Old Norse religion
Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peoples. It was replaced by Christianity and forgotten during the Christianisation of Scandinavia. Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic Religion by historical linguistics, archaeology, toponymy, and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in the Younger Futhark, a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet. Numerous Old Norse works dated to the 13th-century record Norse mythology, a component of North Germanic religion.
"Norse religion" redirects here. For religions in present-day Norway, see Religion in Norway. For the country's national church, see Church of Norway. For the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, see Norse mythology. For the modern revival, see Heathenry (new religious movement).
Old Norse religion was polytheistic, entailing a belief in various gods and goddesses. These deities in Norse mythology were divided into two groups, the Æsir and the Vanir, who in some sources were said to have engaged in an ancient war until realizing that they were equally powerful. Among the most widespread deities were the gods Odin and Thor. This world was inhabited also by various other mythological races, including jötnar, dwarfs, elves, and land-wights. Norse cosmology revolved around a world tree known as Yggdrasil, with various realms existing alongside that of humans, named Midgard. These include multiple afterlife realms, several of which are controlled by a particular deity.
Transmitted through oral culture rather than through codified texts, Old Norse religion focused heavily on ritual practice, with kings and chiefs playing a central role in carrying out public acts of sacrifice. Various cultic spaces were used; initially, outdoor spaces such as groves and lakes were typically selected, but after the third century CE cult houses seem to also have been purposely built for ritual activity, although they were never widespread. Norse society also contained practitioners of Seiðr, a form of sorcery that some scholars describe as shamanistic. Various forms of burial were conducted, including both inhumation and cremation, typically accompanied by a variety of grave goods.
Throughout its history, varying levels of trans-cultural diffusion occurred among neighbouring peoples, such as the Sami and Finns. By the 12th century, Old Norse religion had been replaced by Christianity, with elements continuing into Scandinavian folklore. A revival of interest in Old Norse religion occurred amid the romanticist movement of the 19th century, during which it inspired a range of artworks. Academic research into the subject began in the early 19th century, initially influenced by the pervasive romanticist sentiment.
Historical development[edit]
Iron Age origins[edit]
Andrén described Old Norse religion as a "cultural patchwork" which emerged under a wide range of influences from earlier Scandinavian religions. It may have had links to Nordic Bronze Age: while the putatively solar-oriented belief system of Bronze Age Scandinavia is believed to have died out around 500 BCE, several Bronze Age motifs—such as the wheel cross—reappear in later Iron Age contexts.[10] It is often regarded as having developed from earlier religious belief systems found among the Germanic Iron Age peoples.[54] The Germanic languages likely emerged in the first millennium BCE in present-day Denmark or northern Germany, after which they spread; several of the deities in Old Norse religion have parallels among other Germanic societies.[55] The Scandinavian Iron Age began around 500 to 400 BCE.[56]
Archaeological evidence is particularly important for understanding these early periods.[57] Accounts from this time were produced by Tacitus; according to the scholar Gabriel Turville-Petre, Tacitus' observations "help to explain" later Old Norse religion.[58] Tacitus described the Germanic peoples as having priests, open-air sacred sites, and seasonal sacrifices and feasts.[59] Tacitus notes that the Germanic peoples were polytheistic and mentions some of their deities trying to perceive them through Roman equivalents, so Romans could try to understand.[60]
Mysticism, magic, animism and shamanism[edit]
The myth preserved in the Eddic poem "Hávamál" of Odin hanging for nine nights on Yggdrasill, sacrificing himself to secure knowledge of the runes and other wisdom in what resembles an initiatory rite,[231][232] is evidence of mysticism in Old Norse religion.[233]
The gods were associated with two distinct forms of magic. In "Hávamál" and elsewhere, Odin is particularly associated with the runes and with galdr.[234][235] Charms, often associated with the runes, were a central part of the treatment of disease in both humans and livestock in Old Norse society.[236] In contrast seiðr and the related spæ, which could involve both magic and divination,[237] were practised mostly by women, known as vǫlur and spæ-wives, often in a communal gathering at a client's request.[237] 9th- and 10th-century female graves containing iron staffs and grave goods have been identified on this basis as those of seiðr practitioners.[238] Seiðr was associated with the Vanic goddess Freyja; according to a euhemerized account in Ynglinga saga, she taught seiðr to the Æsir,[239] but it involved so much ergi ("unmanliness, effeminacy") that other than Odin himself, its use was reserved for priestesses.[240][241][242] There are, however, mentions of male seiðr workers, including elsewhere in Heimskringla, where they are condemned for their perversion.[243]
In Old Norse literature, practitioners of seiðr are sometimes described as foreigners, particularly Sami or Finns or in rarer cases from the British Isles.[244] Practitioners such as Þorbjörg Lítilvölva in the Saga of Erik the Red appealed to spirit helpers for assistance.[237] Many scholars have pointed to this and other similarities between what is reported of seiðr and spæ ceremonies and shamanism.[245] The historian of religion Dag Strömbäck regarded it as a borrowing from Sami or Balto-Finnic shamanic traditions,[246][247] but there are also differences from the recorded practices of Sami noaidi.[248] Since the 19th century, some scholars have sought to interpret other aspects of Old Norse religion itself by comparison with shamanism;[249] for example, Odin's self-sacrifice on the World Tree has been compared to Finno-Ugric shamanic practices.[250] However, the scholar Jan de Vries regarded seiðr as an indigenous shamanic development among the Norse,[251][252] and the applicability of shamanism as a framework for interpreting Old Norse practices, even seiðr, is disputed by some scholars.[199][253]
Priests and kings[edit]
There is no evidence of a professional priesthood among the Norse, and rather cultic activities were carried out by members of the community who also had other social functions and positions.[278] In Old Norse society, religious authority was harnessed to secular authority; there was no separation between economic, political, and symbolic institutions.[279] Both the Norwegian kings' sagas and Adam of Bremen's account claim that kings and chieftains played a prominent role in cultic sacrifices.[278] In medieval Iceland, the goði was a social role that combined religious, political, and judicial functions,[278] responsible for serving as a chieftain in the district, negotiating legal disputes, and maintaining order among his þingmenn.[280] Most evidence suggests that public cultic activity was largely the preserve of high-status males in Old Norse society.[281] However, there are exceptions. The Landnámabók refers to two women holding the position of gyðja, both of whom were members of local chiefly families.[280] In Ibn Fadlan's account of the Rus, he describes an elder woman known as the "Angel of Death" who oversaw a funerary ritual.[226]
Among scholars, there has been much debate as to whether sacral kingship was practised among Old Norse communities, in which the monarch was endowed with a divine status and thus responsible for ensuring that a community's needs were met through supernatural means.[282] Evidence for this has been cited from the Ynglingatal poem in which the Swedes kill their king, Domalde, following a famine.[283] However, interpretations of this event other than sacral kingship are possible; for instance, Domalde may have been killed in a political coup.[283]
Influence[edit]
Romanticism, aesthetics, and politics[edit]
During the romanticist movement of the 19th century, various northern Europeans took an increasing interest in Old Norse religion, seeing in it ancient pre-Christian mythology that provided an alternative to the dominant Classical mythology. As a result, artists featured Norse gods and goddesses in their paintings and sculptures, and their names were applied to streets, squares, journals, and companies throughout parts of northern Europe.[295]
The mythological stories derived from Old Norse and other Germanic sources inspired various artists, including Richard Wagner, who used these narratives as the basis for his Der Ring des Nibelungen.[295] Also inspired by these Old Norse and Germanic tales was J. R. R. Tolkien, who used them in creating his legendarium, the fictional universe in which he set novels like The Lord of the Rings.[295] During the 1930s and 1940s, elements of Old Norse and other Germanic religions were adopted by Nazi Germany.[295] Since the fall of the Nazis, various right-wing groups continue to use elements of Old Norse and Germanic religion in their symbols, names, and references;[295] some Neo-Nazi groups, for instance, use Mjöllnir as a symbol.[296]
Theories about a shamanic component of Old Norse religion have been adopted by forms of Nordic neoshamanism; groups practising what they called seiðr was established in Europe and the United States by the 1990s.[297]
Scholarly study[edit]
Research into Old Norse religion has been interdisciplinary, involving historians, archaeologists, philologists, place-name scholars, literary scholars, and historians of religion.[295] Scholars from different disciplines have tended to take different approaches to the material; for instance, many literary scholars have been highly sceptical about how accurately Old Norse text portrays pre-Christian religion, whereas historians of religion have tended to regard these portrayals as highly accurate.[298]
Interest in Norse mythology was revived in the eighteenth century,[299] and scholars turned their attention to it in the early 19th century.[295] Since this research appeared from the background of European romanticism, many of the scholars operating in the 19th and 20th centuries framed their approach through nationalism, and were strongly influenced by their interpretations by romantic notions about nationhood, conquest, and religion.[300] Their understanding of cultural interaction was also coloured by 19th-century European colonialism and imperialism.[301] Many regarded pre-Christian religion as singular and unchanging, directly equated religion with the nation, and projected modern national borders onto the Viking Age past.[301]
Due to the use of Old Norse and Germanic iconography by the Nazis, academic research into Old Norse religion reduced heavily following the Second World War.[295] Scholarly interest in the subject then revived in the late 20th century.[295] By the 21st century, Old Norse religion was regarded as one of the best known non-Christian religions from Europe, alongside that of Greece and Rome.[302]
