Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Cultures

Norse

Also Known As Vikings Viking names the seaborne activity rather than the people, and is used popularly for the Norse. · Norsemen
Peoples

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The Norse were the Germanic-speaking peoples of pre-Christian and Viking Age Scandinavia, the homeland now divided among Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. Their language, Old Norse, and their pantheon of Aesir and Vanir gods, Odin and Thor foremost among them, are known chiefly through thirteenth century Icelandic writings, above all Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, set down generations after Scandinavia's conversion to Christianity. Viking Age seafaring and settlement carried Norse language, law and belief to Iceland, Greenland, parts of the British Isles, Normandy and the river routes to Byzantium.

Facts
Origins
Origin Region
Scandinavia, the peninsula and islands now divided among Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland 1
Language Family
Old Norse, a North Germanic language, ancestor of modern Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish 2
Writing System
The Elder Futhark and later Younger Futhark runic alphabets, used chiefly for memorial inscriptions and, tradition holds, divination and charms, rather than extended literature 1
Practice
Practice Status
Reconstructed in the modern era and openly practised 2
No unbroken pre-Christian practice survives; the modern Heathenry or Asatru revival is a reconstructed, generally open and non-initiatory practice drawing on the same Eddic and skaldic sources scholars use
Traditions
Principal Religious Traditions
Pre-Christian Norse Paganism (Aesir and Vanir worship) through the Viking Age, displaced by Christianity between roughly 1000 and 1100 CE; a modern Heathenry or Asatru revival reconstructs the older practice rather than continuing it unbroken 2
Overview
Diaspora Presence
Viking Age settlement and trade carried Norse language, law and belief to Iceland, Greenland, parts of the British Isles, Normandy and the river routes to Byzantium as the Varangians 1
Learn More
Longships, Settlement and a Slow Conversion

Historians conventionally date the Viking Age from the raid on the monastery of Lindisfarne in 793 CE to the Norman conquest of England in 1066, though Scandinavian trade, raiding and settlement both preceded and outlasted that span. Shallow-drafted longships let Norse crews raid and trade far beyond Scandinavia at once: west to the British Isles and Ireland, where they founded Dublin and settled large parts of England as the Danelaw; further west to uninhabited Iceland, settled from roughly 870 CE, and briefly to Greenland and the North American coast the sagas call Vinland; and east along Russian rivers as the Varangians, reaching Constantinople and founding the trade towns that grew into the Kievan Rus state.

Conversion to Christianity came unevenly and mostly from political pressure rather than mass persuasion. Iceland converted by a single decision of its assembly, the Althing, around the year 1000, reportedly as a compromise to avoid civil war between pagan and Christian factions, and allowed private pagan worship for a time afterward. Norway's conversion under kings Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf Haraldsson (later Saint Olaf) in the decades around 1000 to 1030 was considerably more violent, involving forced baptism and the destruction of temples. Denmark and Sweden converted over a similarly rough two centuries, with Sweden's major pagan cult center at Uppsala, described by the German chronicler Adam of Bremen, likely still active into the eleventh century. By 1100 or so, Christianity had formally displaced Norse Paganism as the region's state religion everywhere, though folk practice and belief persisted far longer at the margins.

Aesir, Vanir and the Icelanders Who Wrote Them Down

Norse Paganism organized its gods into two related families: the Aesir, led by Odin, god of war, wisdom and the dead, and including Thor, Tyr, Frigg, Baldr and Heimdall; and the Vanir, fertility deities including Freyja, Freyr and Njord, who joined the Aesir in Asgard after a mythic war between the two tribes. Cosmology set nine worlds around the world tree Yggdrasil, among them Asgard (home of the gods), Midgard (the human world) and Helheim (a realm of the dead), with Valhalla, Odin's hall, receiving warriors chosen in battle by his valkyries. Almost everything known of this system comes from Iceland two centuries after conversion: the Prose Edda, a handbook of poetic technique and myth compiled around 1220 by the Christian chronicler and politician Snorri Sturluson, and the anonymous Poetic Edda preserved in the thirteenth century Codex Regius manuscript.

That gap between practice and record is a live methodological problem. Rudolf Simek's Dictionary of Northern Mythology and John Lindow's Norse Mythology: A Guide both caution that Snorri, writing as a Christian antiquarian rather than a believer, likely systematized and in places invented connective material to make disparate oral poems read as one coherent mythology, so scholars weigh Eddic material against skaldic verse, place names and archaeology rather than treating Snorri as a neutral transcript of pagan belief. The Elder Futhark runic alphabet, twenty four characters used for memorial inscriptions and, tradition holds, divination and magic, is the one Norse Pagan-era writing system to survive in its own words. No unbroken pre-Christian practice survives; the modern Heathenry or Asatru revival, active since the twentieth century, reconstructs Norse Pagan worship from these same sources.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Norse directly: "including its account of pre-Christian Norse temple practice."

Source Adam of Bremen (reference article)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Norse directly: "revival of pre-Christian Germanic and Norse religion, examining how practitioners construct religious and ethnic identity within the movement, including its internal disputes over race and inclusion."

This source names Norse directly: "meaning, such as the valknot's life in Norse funerary art centuries before its appropriation, needs a source produced outside this database as well."

Source Anti-Defamation League Hate Symbols DatabaseAnti-Defamation League
Asgard, Realms

Asgard, home of the Aesir, sits at the center of Norse cosmology.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)

This source names Norse directly: "site arguing that Wagner used Norse mythological material, drawn from Friedrich von der Hagen's 1815 translation of the Volsunga Saga and the Grimm brothers' heroic tales, toward a deliberately..."

This source names Norse directly: "to present an updated picture of Norse society, belief and expansion."

This source names Norse directly: "about which readings of Germanic and Norse religion are directly attested in the surviving textual and archaeological record and which are later scholarly proposals built on top of that record, a..."

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Edda, Sources

This source names Norse directly: "primary medieval text systematizing Norse mythology into a coherent account."

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)
Freyr, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Freyr is a Vanir god, twin brother of Freyja and son of Njord, ruling over sun, rain and the fruitfulness of the earth."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson
Frigg, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Frigg is the wife of Odin and the foremost of the Aesir goddesses, dwelling in the hall Fensalir."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson

This source names Norse directly: "word on a question specialists in Old Norse religion continue to debate."

This source names Norse directly: "the ancestor of English, German, Norse and their relatives."

This source names Norse directly: "than rhetoric, so a claim about actual Norse temple practice at Uppsala needs a scholarly source alongside this text, not the account taken as neutral eyewitness fact."

This source names Norse directly: "scholarly critical edition of the Old Norse wisdom poem, prepared by a specialist Old Norse philologist for the field's own dedicated learned society."

Source Havamal, edited with introduction and commentaryDavid A. H. Evans (ed.)
Heimdall, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Heimdall is the watchman of the gods, stationed at the rainbow bridge Bifrost to guard Asgard against the giants, said to need less sleep than a bird and to hear grass..."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson

This source names Norse directly: "of a thirteenth century Old Norse compilation of the sagas of the Norwegian kings, including the Ynglinga Saga this atlas draws on for the mythic origin of the Yngling dynasty."

Source Heimskringla (History of the Kings of Norway), Ynglinga SagaSnorri Sturluson, translated by Lee M. Hollander
Helheim, Realms

Helheim is the Norse realm of the dead who did not fall in battle.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)
Idun, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Idun is the keeper of the apples that keep the gods eternally young, wife of the skaldic god Bragi."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson
Jelling, Sacred Sites

This source names Norse directly: "transition of the Danish monarchy from Norse paganism to Christianity."

Loki, Deities

Loki is a trickster figure central to Eddic myth, without clear evidence of cult worship in his own right.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Loki, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Loki is the son of the giant Farbauti, blood-brother to Odin and admitted among the Aesir despite his giant parentage, alternately helping and betraying the gods across..."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson
Midgard, Realms

Midgard is the human world in Norse cosmology, encircled by the sea.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)

This source names Norse directly: "Mjolnir is the hammer of the Norse god Thor, described in medieval Icelandic sources, chiefly the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda, both written down in the thirteenth century from older oral tradition..."

This source names Norse directly: "An article on The Norse Mythology Blog (norsemyth.org) by Dr."

This source names Norse directly: "from the Egyptian Ennead to the Norse nine worlds, and Bahai houses of worship are built nine-sided by design."

Source ElementsEuclid

This source names Norse directly: "actual medieval literary sources for Norse myth, record, and it says so plainly: it documents the medieval texts as attested, not pre-Christian religious practice beyond what those written sources..."

The Norse used this sea as a road west, and their conversion in the tenth and eleventh centuries made its whole rim Christian.

This source names Norse directly: "against known runic alphabets and Old Norse language change."

Source Norwegian Runes and Runic InscriptionsTerje Spurkland; Betsy van der Hoek (trans.)
Odin, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Odin, son of Borr and the giantess Bestla, together with his brothers Vili and Ve kills the primordial being Ymir and shapes the world from his body, then fashions the..."

Source The Poetic EddaAnonymous (Codex Regius)

This source names Norse directly: "and textual study of the Old Norse sagas and eddas, founded on Rasmus Rask's 1811 grammar."

This source names Norse directly: "The Norse Jormungandr, the serpent encircling the world and biting its own tail, is an unrelated tradition arriving at the same picture."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

This source names Norse directly: "An article on The Norse Mythology Blog (norsemyth.org) by Dr."

This source names Norse directly: "pattern that also underlies the Norse and Greek versions."

This source names Norse directly: "was a scholar of Old English and Norse literature, and this academic edition and translation, published by Cambridge University Press, presents the surviving runic and heroic poems of the early..."

Source Runic and Heroic Poems of the Old Teutonic PeoplesBruce Dickins (ed. and trans.)

This source names Norse directly: "Contemporary firsthand religious evidence from the pre Christian Norse world, unlike the sagas written centuries after Christianization."

Snorri Sturluson, the thirteenth century Icelandic chronicler, compiled the Prose Edda, the single most influential surviving account of Norse mythology.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)

This source names Norse directly: "who departs, motifs recorded from Old Norse poetry to Central Asian, East Asian and Central European tale traditions, built on the same structure throughout: the swan-woman is caught by a man who..."

This source names Norse directly: "article on the great pre-Christian Norse temple described by the medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen, covering its reported idols, its periodic sacrificial festivals and the archaeological debate..."

The Aesir, Deities

This source names Norse directly: "The principal group of gods in Norse mythology, headed by Odin and based at Asgard."

This source names Norse directly: "covering languages relevant to Norse, Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic religious and mythological source texts the atlas discusses."

Source The Germanic LanguagesWayne Harbert

This source names Norse directly: "forgery rather than genuine medieval Norse runic writing."

This source names Norse directly: "than a modern scholar's argument about Norse religion."

Source The Poetic EddaAnonymous (Codex Regius)

This source names Norse directly: "Carolyne Larrington is a scholar of Old Norse literature, and this Oxford University Press volume is her scholarly revised translation of the Poetic Edda, the collection of anonymous Old Norse..."

Source The Poetic Edda, revised editionCarolyne Larrington (trans.)

This source names Norse directly: "thirteenth century primary handbook of Norse mythology and poetics, cited here in a 1916 English translation."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson

This source names Norse directly: "and scholar, as a handbook of Norse mythology and poetic technique, and this is Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur's English translation, published through the American-Scandinavian Foundation."

Source The Prose Edda of Snorri SturlusonArthur Gilchrist Brodeur
The Vanir, Deities

This source names Norse directly: "The second group of gods in Norse mythology, associated with fertility, prosperity, wealth, seafaring and the natural world, and based at Vanaheim."

The Wild Hunt is a shared Germanic and Norse folklore motif, often led by Odin in the Norse tellings.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Thor, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Thor is the son of Odin and the earth goddess Jord, wielder of the hammer Mjolnir and the gods' foremost defender against the giants who threaten Asgard."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson

This source names Norse directly: "mineral and named it for Thor, the Norse thunder god, which is Romantic-era naming rather than any inherited correspondence."

This source names Norse directly: "against the jotnar, the giants of Norse mythology."

This source names Norse directly: "manuscript art, on Anglo-Saxon and Norse metalwork and runestones, and on Pictish stones, generally as pattern within a larger field rather than as a captioned emblem."

Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Tyr, Figures

This source names Norse directly: "In Norse narrative tradition Tyr is a god of war and law, the bravest of the Aesir, remembered above all for sacrificing his hand to bind the monstrous wolf Fenrir."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson
Uppsala, Cities

Gamla Uppsala was a royal and assembly site of the Svear.

Valhalla, Realms

Valhalla is Odin's hall, receiving warriors chosen in battle by the valkyries.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)

This source names Norse directly: "about the symbol's life in genuine Norse funerary art and its association with Odin centuries before that appropriation needs a source produced outside this database."

Source Valknot (Hate Symbols Database)Anti-Defamation League

This source names Norse directly: "Named for Vanadis, a name of the Norse goddess Freyja, because its compounds run through so many colours."

This source names Norse directly: "marked the start of winter in the Old Norse calendar in mid-autumn, attested in saga literature as an occasion for the Alfablot (sacrifice to the elves) and for veneration of the disir and ancestral..."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson

This source names Norse directly: "It is the single most cited primary source for the overall shape of Norse cosmology and eschatology."

Source The Poetic EddaAnonymous (Codex Regius)

This source names Norse directly: "The Norse creation, spoken by a seeress to Odin."

Source The Poetic EddaAnonymous (Codex Regius)

This source names Norse directly: "Wotan and Brunnhilde against their Norse mythological sources."

This source names Norse directly: "rather than a specialist study in Old Norse religion, so it is cited here for the sourced fact of the cycle's composite textual basis and its transformation rather than as a comprehensive account of..."

This source names Norse directly: "Yggdrasil is the great world tree of Norse cosmology, an ash tree whose branches and roots connect the nine worlds, described in the Prose Edda as tended by beings including the Norns, who water it..."

Source The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson

This source names Norse directly: "Ymir is the primordial frost giant of Norse cosmology, formed from the meeting of fire from Muspelheim and ice from Niflheim in the void of Ginnungagap at the very start of creation, before earth..."

Source The Prose Edda of Snorri SturlusonArthur Gilchrist Brodeur

Ymir's Dismemberment is the Norse creation myth, the primordial giant's body forming the world.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)

Originated In

Denmark, Countries

Denmark is part of the Norse homeland.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Iceland, Countries

Iceland preserved most of the surviving Eddic and saga literature after its settlement around 870 CE.

Norway, Countries

Norway is part of the Norse homeland and the origin point of much Icelandic settlement.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Scandinavia, Regions

Scandinavia is the Norse homeland.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Sweden, Countries

Sweden is part of the Norse homeland, home to the pagan-era cult center at Uppsala.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall

Originates in Language

Old Norse, Languages

Old Norse is the people's own recorded tongue.

Principal Tradition Of

Norse Paganism, Religions

Norse Paganism is the pre-Christian religion of the Norse and is named for them.

Related To

Excavated in Scandinavia and in the Norse diaspora.

Worship Of

Baldr, Deities

Baldr, son of Odin and Frigg, was renowned for beauty and goodness; his death is a central Eddic myth.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)
Eir, Deities

Eir is honored in Norse tradition as the best of physicians, a gentle restoring presence among the goddesses and valkyries.

Freya, Deities

Freya, foremost of the Vanir, presided over fertility, love and a portion of the war dead.

Frigg, Deities

Frigg, Odin's wife, is the goddess of marriage, foresight and the household.

Heimdall, Deities

Heimdall guards Asgard's entrance, the rainbow bridge Bifrost, and will sound the horn that begins Ragnarok.

Source EddaSnorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.)
Nott, Deities

Nott, night personified, riding her chariot drawn by Hrimfaxi, belongs to the Norse mythological corpus alongside her son Dagr, the day.

Odin, Deities

Odin, chief of the Aesir, is attested in place names and in Adam of Bremen's account of the temple at Uppsala.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Thor, Deities

Thor, god of thunder and protection, is the most widely attested Norse god in personal names and place names.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Tyr, Deities

Tyr, an Aesir god of law and war, gave his name to the weekday Tuesday across Germanic languages.

Source Dictionary of Northern MythologyRudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall
Sources
1. Dictionary of Northern Mythology
Rudolf Simek, translated by Angela Hall, D. S. Brewer, 1993View the Source
2. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs
John Lindow, Oxford University Press, 2001View the Source
Edda
Snorri Sturluson; Anthony Faulkes (trans.), Everyman, 1987View the Source
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