movements isn't the thing, so they will offer food and drinks. But back then, animal sacrifice was probably the main aspect of this ritual. And so animals like horses and sheep and goats, perhaps, would be sacrificed, and then their blood would be gathered, and they would dip the twigs, so they would have twigs, and they would dip them, and then spray the blood on the images or the statues of the gods.

This was, of course, a communal ritual, where the community would come together to make offerings to the gods. And while the blood was offered directly to the gods in such a way, the meat of the animals were then cooked and shared in this great feast. So the meat wasn't wasted, obviously. And this great feast served both, of course, to strengthen the relationship within the community, but also the relationship between the community and the gods.

So, this basically, different forms of offerings and sacrifice was the main form of religious practice for the ancient Norse. The public cult seems to have been more so focused on animal sacrifice, whereas the private sphere in the home, this wouldn't have been as, this would have been pretty costly to offer your animals in the homestead. So in the private sphere, in the homestead, offerings would rather be through to food and drinks, and not usually through animal sacrifice.

Scholars even argue that there may have been in certain forms of human sacrifice performed in ancient Scandinavia. This seems to have been rather uncommon in the Viking Age, but more common in the periods before that. But even then, we of course have to be very careful in accepting such claims, because most of our sources come from later periods, written by Christians and other people who are often critical and want to portray these sort of pagan religion in the worst of lights. But still, it seems that human sacrifice may have been a thing, at least at some point, in some periods, in ancient Scandinavia.

Whatever the case, these forms of offerings and sacrifices was the main religious practice for the ancient Norse, and is, of course, a practice that reminds us of many other polytheistic religions. By offering to the gods and strengthening them, maintaining a good relationship between the community and the Æsir, as well as a good balance in social life in general, one could create or achieve a state of *frið*, peace, both literally, but also more in the sense of maintaining social and cosmic order, perhaps similar to concepts like Dharma in Vedic traditions, or Asha in Zoroastrianism.

But where would these rituals take place, you might ask? Well, technically, a *blót* could be performed anywhere, perhaps here, for instance, in the hills of Uppsala. But usually, a ritual would be in some sort of sacred place or in some location associated with the gods. We have mentions of places called *hörg*, the meaning of which is somewhat uncertain, but seems to refer to some kind of cultic place, perhaps referring to a heap of stones or a kind of altar where rituals would be performed. So when the community was to gather for a major *blót*, or indeed for lesser events too, they might gather at one of these.

But many scholars also believe that there were dedicated buildings that we could refer to as temples for the cults as well. There are references to buildings called *hǫf*, which might fit this description. But scholars disagree and debate on the actual role and nature of the so-called *hǫf*. It's possible that conceiving of such a place is more of an anachronistic way of finding an equivalent building to the Christian church, but it is also very possible that such buildings were in use, or at least that there was a kind of building called *hǫf*, and that rituals would sometimes take place there.

As usual, there were ritual cultic specialists that were responsible for leading the public cultic rituals. Of course, regular people had some sort of knowledge themselves and would be responsible for the cult at home, but when it came to the public rituals, they were dedicated personnel. There was a person referred to as the *þulr*, who seems to have been some kind of orator and wise sage, a specialist who knew all aspects of the cult and mythology. On a more practical level, we also had the *goði* or *gyðja*, representing the male and female form of the same title, respectively. And particularly in an Icelandic context, these were kind of the equivalent to priests in the ancient Norse religion.

They were responsible for leading the public rituals, such as the major bloats. It's also important to distinguish it from our conception of priest. Though these people were not exclusively dedicated to the cult, they weren't full-time priests, so to say. Instead, they were often also politicians or held other important roles in society, while simultaneously being ritual experts that led religious practices.

It should also be pointed out that religion had a strong connection to political power, as it often does. It was likely the king that had ultimate authority over the cult and made sure that all the rituals were performed. The king would also participate in rituals like the bloats, as well as we can see from many accounts at the time. There is, for example, the fascinating account of King Haakon the Good, who reluctantly participated in the blood festival, even though he himself had converted to Christianity, which makes for some really interesting and sometimes comical scenes.

We've also briefly mentioned the practice known as Seder, which is a fascinating one that often defies any clear explanation. This was a practice that existed somewhat on the margins of society and was associated primarily with a group of female practitioners known as Völvas, who would perform this ritual of Seder, in which they would induce altered states of consciousness in different ways in order to get an insight into the hidden aspects of reality. Often, they could travel to different realms or different dimensions in the form of an animal, while their sort of human body remained in place. Some would even call this a kind of mystical experience, where these Völvas would get an insight into past events and future events and could basically see or experience things beyond the regular human senses.

The Völvas were thus almost prophetic figures in this tradition, and it was indeed a Völva that tells the entire story of creation through to Ragnarök in the aforementioned Völuspá, which literally means something like "the prophecy of the Völva." This practice of Seder is primarily associated with figures like Odin and Freya, who is thought to be the originator of the practice. It is so interesting that it kind of deserves a dedicated episode on its own, where we can explore it more in depth, but it did serve as an important, albeit relatively marginal, part of pre-Christian religion in ancient Scandinavia.

So, as you can tell, religion in ancient Scandinavia, diverse as it may have been, was something that ran through basically every aspect of society, from the private rites of passage and offerings to gods and other beings performed by families in the homestead, to public rituals of sacrifice and feasts, the very political structure and authority of the king, to the very way that humans saw themselves and their place in the world and the cosmos. A world in which they stood in between Asgard, the realm of the gods, and Utgard, the realm of all the other forces. The world around them was filled with these forces and governed by them, which of course had a major impact on all aspects of life.

The stories about the gods and heroes that we find in the sources, like in the Eddas, are incredibly fascinating and entertaining, and to the people of pre-Christian Scandinavia, these stories were very central and significant, regardless of how they would have been interpreted. And while Christianity might have eventually become the dominant and official religion in this region in the first few centuries following the turn of the first Millennium, many aspects of this old custom lived on, some appropriated by the church and given new Christian clothing, others more perhaps on the sidelines.

Today, there's of course been a great resurgence in interest in and practice of ancient Norse religion, and it's given many different names, everything from Ásatrú to Norse Paganism and many other names, and it's all part of what is often referred to as the Neo-Pagan movement, where a lot of people are sort of rediscovering these sort of ancient religions and see them as alternatives to the more established religious institutions, such as Christianity. So, gods like Odin and Thor and Freya have once again become very important spiritual figures and symbols for many people, not just in Scandinavia but all around the world.

People once again gather to perform the blood ceremonies, even though the animal sacrifice part usually isn't included today, instead including other offerings such as food and drink. In fact, I have previously made a video where I visited a contemporary group of people practicing this religious tradition, which they refer to as Fólksvit, which basically means ancient custom. You can check out this documentary on the channel.

As I always say in these videos, this has obviously been a very brief and, to some degree, inadequate overview of this tradition, which is of course a lot more complex and vast than what I have been able to cover today. But like we said in the beginning, the strategy is that we now have a general overview of the basics of what this tradition is or was, at least from a certain perspective, and then we can spend later dedicated episodes diving into more specific topics related to everything that we've talked about today. So, if there was anything you heard today that you would like to know more about in particular, then of course please leave a comment and tell me so that we can get into some of those juicy details about all of this, because it's so, so fascinating.

But for now, thank you all for watching. I hope this has been an interesting and informative video. I hope the aesthetics of this video has been especially interesting compared to the way I usually shoot these videos. I thought because I actually live in this region of the culture that I talk about, I would take the opportunity to use the beautiful natural environment around me. So again, thank you all for watching, and I'll see you next time.

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