Germanic religion and mythology, complex of stories, lore, and beliefs about the gods and the nature of the cosmos developed by the Germanic-speaking peoples before their conversion to Christianity.
Germanic culture extended, at various times, from the Black Sea to Greenland, or even the North American continent. Germanic religion played an important role in shaping the civilization of Europe. But since the Germanic peoples of the Continent and of England were converted to Christianity in comparatively early times, it is not surprising that less is known about the gods whom they used to worship and the forms of their religious cults than about those of Scandinavia, where Germanic religion survived until relatively late in the Middle Ages.
The works of classical authors, written mostly in Latin and occasionally in Greek, throw some light on the religion of Germanic peoples; however, their interest in the religious practices of Germanic tribes remains limited to its direct relevance to their narrative, as when Strabo describes the gory sacrifice of Roman prisoners by the Cimbri at the end of the 2nd century bc.
For all his knowledge of the Celts, Caesar had no more than a superficial knowledge of Germans. He made some judicious observations in Commentarii de bello Gallico about their social and political organization, but his remarks on their religion were rather perfunctory. Contrasting Germans with the Celts of Gaul, Caesar claimed that the Germans had no druids (i.e., organized priesthood), nor zeal for sacrifice, and counted as gods only the Sun, the fire god (Vulcan or Vulcanus), and the Moon. His limited information accounts for Caesar’s assumption of the poverty of the Germanic religion and the partial inaccuracy and incompleteness of his statement.
Tacitus, on the contrary, provided a lucid picture of customs and religious practices of continental Germanic tribes in his Germania, written c. ad 98. He describes some of their rituals and occasionally names a god or goddess. While Tacitus presumably never visited Germany, his information was partly based on direct sources; he also used older works, now lost.
As the power of Rome declined, records grew poorer, and nothing of great importance survives before the Getica, a history of the Goths written by the Gothic historian Jordanes c. 550; it was based on a larger (lost) work of Cassiodorus, which also incorporated the earlier work of Ablavius. The Getica incorporates valuable records of Gothic tradition, the origin of the Goths, and some important remarks about the gods whom the Goths worshipped and the forms of their sacrifices, human and otherwise.
A story about the origin of the Lombards is given in a tract, Origo gentis Langobardorum (“Origin of the Nation of Lombards”), of the late 7th century. It relates how the goddess Frea, wife of Godan (Wodan), tricked her husband into granting the Lombards victory over the Vandals. The story shows that the divine pair, recognizable from Scandinavian sources as Odin and Frigg, was known to the Lombards at this early time. A rather similar story about this pair is told in a Scandinavian source. The Lombard Paul the Deacon, working late in the 8th or early in the 9th century, repeated the tale just mentioned in his fairly comprehensive Historia Langobardorum (“History of the Lombards”). Paul used written sources available to him and seemed also to draw upon Lombard tradition in prose and verse.
The Venerable Bede, writing his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“Ecclesiastical History of the English People”) early in the 8th century, showed much interest in the conversion of the English and some in their earlier religion. The lives of Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries who worked among Germanic peoples on the Continent (e.g., Columbanus, Willibrord, and Boniface) provide some information about pagan customs and sacrifices.
The first detailed document touching upon the early religion of Scandinavia is the biography by St. Rembert (or Rimbert) of St. Ansgar (or Anskar), a 9th-century missionary and now patron saint of Scandinavia, who twice visited the royal seat, Björkö, in eastern Sweden, and noticed some religious practices, among them the worship of a dead king. Ansgar was well received by the Swedes, but it was much later that they adopted Christianity.
Some two centuries later, c. 1072, Adam of Bremen compiled his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen), which included a description of the lands in the north, then part of the ecclesiastical province of Hamburg. Adam’s work is particularly rich in descriptions of the festivals and sacrifices of the Swedes, who were still largely pagan in his day.
Learned sources, such as those just mentioned, may be supplemented by a few written in vernacular in continental Germany and England. Among the most interesting are two charms, the so-called Merseburg Charms, found in a manuscript of c. 900, in alliterating verse. The charms appear to be of great antiquity, and the second, intended to cure sprains, contains the names of seven deities. Four of these are known from Scandinavian sources, viz., Wodan (Odin), Friia (Frigg), Volla (Fulla), and Balder, but balder could merely designate the lord and apply to Wodan’s companion Phol, an otherwise unidentified god. Sinthgunt (Sinhtgunt in the manuscript), the sister of Sunna (“Sun”), could be a name for the Moon.
A manuscript of the 9th century contains a baptismal vow in the Saxon dialect, probably dating from the 8th century. The postulant is made to renounce the Devil and all his works, as well as three gods, Thunaer (Donar/Thor), Wôden (Wodan/Odin), and Saxnôt, whose name has been associated with Seaxneat, who appears as the son of Wôden in the genealogy of the kings of Essex. Saxnôt is undoubtedly a Saxon tribal god, but it is not clear whether the second element of his name means “companion” or refers to “(sacrificial) cattle.”
Vernacular sources in Old English are rich, but reveal little about the pre-Christian religion. The poem Beowulf is based upon heroic traditions, ultimately of Scandinavian origin, but in spite of its rather thorough Christianization, it retains a number of striking Germanic elements in its symbolism and contents. The fight of Beowulf against the monsters from the dark is paralleled by the struggle of Scandinavian heroes against trolls. The same heroism and defiance of death that characterize Germanic warrior ethics are found in minor historical poems, such as the Battle of Brunanburh and the Battle of Maldon. Old English literature also includes numerous charms intended as safeguards against illnesses and misfortunes, but these can hardly be called religious. In the 9th century Runic Poem, an old tradition about the god Ing has clearly been retained. Wôden (Odin) is also mentioned repeatedly in Old English sources; he is frequently named among ancestors of the royal houses.
The greater part of scholarly knowledge of Germanic religion comes from literary sources written in Scandinavia. These sources are mostly written in the Old Norse language, and they are nearly all preserved in manuscripts written in Iceland from the 12th to 14th century or in later copies of manuscripts written at that period. This implies a surviving tradition and an antiquarian revival in that distant outpost of Scandinavian culture.
The oldest of the sources found in the Icelandic manuscripts are in verse. Although remembered and written down in Iceland, some of these verses originated elsewhere, some in Norway and a few in Denmark and Sweden. Some of them may well be older than the settlement of Iceland, which took place toward the end of the 9th century. The Icelanders remained pagan until the year 999 or 1000.
The Icelandic manuscripts are written either in Eddic or in skaldic verse. The Eddic poetry is mostly composed in free alliterative measures, much like that of the Old English Beowulf. Much of it is preserved in a manuscript now called the Elder Edda, or Poetic Edda, written in Iceland c. 1270 and containing material centuries older. The meaning of the name Edda is disputed; it was not originally applied to this book but to another mentioned below.
The Elder Edda consists of a number of lays, which may be divided into two classes, the mythological and the heroic. The mythological poems contain stories about the northern Germanic gods; words of wisdom; a cosmogony, depicting the beginning of the world; and an apocalyptic description of the Ragnarök, the end of the ancient Scandinavian world. There is much controversy among scholars about the date and place of origin of several of the lays preserved in the Edda and minor collections. The first lay is the “Völuspá” (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) which, in about 65 short stanzas, covers the history of the world of gods from the beginning to the Ragnarök. In spite of its clearly pagan theme, the poem reveals Christian influence in its imagery. The scenery described is that of Iceland, and it is commonly thought that it was composed in Iceland about the year 1000, when Icelanders perceived the fall of their ancient gods and the approach of Christianity.
The “Hávamál” (“Words of the High One”) is a heterogeneous collection of aphorisms, homely wisdom, and counsels, as well as magic charms, ascribed to Odin. It contains at least five separate sections, some of which definitely point to their origin in Norway in the Viking age (9th–10th century) by their scenery and view of life. Of interest are the myths about Odin’s erotic affairs, illustrating his cynical remarks about man’s relation to woman, especially his amorous adventure leading to the theft of the precious mead. Particularly important is the account of Odin’s hanging himself on the world tree, Yggdrasill, a name apparently meaning “Odin’s Horse.”
In another poem Odin engages in a contest of wits with an immensely wise giant (Vafthrúdnir). The poem, in the form of question and answer, tells of the cosmos, gods, giants, the beginning of the world, and its end. The other lays of the first section of the Elder Edda deal essentially with the adventures of the gods, especially Thor’s relations with the giants, such as when he goes fetching the brewing kettle, fishing for the Midgard-Serpent, and recovering his hammer Mjölnir. The “Lokasenna” (“The Flyting of Loki”), which sharply criticizes the behaviour of the major Scandinavian gods and goddesses, perhaps on the model of Lucian’s Assembly of the Gods, is presumably a late addition, written c. 1200. Similarly, the political implications in the “Rígsthula” suggest that this poem about the divine origin of social stratification dates at least to the 13th century.
The second section of the Elder Edda tells of traditional Germanic heroes, such as Sigurd (Siegfried) or Völundr (Wayland the Smith). Many of the stories told there are also known from continental Germany and England, but the Norse sources preserve them in an older and purer form. They are of some interest for the study of religion because the gods often intervene in the lives of heroes.
The Icelandic and, to a lesser extent, the Norwegian manuscripts of the 13th and 14th centuries contain a great bulk of poetry of a quite different kind. This is commonly, if unjustifiably, called skaldic poetry. The skaldic verse forms were perhaps devised in Norway in the 9th century. They differ fundamentally from the traditional Germanic and Eddic forms in that the syllables are strictly counted and the lines must end in a given form. The skalds also used a complicated system of alliteration, as well as internal rhyme and consonance. With all these constraints, their short, eight-line strophes, falling neatly into four-line half strophes, are often difficult to understand because of the complexity of the syntax and of an abstruse diction, making a very extensive use of periphrastic metaphors called kennings. These phrases, e.g., “Sif’s hair” or “the otter’s ransom” for “gold,” allude to specific myths, and their testimony is most reliable to assess pagan worship. Skaldic poetry is often composed in praise of chieftains of Norway and other Scandinavian lands. Its authors are frequently named, and their approximate date is known.
After the Icelanders were converted to Christianity, much of their ancient poetry survived this religious change, as did traditions about pagan gods and their worship. Icelanders of the 12th century traveled widely and were among the most lettered people in Europe, studying and translating homilies, saints’ lives, and other learned literature of Europe. During the 13th century there was a revival of the Icelanders’ interest in the practices of their pagan ancestors, as well as in those of their kinsfolk in Norway and, to a lesser extent, in Sweden.
The name chiefly associated with this revival is that of Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241). Snorri acquired great wealth and received the best education available. He became a powerful man in Icelandic politics, and political intrigue led to his assassination in 1241. The first of Snorri’s works and one of the most memorable was his Prose Edda, written c. 1220. It is to this book that the title Edda, whatever its meaning, originally belonged.
It is likely that Snorri wrote the various sections of this book in an order opposite to that which they now have. He began with a poem exemplifying 102 different forms of verse, addressed to Haakon, the young king of Norway, and his uncle Earl Skúli Baardson. He then furnished a section entitled “Skáldskaparmál” (“Poetic Diction”), explaining and illustrating the abstruse allusions to gods and ancient heroes in the poetry of the skalds. After this, he wrote an introduction to the mythology of the north in the “Gylfaginning” (“Beguiling of Gylfi”), a section describing all of the major gods and their functions. Snorri worked partly from Eddic and skaldic poetry still extant, but partly from sources that are now lost. He presents a clear, if not altogether reliable, account of the gods, the creation of the world, and Ragnarök.
Another important work ascribed to Snorri is the Heimskringla (“Orb of the World”), a history of the kings of Norway from the beginning to the mid-12th century. The first section of this book, the “Ynglinga saga,” is of particular interest, for in it, Snorri described the descent of the kings of Norway from the royal house of Sweden, the Ynglingar, who, in their turn, were said to descend from gods. Snorri used such written sources as were available; he also relied on skaldic poems, some of which were very old. Snorri visited Norway twice and Sweden once, and he probably used popular traditions that he heard in both countries.
About the beginning of the 13th century Icelanders began to write so-called family sagas, or Icelanders’ sagas; i.e., lives of their ancestors who had settled in Iceland in the late 9th century, and lived through the 10th and 11th centuries. A good deal had already been written about these people in summary form by Ari the Learned (c. 1067–1148) and other scholars of the early 12th century, but much more had been preserved in tradition handed down in verse and prose.
The reliability of family sagas as sources of history has long been debated and no simple answer can be given. Each saga has to be studied separately, with a view not only to the author’s sources but also to his aims. Some of the authors were antiquarians and tried to relate faithfully the history of a district, a family, or a hero; others simply entertained by writing historical fiction.
About the time when the first family sagas were written, the Dane Saxo Grammaticus, secretary of Absalon, archbishop of Lund, was compiling in Latin his great history of the Danes (Gesta Danorum). The first nine books of this work deal with the prehistory of the Danes and are actually a history of the ancient gods and heroes. Interpreting the old religion euhemeristically (i.e., by reducing the gods to the level of distinguished men), Saxo regarded the pagan gods chiefly as crafty men of old. Some of his sources may have been Danish traditions and poetry now lost, but he derived much of his information from vagrant Icelanders, of whom he speaks with some respect.
Material such as Saxo used was also used by Icelanders some generations later in the so-called heroic sagas (fornaldarsǫgur). Sagas of this kind describe the adventures of heroes who lived, or were supposed to have lived, in Scandinavia or on the Continent before Iceland was peopled. The gods, and particularly Odin, are frequently said to take part in the affairs of men, but, since few of the heroic sagas were written before the 14th century and the aim of their authors was often entertainment rather than instruction, these sagas can be used as sources only with utmost discrimination.
The archaeological finds of Scandinavia are rich, and information about religious beliefs may be drawn especially from the grave goods and forms of burial. It may, in fact, be possible to trace continuity of belief from the Bronze Age to the Viking age in the 9th and 10th centuries. Archaeological finds, however, are difficult to interpret from a religious point of view. The numerous petroglyphs of southern Scandinavia, dating to the 2nd millennium bc, attest to an extensive sun cult and prevalent fertility rites. Other early Bronze Age finds such as the Trundholm chariot of the sun confirm these religious practices. Ship or boat graves were initially meant to carry the buried or cremated remains of those put in them to the otherworld, but such practices could later have become purely conventional.
A number of small images in silver or bronze, dating from the Viking age, have also been found in various parts of Scandinavia. They show Thor with his hammer or a fertility god with full erection, perhaps Freyr; frequently found is a silver hammer, the symbol of Thor, often worn as an amulet, like the hundreds of gold medals or bracteates, representing Germanic deities worshiped on the Continent and in Scandinavia in the 5th–6th century.
The runic alphabet was used throughout the Germanic world beginning in about the 1st century ad. The runes had magical and sacral significance. Occasionally one god or another is named; the god Thor may be called upon to hallow a grave.
Theophoric place-names (derived from or compounded with the name of a god) are found in all Germanic lands. Such names supplement the limited information available concerning pagan religion in Continental Germany and England. The theophoric place-names of Norway and Sweden are richer and have been carefully sifted. The evidence drawn from them must, however, be handled with caution. A name such as Thoŕslundr (“Thor’s Grove”) does not necessarily imply that Thor was worshiped there, for names are often transferred by settlers from one place to another, as from England to America and, in the Viking age, from the Scandinavian mainland to Iceland. Groups of theophoric place-names may, however, provide evidence of the cult of one god or another.
The story of the beginning is told, with much variation, in three poems of the Elder Edda, and a synthesis of these is given by Snorri Sturluson in his Prose Edda. Snorri adds certain details that he must have taken from sources now lost.
Defective as it is, the account of the “Völuspá” appears to be the most rational description of the cosmogony. The story is told by an age-old seeress who was reared by primeval giants. In the beginning there was nothing but Ginnungagap, a void charged with magic force. Three gods, Odin and his brothers, raised up the earth, presumably from the sea into which it will ultimately sink back. The sun shone on the barren rocks and the earth was overgrown with green herbage.
Later, Odin and two other gods came upon two lifeless tree trunks, Askr and Embla, on the shore. They endowed them with breath, reason, hair, and fair countenance, thus creating the first human couple.
A quite different story is told in the didactic poem “Vafthrúdnismál” (“The Lay of Vafthrúdnir”). The poet ascribes his ancestry to a primal giant, Aurgelmir, who sometimes goes by the name Ymir. The giant grew out of the venom-cold drops spurted by the stormy rivers called Élivágar. One of the giant’s legs begat a six-headed son with the other leg, and under his arms grew a maid and a youth. The earth was formed from the body of the giant Ymir who, according to Snorri, was slaughtered by Odin and his brothers. Ymir’s bones were the rocks, his skull the sky, and his blood the sea. Another didactic poem, “Grímnismál” (“The Lay of Grímnir [Odin]”), adds further details. The trees were the giant’s hair and his brains the clouds. Snorri quotes the three poetic sources just mentioned, giving a more coherent account and adding some details. One of the most interesting is the reference to the primeval cow Audhumla (Auðumla), formed from drops of melting rime. She was nourished by licking salty, rime-covered stones. Four rivers of milk flowed from her udders and thus she fed the giant Ymir. The cow licked the stones into the shape of a man; this was Buri (Búri), who was to be grandfather of Odin and his brothers. The theme of the creation of the world from parts of the body of a primeval being is also found in Indo-Iranian tradition and may belong to the Indo-European heritage in Germanic religion.
A central point in the cosmos is the evergreen ash, Yggdrasill, whose three roots stretch to the worlds of death, frost-giants, and men. A hart (stag) is biting its foliage, its trunk is rotting, and a cruel dragon is gnawing its roots. When Ragnarök approaches, the tree will shiver and, presumably, fall. Beneath the tree stands a well, the fount of wisdom. Odin got a drink from this well and had to leave one of his eyes as a pledge.
Old Norse sources name a great number of deities. The evidence of place-names suggests that one cult succeeded another. Names, especially those in southeastern Norway and southern Sweden, suggest that there was once widespread worship of a god Ull (Ullr). Indeed, an early poem reports an oath on the ring of Ull, suggesting that he was once one of the highest gods, at least in some areas. Beyond that, little is known about Ull; he was god of the bow and snowshoes, and, according to Saxo Grammaticus, who calls him Ollerus, he temporarily replaced Odin when the latter was banned from his throne.
The gods can be divided roughly into two tribes, Aesir and Vanir. At one time, according to fairly reliable sources, there was war between the Aesir and the Vanir, but when neither side could score a decisive victory they made peace and exchanged hostages. In this way, the specialized fertility gods, the Vanir, Njörd (Njörðr), his son Freyr, and presumably his daughter, Freyja, came to dwell among the Aesir and to be accepted in their hierarchy.
According to literary sources, Odin was the foremost of the Aesir, but the limited occurrence of his name in place-names seems to indicate that his worship was not widespread. He appears, however, to have been the god of kings and nobility more than the deity to whom the common man would turn for support. His name defines him as the god of inspired mental activity and strong emotional stress, as it is related to Icelandic óðr, which applies to the movements of the mind, and to German Wut, meaning “rage,” or “fury.” This qualifies him as the god of poetic inspiration and the stories about the origin of poetry narrate how Odin brought the sacred mead of poetry to the world of the gods. This beverage was first brewed from the blood of a wise god, Kvasir, who was murdered by dwarfs. It later came into the hands of a giant and was stolen by Odin, who flew from the giant’s stronghold in the shape of an eagle, carrying the sacred mead in his crop to regurgitate it in the dwelling of the gods. Therefore, the early skalds designate poetry as “Kvasir’s blood” or “Odin’s theft.”
There is also a darker side to Odin’s personality: he incites kinsmen to fight and turns against his own favourites, because he needs heroes in the otherworld to join him in the final battle against the forces of destruction at the time of Ragnarök. Therefore, the fallen warriors on the battlefield are said to go to his castle Valhalla (Valhöll), the “Hall of the Slain,” where they live in bliss, training for the ultimate combat. He is also a necromancer and a powerful magician who can make hanged men talk. He is the god of the hanged, because he hanged himself on the cosmic tree Yggdrasill to acquire his occult wisdom. As the “Hávamál” tells us, he hung there for nine nights, pierced with a spear, sacrificed to himself, nearly dead, to gain the mastery of the runes and the knowledge of the magic spells that blunt a foe’s weapons or free a friend from fetters.
Odin could change his shape at will, and, with his body in cataleptic sleep, he traveled to other worlds, like a shaman. As god of the dead, he was accompanied by carrion beasts, two wolves and two ravens. These birds kept him informed of what happened in the world, adding to the knowledge he had acquired by relinquishing his one eye in the well of Mímir under the tree Yggdrasill.
Untrustworthy, Odin may break the most sacred oath on the holy ring. As “spear-thruster,” he opens the hostilities, and in the bellicose period of the Viking expeditions his cult appeared to gain momentum. Odin, like Wôden or Wotan, is, however, essentially the sovereign god, whom the Germanic dynasties, in England as well as in Scandinavia, originally regarded as their divine founder. He thus maintains the prominent position of Wōðan[az] in classical antiquity, to whom, according to Tacitus, human sacrifice was offered. Latin writers identified Wōðan[az] with Mercury, as the name of the day, Wednesday, (i.e., “day of Wôden”), for Mercurii dies (French mercredi), indicates. It is possible that the tribal god of the Semnones, described by Tacitus as regnator omnium deus (“the god governing all”), could be identified with Wōðan[az]. They would indeed sacrifice a man to him in a sacred grove in what the ancient author describes as a “horrendous ritual.”
Thor is a god of very different stamp. Place-names, personal names, poetry, and prose show that he was worshiped widely, especially toward the end of the pagan period. Thor is described as Odin’s son, but his name derives from the Germanic term for “thunder.” Like Indra and other Indo-European thunder-gods, he is essentially the champion of the gods, being constantly involved in struggles with the giants. His main weapon is a short-handled hammer, Mjölnir, with which he smashes the skull of his antagonists. One of his best-known adventures describes his pulling the cosmic serpent Jörmungand (Jörmungandr), which surrounds the world, out of the ocean. As he fails to kill the monster then, he will have to face it again in a combat to the finish in which they both die, in the Ragnarök.
Thor is the god of the common man. As place-names in eastern Scandinavia and in England indicate, peasants worshiped him because he brought the rains that ensured good crops. Warriors trusted him, and he seems to have been popular with them everywhere. He was well known as Thunor in the Saxon and Jutish areas in England; the Saxons on the mainland venerated him as Thunær. When the Vikings conquered Normandy and the Varangians settled in Russia, they called upon Thor to help them in their military enterprises.
On account of his association with thunder, the Germanic god þunraz (Thor) was equated with Jupiter by the Romans; hence, the name of the day, Thursday (German Donnerstag), for Jovis dies (Italian giovedi). Thor traveled in a chariot drawn by goats, and later evidence suggested that thunder was thought of as the sound of his chariot.
The west Norse sources name another son of Odin, Balder, the immaculate, patient god. When Balder had dreams foreboding his death, his mother, Frigg, took oaths from all creatures, as well as from fire, water, metals, trees, stones, and illnesses, not to harm Balder. Only the mistletoe was thought too young and slender to take the oath. The guileful Loki tore up the mistletoe and, under his guidance, the blind god Höd (Höðr) hurled it as a shaft through Balder’s body. The gods sent an emissary to Hel, goddess of death; she would release Balder if all things would weep for him. All did, except a giantess, who appears to be none other than Loki in disguise. There is another version of this story, to which allusion is made in a west Norse poem (Baldrs draumar). According to this Loki does not seem to be directly responsible for Balder’s death but Höd alone. Balder’s name occurs rarely in place-names, and it does not appear that his worship was widespread.
The Danish historian Saxo gives an entirely different picture of Balder: he is not the innocent figure of the west Norse sources but a vicious and lustful demigod. He and Höd were rivals for the hand of Nanna, said in west Norse sources to be Balder’s wife. After many adventures, Höd pierced Balder with a sword. In order to secure vengeance, Odin raped a princess, Rinda (Rindr), who bore a son, Bous, who killed Höd.
Saxo’s story has many details in common with the west Norse sources, but his views of Balder were so different that he may have been following a Danish rather than a west Norse tradition. Much of Saxo’s story is placed in Denmark.
There has been much dispute among scholars about the symbolic significance of Balder’s myth. He has been described as a dying spring god; some have stressed his Christ-like features in the west Norse version. The major protagonists in the drama have warrior names, and the game in which the gods hurl missiles at the almost invulnerable Balder is reminiscent of an initiatory test.
There is no more baffling figure in Norse mythology than Loki. He is counted among the Aesir but is not one of them. His father was a giant (Fárbauti; “Dangerous Striker”). Loki begat a female, Angrboda (Angrboða; “Boder of Sorrow”), and produced three evil progeny—the goddess of death, Hel, the monstrous serpent surrounding the world, Jörmungand, and the wolf Fenrir (Fenrisúlfr), who lies chained until he will break loose in the Ragnarök. Loki himself lies bound but will break his bonds in the Ragnarök to join the giants in battle against the gods.
Loki deceived the gods and cheated them, but sometimes he got them out of trouble. He is seen in company with Odin and an obscure god Hœnir, and he is called the friend of Thor. He is essentially a “trickster” figure who can change sex and shape at will. Thus, he can give birth as well as beget offspring. The eight-legged horse of Odin, Sleipnir, was born of Loki in the shape of a mare. According to an Eddic lay, Loki ate the heart of an evil woman and grew pregnant. He fights with Heimdall in the shape of a seal for the possession of the Brísingamen necklace, and later, he sneaks into Freyja’s residence in the form of a fly to steal the same precious object for Odin. According to an early poem, Odin and Loki had mixed their blood as foster brothers. It has been suggested that Loki was a hypostasis of Odin, or at least that he represents Odin’s darkest side. He seems to symbolize “impulsive intelligence,” together with an irrepressible urge to act and an unpredictable maliciousness.
A number of minor deities are also ranked among the Aesir. The god Heimdall (Heimdal[l]r) is particularly interesting, but rather enigmatic. His antagonism with Loki, with whom he struggles for the possession of the Brísingamen necklace, results in their killing each other in the Ragnarök, according to Snorri. Heimdall is of mysterious origin: he is the son of nine mothers, said to be sisters, all of whom bear names of giantesses, though they are mostly identified with the storm waves. Heimdall lives in Himinbjörg (“Heavenly Fells”), at the edge of the world of the Aesir, which he guards against the giants. He is endowed with a wonderful hearing, detecting anything in the world, but he is blamed with drinking too much mead. When the Ragnarök draws near, he will blow his ringing horn (Gjallarhorn).
Another myth in which he appears as Rigr (Rígr), a name probably derived from the Irish rí (“king”), makes Heimdall the father of mankind. He consorted with three women, from whom descend the three classes of men—serf (thrall), freeman (karl), and nobleman (jarl).
Information about the Scandinavian gods is based chiefly on poetry composed late in the pagan period and on the remarks of outside observers, who generally had little interest in what they considered to be heathendom. Many gods were nearly forgotten when these authors mentioned them, as is the case with Ull, described above. Similarly, memories had apparently faded about Tyr (Týr), who must have been a major god in early times. His name, derived from Germanic Tîwaz (Old English Tīw) and related to the Greek god Zeus, suggests that he was originally a sky-god, but in Roman times, he was equated with Mars, and hence dies Martis (Mars’s day; French mardi) became Tuesday (Icelandic Týs dagr). Tyr is the one-handed god, because one of his hands had been bitten off by the wolf Fenrir. He is brave and warlike; in the Ragnarök he will face the hellhound Garm (Garmr), and they will kill each other. Like other gods, Tyr is said to be a son of Odin, but, according to one early poem, he was the son of a giant. Tyr’s cult is remembered in place-names, particularly those of Denmark.
Bragi appears in later sources as the god of poetry and eloquence. It is remarkable that the first recorded skald, living in the 9th century, was also called Bragi. Since there is no record of a cult of the god Bragi, some have suspected that the god and the poet are identical.
Frigg is the wife of Odin. In the southern Germanic sources she appears as Friia (Second Merseburg Charm) or Frea (Langobardic), the spouse of Wodan. Snorri depicted her as the weeping mother of Balder, but Saxo described her as unchaste and makes her misconduct responsible for the temporary banishment of Odin. In the “Ynglinga saga,” Odin’s brothers Vili and Vé share her during his absence in a polyandric relationship similar to that of Draupadī in Hindu myth. She has been equated with Venus, and her name survives in Friday (Old English Frīgedæg) from dies Veneris, Venus’ day.
According to an early skaldic poem (c. 900), Idun, the wife of Bragi, was entrusted with the apples that prevent the gods from growing old. She was abducted by the giant Thjazi, but Loki brought her back with the precious apples. This myth has many parallels such as Heracles’ obtaining the golden apples of the Hesperides.
The name Jörd means “earth,” but this goddess who is described as the mother of Thor, and consequently Odin’s lover, is also known under different names, such as Fjörgyn (“Earth”), perhaps originally a goddess of the furrow, and Hlódyn (Hlóðyn). A dea Hludana is also remembered in votive inscriptions of lower Germany and Holland.
The Vanir represent a distinct group of gods associated with wealth, health, and fertility. Although they would also fight, the Vanir were not essentially gods of battle, like the Aesir. The best known Vanir—Njörd, Freyr, and probably Freyja—came as hostages to the Aesir. Njörd was the father of the god Freyr and the goddess Freyja.
In his Germania, Tacitus described the worship of a goddess, Nerthus, on an island, probably in the Baltic Sea. Whatever symbol represented her was kept hidden in a grove and taken around once a year in a covered chariot. During her pageant, there was rejoicing and peace, and all weapons were laid aside. Afterward, she was bathed in a lake and returned to her grove, but those who participated in her lustration were drowned in the lake as a sacrifice to thank her for her blessings.
Nerthus is described as Terra Mater (“Earth Mother”), but her name corresponds to that of the god Njörd (from Germanic Nerthuz). Scholars have attempted various explanations of this puzzling change of sex, assuming that the original deity was androgynous or claiming that the loss of feminine nouns of the type Njörd represents triggered the reinterpretation of the goddess as a male god. As Njörd is essentially a god of the sea and its riches, it may be preferable to consider Nerthus and Njörd as originally separate gods altogether, whose relationship might be similar to that of Poseidon (“Husband of the Earth-Goddess”) and Demeter (“Earth Mother”) in Arcadia. Etymologically, the name Njörd could then be related to that of the Greek “Old Man of the Sea,” Nereus. Before coming to the Aesir, Njörd was supposed to have begotten his two children with his (unnamed) sister. Since such incestuous unions were not allowed among the Aesir, Njörd afterward married Skadi (Skaði), daughter of the giant Thjazi. Evidence from place-names shows that Njörd was worshiped widely in Sweden and Norway, and he was one of the gods whom Icelanders invoked when they swore their most sacred oaths.
Much more is told of Freyr, the son of Njörd. His name means “Lord” (compare Old English Frea), but Freyr had other names as well; he was called Yngvi or Yngvi-Freyr, and this name suggests that he was the eponymous father of the north Germans whom Tacitus calls Ingvæones (Ingævones). The Old English Runic Poem indicates that the god Ing was seen first among the eastern Danes; he departed eastward over a wave and his chariot went after him. It is remarkable how the chariot persists in the cult of the Vanir, Nerthus, Ing, and Freyr. A comparatively late source tells how the idol of Freyr was carried in a chariot to bring fertility to the crops in Sweden. In an early saga of Iceland, where crops were little cultivated, Freyr still appears as the guardian of the sacred wheatfield. Freyr’s name often is found as the first element of a place-name, especially in eastern Sweden; the second element often means “wheatfield,” or “meadow.”
The Eddic poem Skírnismál (“The Lay of Skírnir”) relates the wooing of Freyr’s bride, Gerd (Gerðr), a giant-maiden. This story has often been considered as a fertility myth. Gerdr (from garðr, “field”) is held fast in the clutches of the frost-giants of winter. Thus, Freyr, as sun-god, would free her. However, this interpretation rests entirely on disputable etymologies. The narrative indicates that Freyr’s bride belongs to the otherworld, and her wooing may rather symbolize the affinities of the fertility god with the chthonian powers, dominating the cycle of life and death. Several animals were sacred to Freyr, particularly the horse and, because of his great fertility, the boar.
The centre of Freyr’s cult was Uppsala, and he was once said to be king of the Swedes. His reign was one of peace and plenty. While Freyr reigned in Sweden, a certain Frodi ruled the Danes, and the Danes attributed this age of prosperity to him. Frodi (Fróði) was also conveyed ceremoniously in a chariot, and some have seen him as no other than a doublet of Freyr. Freyr was said to be ancestor of the Ynglingar, the Swedish royal family. Such myths are connected with the concept of “divine kingship” in the Germanic world, but earlier views on “sacral royalty” are now being challenged.
Freyr’s sister, Freyja, shares several features with her brother. She was the goddess of love, wealth, and fertility. She owned precious jewels such as the famous Brísingamen necklace, forged by dwarfs. She is said to be weeping tears of gold for her absent husband, but she is also blamed for being promiscuous. She practiced a disreputable kind of magic, called seiðr, which she taught Odin. She was known under various names, some obscure such as Mardöll, and others, such as Sýr (“Sow”), referring to her association with animals. Taking half of those who fall in battle, Freyja had some affinity with the chthonian deities of death.
This relation of fertility goddesses with the otherworld is already illustrated by the Germanic mother goddesses or matronae, whose cult was widespread along the lower Rhine in Roman imperial times. They are often represented with chthonian symbols such as the dog, the snake, or baskets of fruit. The same applies to the goddess Nehalennia, worshiped near the mouth of the Scheldt River. Her name may be related to Greek nekués, “spirits of the dead.”
Besides gods and goddesses, medieval writers frequently allude to female guardian spirits called dísir and fylgjur. The conceptions underlying these two certainly differed originally, although some of the later writers used the words interchangeably.
Reference is made several times to sacrifice to the dísir, held at the beginning of winter. The ritual involved a festive meal and seems to have been a private ceremony, suggesting that the dísir belonged to one house, one district, or one family. In an Eddic poem the dísir are described as “dead women,” and in actuality they may have been dead female ancestors, assuring the prosperity of their descendants.
There is no record of a cult of the fylgja (plural fylgjur), a word best translated as “fetch,” or “wraith.” The fylgja may take the form of a woman or an animal that is rarely seen except in dreams or at the time of death. It may be the companion of one man or of a family and is transferred at death from father to son.
The elves (álfar) also stood in fairly close relationship to men. An Icelandic Christian poet of the 11th century described a sacrifice to the elves early in winter among the pagan Swedes. The elves lived in mounds or rocks. An old saga tells how the blood of a bull was smeared on a mound inhabited by elves.
A good deal is told of land spirits (landvœttir). According to the pre-Christian law of Iceland, no one must approach the land in a ship bearing a dragonhead, lest he frighten the land spirits. An Icelandic poet, cursing the king and queen of Norway, enjoined the landvœttir to drive them from the land.
Dwarfs (dvergar) play a part in Norse mythology. They were very wise and expert craftsmen who forged practically all of the treasures of the gods, in particular Thor’s hammer. Snorri said that they originated as maggots in the flesh of the slaughtered giant Ymir. Four of them are supporting the sky, made of the skull of this primeval giant. They may have been originally nature spirits or demonic beings, living in mountain caves, but they generally were friendly to man.
Sacrifice often was conducted in the open or in groves and forests. The human sacrifice to the tribal god of the Semnones, described by Tacitus, took place in a sacred grove; other examples of sacred groves include the one in which Nerthus usually resides. Tacitus does, however, mention temples in Germany, though they were probably few. Old English laws mention fenced places around a stone, tree, or other object of worship. In Scandinavia, men brought sacrifice to groves and waterfalls.
A common word for a holy place in Old English is hearg and in Old High German harug, occasionally glossed as lucus (“grove”) or nemus (“forest”). The corresponding Old Norse word, hörgr, denotes a cairn, a pile of stones used as an altar; the word was also used occasionally for roofed temples. Another term applied to sacred places in Scandinavia was vé (compare with vígja, “to consecrate”), which appears in many place-names; e.g., Odense (older Óðinsvé).
Although worship was originally conducted in the open, temples also developed with the art of building. Bede claims that some temples in England were built well enough to be used as churches and mentions a great one that burned.
The word hof, commonly applied to temples in the literature of Iceland, seems to belong to the later rather than to the earlier period. A detailed description of a hof is given in one of the sagas. The temple consisted of two compartments, perhaps analogous to the chancel and the nave of a church. The images of the gods were kept in the chancel. This does not imply, however, that Icelandic temples of the 10th century were modeled on churches; rather they resembled large Icelandic farmhouses. A building believed to be a temple has been excavated in northern Iceland, and its outline agrees closely with that described in the saga.
Temples on the mainland of Scandinavia were probably built of wood, of which nothing survives, although an influence of pagan temples may be discernible in the so-called stave churches. At the close of the pagan period, the most splendid temple of all was at Uppsala. It was richly described by Adam of Bremen, whose report is based on statements of eyewitnesses, though he may have been influenced by the biblical description of Solomon’s temple. Statues of Thor, Wodan, and Fricco (Freyr) stood together within it; the whole building was covered with gold, which could be seen glittering from afar. There were also famous temples in Norway, but no detailed descriptions are given of them.
Sacrifice took different forms. Roman authors repeatedly mention the sacrifice of prisoners of war to the gods of victory. The thralls who bathed the numen of Nerthus paid for the revelation of her secret identity with their lives. A detailed description of a sacrificial feast is given in a saga about a king of Norway. All kinds of cattle were slaughtered, and blood was sprinkled inside and out; the meat was consumed and toasts were drunk to Odin, Njörd, and Freyr. The most detailed description of a sacrifice is that given by Adam of Bremen. Every nine years a great festival was held at Uppsala, and sacrifice was conducted in a sacred grove that stood beside the temple. The victims, human and animal, were hung on trees. One of the trees in this grove was holier than all the others and beneath it lay a well into which a living man would be plunged.
There also were sacrifices of a more private kind. A man might sacrifice an ox to a god or smear an elf mound with bull’s blood.
No unified conception of the afterlife is known. Some may have believed that fallen warriors would go to Valhalla to live happily with Odin until the Ragnarök, but it is unlikely that this belief was widespread. Others seemed to believe that there was no afterlife. According to the “Hávamál,” any misfortune was better than to be burnt on a funeral pyre, for a corpse was a useless object.
More often people believed that life went on for a time after death but was inseparable from the body. If men had been evil in life, they could persecute the living when dead; they might have to be killed a second time or even a third before they were finished.
The presence of ships or boats in graves, and occasionally of chariots and horses, may suggest that the dead were thought to go on a journey to the otherworld, but this is questionable; such accoutrements more likely reflected a person’s earthly occupation. Some records imply that the dead needed company; a wife, mistress, or servant would be placed in the grave with them. The famous Oseberg grave contained the bones of two women, probably a queen and her servant. Some stories suggest the existence of an ancient belief in rebirth, but a medieval writer labels the notion an old wives’ tale. On the whole, beliefs in afterlife seem rather gloomy. The dead pass, perhaps by slow stages, to a dark, misty world called Niflheim (Niflheimr).
The end of the world is designated by two terms. The older is Ragnarök, meaning “Fate of the Gods”; the later form, used by Snorri and some others, is Ragnarøkkr, “Twilight of the Gods.” Allusions to the impending disaster are made by several skalds of the 10th and 11th centuries, but fuller descriptions are given chiefly in the “Völuspá” and the didactic poems of the Poetic Edda, which form the basis of Snorri’s description in his Edda.
Only a brief summary of this rich subject can be attempted here. Through their own work, and especially because of the strength of Thor, gods have kept the demons of destruction at bay. The savage wolf Fenrir is chained, as is the guileful Loki, but they will break loose. Giants and other monsters will attack the world of gods and humans from various directions. Odin will fight the wolf and lose his life, to be avenged by his son Vidar (Víðarr), who will pierce the beast to the heart. Thor will face the World Serpent, and they will kill each other. The sun will turn black, the stars vanish, and fire will play against the firmament. The earth will sink into the sea but will rise again, purified and renewed. Unsown fields will bear wheat. Balder and his innocent slayer, Höd, will return to inhabit the dwellings of gods. Worthy people will live forever in a shining hall thatched with gold.
Although the cosmic cataclysm portrayed by the poet of the “Völuspá” reflects the apocalyptic imagery of the Book of Revelation, it is essentially a symbolic reflection of the waning Germanic world, ineluctably moving to its destruction because of the outrages committed by its divine and human representatives. According to another Eddic poem, the wolf will swallow Odin and, in revenge, his son will tear the jaws of the beast asunder. Several more details are given in other sources, generally cruder than those of the “Völuspá.”
The Germanic peoples were converted to Christianity in different periods: many of the Goths in the 4th century, the English in the 6th and 7th centuries, the Saxons, under force of Frankish arms, in the late 8th century, and the Danes, under German pressure, in the course of the 10th century. The pagan religion held out longest in the most northerly lands, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
The story of the conversion of Iceland is known best because of the wealth of historical documents written in that country during the Middle Ages. Icelanders were, in many ways, the most international of northern Scandinavians. Among those who settled in Iceland in the late 9th century were men and women partly of Norse stock from Christian Ireland. Some of these were Christians; some were mixed in their beliefs, worshiping Christ and Thor at once. There were others who believed in no gods at all. Lack of faith in the heathen gods seems to have grown during the 10th century. Influence of Christian thought on some Icelandic poets is noticeable. Occasional missions to Iceland in the later 10th century are recorded, but little progress was made until Olaf I Tryggvason, king of Norway, sent out the German priest Thangbrand c. 997. Thangbrand was a ruthless, brutal man; he was outlawed and returned to Norway c. 999. But in the year after Thangbrand left (c. 1000), the Icelandic parliament (Althingi) resolved, at the instigation of King Olaf, that all should be baptized, although concessions were made to those who wished to practice heathen rites in private. Many of those who had been hereditary pagan chieftains became leaders of the church and, largely for this reason, tradition survived in Iceland as in no other Scandinavian land.
The conversion of Norway was far less peaceful. Much is known about it, chiefly from highly colourful Icelandic records. Olaf Tryggvason, who had come to Norway from England c. 995, quickly overcame the arch-pagan ruler Haakon Sigurdsson. Paganism was deeply rooted in the minds of hereditary landowners, as the whole social system was largely founded upon its principles. Using fire and sword rather than persuasion, Olaf converted the whole of Norway in his short reign of five years. When he died in a naval battle, c. 1000, many of Olaf’s subjects were Christians in name only.
By the time Olaf II Haraldsson (later Saint Olaf) came to the throne about 15 years later, some of the Norwegians had been baptized and some not, and one believed whatever one chose. Olaf II set out to complete the work of his predecessor, resorting to the same methods. He was such a tyrant that his own subjects, Christian though they were, drove him into exile in Russia. When he returned with a motley army, c. 1030, he met his death and was soon regarded as a saint. For all his faults, Olaf had established Christianity firmly in Norway.
Very little is known about the conversion of Sweden. It was a slow and complicated process. The people of West Gautland were, apparently, converted earlier than the rest, but public pagan sacrifice persisted in the temple of Uppsala until late in the 11th century. Kings who professed to be Christian were driven out, presumably because of their religious activities. Sweden was hardly a Christian country before c. 1100.
The picture that Scandinavian sources provide of Germanic religion is to a large extent lopsided, since many of the documents date to the period when waning paganism was threatened with doom by the growing impact of Christianity. This may account for the pessimistic worldview that pervades some aspects of Eddic poetry, as well as for some rather derogatory descriptions of the behaviour of the gods. The rigorous ethics of early Germanic society, based on trust, loyalty, and courage, and the perhaps somewhat idealized picture of the moral code given by Tacitus, had a divine sanction, but, when Christianity arrived in the north, the message had apparently been dimmed by the gods’ disrespect of their most solemn oaths. Paganism no longer had the stamina and inner drive to resist the pressure of Christianity, with its strong, well-organized church and its positive monotheistic creed, encompassing faith and ethics.