1.1 Clans of gods

There were two "clans" of deities, the Aesir and the Vanir. The distinction is relative, for the two were said to have made peace, exchanged hostages, intermarried and reigned together after a prolonged war, which the Aesir had finally won. Some gods belonged in both camps. Some scholars have speculated that this tale symbolized the way the gods of the invading patriarchal Indo-European tribes supplanted the older nature-deities of the aboriginal peoples, although it should be firmly noted that this is conjecture. Other authorities (cf, Mircea Eliade and J.P. Mallory) consider the Aesir/Vanir division to simply be the Norse expression of a general Indo-European division of divinities, parallels to the Roman/ Sabine conflict and parts of the Mahabharata.

Against the gods were arrayed the iotnar, (singular iotunn or Jotun; OE "eotenas"/"entas", source of Tolkien's "ents"), the Titans and Gigantes of Norse mythology, generally translated as "giants", although "trolls" and "demons" have been suggested as suitable alternatives. Some of these are mentioned by name in the eddas, and they seem to be representations of natural forces. There were two general types of giant: the frost-giants and the fire-giants.

The stories that comprise what is left of Norse mythology depict the gods and giants as colourful characters, much like archetypes for human behaviour and abilities. For example Odin embodies wisdom and magic, Bragi is the "super-poet", Freya is every man's desire and so on. The gods are also given very human fallacies and interests.

The ancient Germanic tribes also believed in the existence of elves and dwarfs, whose role is shadowy but who were generally thought to side with the gods.

1.2 Supernatural creatures

In addition there were all sorts of other supernatural beings: Fenris (or Fenrir) the gigantic wolf, and Jormungand the sea-serpent (or "worm") that was coiled around the world. These two monsters were described as the progeny of Loki, the trickster-god, and a giant. (While he is sometimes portrayed as the opposition to the gods, Loki is described as a trickster rather than a figure of evil as Norse mythology lacks a sharp good-evil dualism.)

More benevolent creatures were Hugin and Munin (thought and memory), the two ravens who kept Odin, the chief god, apprised of what was happening on earth, and Ratatosk, the squirrel which scampered in the branches of the world ash, Yggdrasil, which is central to the conception of this world.

1.3 A different kind of Dualism

An interesting aspect of this mythology is that it (along with many other polytheistic religions) lacks a good-evil dualism of the Middle Eastern tradition. Though often portrayed as the nemesis to the protagonist Thor, Loki is not primarily an adversary of the gods. Even though the giants are generally opposed to the gods, it is possible to parley and sometimes party or relax with them. The negative aspect of the giants is that they are rude, boisterous, and uncivilized, not that they are fundamentally evil per se.

The dualism that exists is order vs chaos. The gods represent order and structure whereas the giants and the monsters represent chaos and disorder. At the roots of Yggdrasil gnaw monsters attempting to bring down the world tree and the order of the universe. At Ragnarok, the order of the gods is destroyed and Yggdrasil burns.

1.4 The story of the Worlds and the end

The origin and eventual fate of the world are described in Voluspa ("The sybil's prophecy"), one of the most vivid poems in the Poetic Edda. These haunting verses contain one of the most vivid creation accounts in all of religious history and an account of the eventual destruction of the world that is unique in its attention to detail.

In the Voluspa, Odin, the chief god of the Norse pantheon, has conjured up the spirit of a dead Völva ( Shaman or sybil) and commanded this spirit to reveal the past and the future. She is reluctant: "What do you ask of me? Why tempt me?"; but since she is already dead, she shows no fear of Odin, and continually taunts him: "Well, would you know more?" But Odin insists: if he is to fulfil his function as king of the gods, he must possess all knowledge. Once the sybil has revealed the secrets of past and future, she falls back into oblivion: "I sink now".

The world was created by obscure deities called "Bur's sons" who lifted it out of Ginnungagap, a "grinning (or yawning) gap" in which nothing lived but a giant cow and a primordial giant.

The gods regulated the passage of the days and nights, as well as the seasons. The first human beings were Ask ( ash) and Embla ( elm), who were carved from wood and brought to life by the gods Odin, Honir ( Vili) and Lodur ( Ve), and this world-view bears close comparison with the Norse take on creation.

Sol was the goddess of the sun, a daughter of Mundilfari, and wife of Glen. Every day, she rode through the sky on her chariot and this passage was known as Alfrodull, meaning "glory of elves", and this in turn was a common kenning for the sun, pulled by two horses named Alsvid and Arvak. She was chased during the day by Skoll, a wolf that wanted to devour her. Solar eclipses signified Skoll had almost caught up to her. It is fated that Skoll will eventually catch Sol and eat her; though she would be replaced by her daughter. This parallels her brother, the moon, Mani, who was chased by Hati, another wolf.

The earth was protected from the full heat of the sun by Svalin, who stood between the earth and Sol. In Norse belief, the sun did not give light; this was caused by the manes of Alsvid and Arvak.

The sybil describes the great ash tree Yggdrasil and the three norns (female symbols of inexorable fate; their names, Urður ( Urd), Verðandi ( Verdandi) and Skuld, indicate the past, present and future) who weave the cloth of fate beneath it. She describes the primeval war between Aesir and Vanir and the murder of Baldur. Then she turns her attention to the future.

Few other mythic systems can have as bleak a vision of the future as the ancient Scandinavian. Finally, it was believed, the forces of evil and chaos would outnumber and overcome the divine and human guardians of good and order. Loki and his monstrous children would burst their bonds; the dead would sail from Niflheim to attack the living. Heimdall, the watchman of the gods, would summon the heavenly host with a blast on his horn. Then would ensue a final battle between good and evil, which the gods would lose, as was their fate ( Ragnarok). (Alternately, Ragnarok is seen as a battle in which the "good" beings and the "evil" mutally destroy each other and the world has come to an end. Some people survive Ragnarok and shall re-populate earth, living in The Hall of Gimle, the most beautiful place on earth.)

The gods, aware of this, were gathering the finest warriors to fight on their side when the day came, but in the end they would be powerless to prevent the world from descending into the chaos out of which it had once emerged; the gods and their world would be destroyed. Odin himself would be swallowed by Fenrir the wolf, the very embodiment of evil. Still, there would be a few survivors, both human and divine, who would populate a new world, to start the cycle anew. Or so the sybil tells us: scholars are divided on the question whether this is a later addition to the myth that betrays Christian influence.

2 Kings and Heroes

The mythology does not only deal with gods and supernatural creatures, but also with heroes and kings. Many heroes have probably existed in real life, and in the sagas, generations of Scandinavian scholars have tried to find the lines between history and myth.

Sometimes the same hero resurfaces in several forms depending on which part of the Germanic world the epics survived such as Völund / Weyland and Siegfried/ Sigurd, and probably Beowulf/ Bödvar Bjarki. Other notable heroes are Starkad, Ragnar Lodbrok, Sigurd Ring, Ivar Vidfamne and Harald Hildetand. Notable are also the shieldmaidens who were "ordinary" women who had chosen the path of the warrior.

3 Germanic worship

Icelandic scholar Magnus Magnusson, author of "Viking: Hammer of the North," suggests that there was a stoic, pragmatic, rationalistic side to the Nordic character that tended to treat the mythological figures as allegorical rather than as literal entities, aware that questions of ultimate meaning required a more poetic, intuitive approach. They were capable, much like ancient Roman and Greek historians, of dissociating the secular from the religious.

The Blót, the form of worship practiced by the ancient Germanic and Scandinavian people resembled that of the Celts and Balts : it could occurr in Sacred groves and forests.

3.1 Centres of faith

The Germanic tribes never had temples in a modern sense. When they sacrificed they did so at home at a simple altar of piled stones known as a " horgr". However, there seems to have been a few more important centres, such as Skiringsal, Lejre and Uppsala. Adam of Bremen claims that there was a temple in Uppsala (see Temple at Uppsala) with three wooden statues of Thor, Odin and Freyr.

3.2 Priests

While a kind of priesthood seems to have existed, it never took on the professional and semi-hereditary character of the Celtic druidical class. This was because the shamanistic tradition was maintained by women, the Völvas. It is often said that the Germanic kingship evolved out of a priestly office. This priestly role of the king was in line with the general role of godi, who was like the head of a kindred group of families, and who administered the sacrifices. There was not the feeling that one had to go through a priest or prostrate oneself to have a valid religious experience, but that each individual could experience the gods on his or her own terms.

3.3 Human sacrifice

Some recorded accounts mention occasional instances of human sacrifice such as Ibn Fadlan's account of a girl in Russia who chose to die so that she could accompany her Viking lover to the afterlife, or Swedish King Aun in the Heimskringla who sacrificed nine of his sons in an effort to prolong his life until his subjects stopped him from killing his last son Egil. According to Adam of Bremen the Swedish kings sacrificed male slaves every ninth year during the Yule sacrifices at the Temple at Uppsala. Since the Swedes had the right not only to elect king but also to depose a king, both king Domalde and king Olof Trätälja are said to have been sacrificed after years of famine. A possible example of Odinic sacrifice is Tollund Man. Archaeological evidence for this practice might consist of bodies perfectly preserved by the acid of the Jutland (later taken over by Danish people) peatbogs into which they were cast after having been strangled.

4 Cultural perspective

Another problem is the lack of quantitative data on the degree of certain behaviors relative to other societies. The Norsemen had slaves, but so did everyone else; what is significant is that they had a large free farmer or "bonder" class which participated in parliamentary "things", later reflected in the large English yeoman class of the Middle Ages, and never had a large peasantry, slave class, or pyramidal social structure as did societies further to the south. This was a very "middle class" society. Most men in Germanic and Norse society were free men and were expected to carry a weapon such as a sword or spear as a mark of their manliness (recorded by the Roman writer Tacitus in his work "The Agricola and the Germania.") Their indulgences in human sacrifice were generally more sporadic and less characterized by institutionalized "superstition" relative to other societies of their day. The thought patterns of their leaders were very secular. Getting back to the Tollund man, we have no written accounts that explicitly interpret the cause of the hanging. It could have been no more "Odinic" (or more accurately, related to "Tyr," as explained later) than the hanging of outlaw horse thieves and bank robbers in the old American West. Truth be told, we just do not know what the real motivation was, and the scholars who associate Tollund man with "Odinic sacrifice" simply because Odin was associated with death by hanging (among dozens of other associations) may be telling us more about their biases than about the real Tollund man.

4.1 Christian Interaction

An important problem in interpreting indigenous religious mythologies is that often the closest accounts that we have to "pre-contact" times were written by Christian missionaries or Christian converts who were biased against the former faith, sometimes even referring to it as the work of the Devil. As a case in point, the prose Edda and Heimskringla were written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century, over two hundred years after Iceland became Christianized around 1000 AD, at a time of a rather intense anti-pagan political climate in Scandinavia.

Virtually all of the saga literature came out of Iceland, a relatively small and remote island, and even in the climate of religious tolerance there, Sturluson was guided by an essentially Christian viewpoint. The Heimskringla, copies of which are as widespread in today's Norway as the Bible, provides some interesting insights into this issue. Snorri Sturluson introduces Odin as a mortal war lord in north central asia who acquires magical powers, and becomes a demi-god following his death. Having undercut Odin's divinity, Sturluson then provides the story of a pact of a Swedish King with Odin to prolong his life by sacrificing his sons. Later in the Heimskringla, Sturluson records in detail how Viking converts to Christianity such as Saint Olaf Haroldsson forcefully convert Scandinavians to Christianity, using means such as burning down homes, gouging out eyeballs, and resorting to mass drownings. Odin is treated more sympathetically at this time in the story, and appears as an old grey bearded traveller (somewhat similar to the human form of Zeus in Greek mythology) with a broad-rimmed hat who reminds Nordic folk of the "good old days."

Another problem with interpreting Norse mythology is that the religion may have been distorted during the era in which it was recorded by the fact that during the Viking Age, Norse society was under considerable stress while at war with Christians for hundreds of years, on an ideological as well as physical level. Hans Gunther argues in "The Religious Attitudes of the Indo-Europeans" that the more militant and warlike deity Odin may have gained ascendancy as a supreme deity compared to Tyr, who may have been more prominent in an earlier, more normal and peaceful setting.

4.2 Blending with Christianity

Some traditions survive until today, especially concerning the holidays. Some elements of the Yule traditions were preserved such as the Swedish Christmas ham, which originally was part of the sacrifice to Frey, the Christmas goats made of halm (supposedly connected to Thor's goats) and the wreath of wheat that Swedes still hang in a tree outside their house (originally to feed Sleipnir if Odin were to pass by). Even the tradition of giving Christmas gifts is said to have been preserved in Scandinavia (this tradition also existed in the Roman Saturnalia festival which is considered to have been the reason for fixing Christmas holiday on December 25. This tradition is considered to have arisen in Anatolia, Alexandria, and Persia.). In Iceland, under the threat of an armed Norwegian Christian invasion, the Icelandic parliament voted in Christianity, but tolerated heathenry in the privacy of one's home. Hence the more tolerant atmosphere that allowed the development of saga literature, which has been a vital window to help us better understand the heathen era. See also Germanic Christianity.

4.3 Modern influence

Day	Origin
Monday	Moon's day
Tuesday	Tyr's (Tiw's) day
Wednesday	Odin's (Woden's) day
Thursday	Thor's day
Friday	Frigg's or Freya's day
Saturday	Saturn's day
Sunday	Sun's day

Like that of the Celts, the ancient Norse and Germanic religions have left significant traces in modern society. An example of this is some of the names of the days of the week. (See table. Norse origins in italics.)

The Romance languages, on the other hand, used different deities to partition their week (Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Sabbath, Lord).

Norse mythology also influenced Richard Wagner's use of literary themes from it to compose the four operas that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

J. R. R. Tolkien borrowed extensively from Norse mythology in the fantasy fiction work The Lord of the Rings. In the Marvel Universe, the Norse Pantheon and related elements play a prominent part, especially Thor who has been one of the longest running superheroes for the company.

The Norse Pantheon heroes are also the main characters of Japanese anime Matantei Loki Ragnarok .

More recent have been attempts in both Europe and the United States to revive the old pagan religion under the name Asatru or Heathenry. In Iceland Asatru was recognized by the state as an official religion in 1973, which legalized its marriage, child-naming and other ceremonies.

5 Sources of information

Most of this mythology was passed down orally, and much of it has been lost. However, some of it was captured and recorded by Christian scholars such as (and particularly) Snorri Sturluson in the Eddas and Heimskringla, who rejected the idea that pre-Christian deities were devils. There is also the Danish Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus.

The Prose or Younger Edda was written in the early 13th century. It may be thought of primarily as a handbook for aspiring poets, which lists and describes traditional tales which formed the basis of standardised poetic expressions, such as " kennings". We know the author of the Prose Edda to be Snorri Sturluson, the renowned Icelandic poet and diplomat whose other work is the Heimskringla, a history of the Norwegian kingdom.

The Elder Edda (also known as the Poetic Edda) was written about 50 years later. It contains 29 long poems, of which 11 deal with the Germanic deities, the rest with legendary heroes like Sigurd the Volsung (the Siegfried of the German version Nibelungenlied). Although scholars think it was written down later than the other Edda, we know it as the Elder Edda because of the antiquity of the contents.

Although the Eddas remain our main source of information, closely related mythologies were shared by other Germanic nations, but most have been lost. The Frankish emperor Charlemagne is said to have made a substantial collection of Germanic pre-Christian writings, which was deliberately destroyed after his death. Exceptions to this loss can be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the Nibelungenlied, and in Beowulf. Limited information also exists in the Germania of Tacitus.

6 See also

Spelling of names in Norse mythology often varies depending on the nationality of the source material. In the articles presented here, several common forms of the names will be presented. For more information see Old Norse orthography.

Norse mythology

The Nine Worlds of Norse Mythology

People, places and things: Deities | Giants | Dwarves | Valkyries

Orthography | Numbers | Runes | Kenning

Elder Edda | Younger Edda | Skald | Sagas | Later influence

• Rök Stone
• Temple at Uppsala
• Tollund Man
• alliterative verse

6.1 External links

• A collection of most of the standard texts in (generally) comprehensible English translation
• More source materials
• Timeless Myths - Norse Mythology Information and tales from Norse and Germanic literatures
• Project Runeberg, a Nordic equivalent to Project Gutenberg

7 Bibliography

• Primary Sources
  • Edda, Snorri Sturluson
  • Elder Edda, Saemund (also known as the Codex Regius)
• Retellings
  • Colum, Padraic (1920). The Children of Odin: A Book of Northern Myths, illustrated by Willy Pogány. New York, Macmillan. Reprinted 2004 by Aladdin, BooksEnthsiast.com.
    • Sacred Texts: The Children of Odin. (Illustrated.)
    • Baldwin Project: The Children of Odin. (Partial.)
  • Crossley-Holland, Kevin (1981). The Norse Myths. New York: Pantheon Books. BooksEnthsiast.com. Also released as The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings. Harmondsworth: Penguin. BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Keary, A & E (1909), The Heroes of Asgard. New York: Macmillan Company. Reprinted 1982 by Smithmark Pub. BooksEnthsiast.com. Reprinted 1979 by Pan Macmillan BooksEnthsiast.com.
    • Baldwin Project: The Heroes of Asgard
  • Mable, Hanilton Wright (1901). Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas. Mead and Company. Reprinted 1999, New York: Hippocrene Books. BooksEnthsiast.com.
    • Baldwin Project: Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas
  • Mackenzie, Donald A. (1912). Teutonic Myth and Legend. New York: W.H. Wise & Co. 1934. Reprinted 2003 by University Press of the Pacific. BooksEnthsiast.com.
    • Sacred Texts: Teutonic Myth and Legend.
  • Munch, Peter Andreas (1927). Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes, Scandinavian Classics. Trans. Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt (1963). New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation. BooksEnthsiast.com.
• General secondary works
  • Branston, Brian (1980). Gods of the North. London: Thames and Hudson. (Revised from an earlier hardback edition of 1955). BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Davidson, H. R. Ellis (1964). Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Baltimore: Penguin. New edition 1990 by Penguin Books. BooksEnthsiast.com. (Several rune stones)
  • Davidson, H. R. Ellis (1969). Scandinavian Mythology. London and New York: Hamlyn. BooksEnthsiast.com. Reissued 1996 as Viking and Norse Mythology. New York: Barnes and Noble.
  • Dumézil, Georges (1973). Gods of the Ancient Northmen. Ed. & trans. Einar Haugen. Berkeley: University of California Press. BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Grimm, Jacob (1888). Teutonic Mythology, 4 vols. Trans. S. Stallybras. London. Reprinted 2003 by Kessinger. BooksEnthsiast.com, BooksEnthsiast.com, BooksEnthsiast.com, BooksEnthsiast.com. Reprinted 2004 Dover Publications. BooksEnthsiast.com (4 vols.), BooksEnthsiast.com, BooksEnthsiast.com, BooksEnthsiast.com, BooksEnthsiast.com.
    • Northvegr: Grimm's Teutonic Mythology
  • Lindow, John (1988). Scandinavian Mythology: An Annotated Bibliography, Garland Folklore Bibliographies, 13. New York: Garland. BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Lindow, John (2001). Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. BooksEnthsiast.com. (A dictionary of Norse mythology.)
  • Orchard, Andy (1997). Cassell's Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. London: Cassell. BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Page, R. I. (1990). Norse Myths (The Legendary Past). London: British Museum; and Austin: University of Texas Press. BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Rydberg, Viktor (1889). Teutonic Mythology, trans. Rasmus B. Anderson. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Reprinted 2001, Elibron Classics. BooksEnthsiast.com. Reprinted 2004, Kessinger Publishing Company. BooksEnthsiast.com. (Rydberg's theories are generally not accepted.)
    • Northvegr: Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology (Displayed by pages.)
    • Boudicca's Bard: Teutonic Mythology (Entire work on a single page.)
  • Simek, Rudolf (1993). Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Trans. Angela Hall. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. BooksEnthsiast.com. New edition 2000, BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Simrock, Karl Joseph (1853–1855) Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie.
  • Turville-Petre, E. O. Gabriel. (1964). Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Reprinted 1975, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. BooksEnthsiast.com.
  • Vries, Jan de. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols., 2nd. ed., Grundriss der germanischen Philogie, 12–13. Berlin: W. de Gruyter. (Generally considered the most authoratative current standard reference.)

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