The Encyclopedia of World Religions

326 S Nordic religion

Animal and sometimes human SACRIFICE played a major role in Nordic religion. For example, a well-known carving in Sweden shows a man being hanged on a tree, apparently a sacrifice to Odin. Sacrifices originally took place at outdoor sanc tuaries, such as rocks and waterfalls. Eventually Nordic peoples built wooden temples, perhaps because of Christian influence. A particularly fine temple is said to have been in the city of Uppsala in Sweden. No Nordic temple has survived, but perhaps they looked like wooden stave churches in the region today. Archaeology tells us about Nordic burial practices. Particularly well-known are tombs that include ships. Some Nordic people may have thought that death involved a journey to the west across the sea. Others seem to have located the afterlife in the far north or in an underworld. Nor dic people sometimes called the realm of the dead Hel. They did not, however, conceive of it as a place of punishment, the way Christians have tra ditionally conceived of HELL . During the last 200 years there has been much interest in Nordic religion. Not all of this interest has been beneficial. For example, some Nazis stud ied Nordic religion because they saw it as the true religion of the Aryan peoples. Speakers of English are familiar with more benign survivals of Nor dic religion. The names for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday derive from the Nordic gods Tyr, Odin (Wotan), Thor, and Frigg, respectively. See also A RCTIC RELIGIONS . Further reading: Brian Branston, The Lost Gods of England (London: Constable, 1993); H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1988); Peter Berresford Ellis, A Brief History of the Druids (London: Robinson, 2002); E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964).

Several sources provide information about Nordic religion. One of the most important is early Icelandic literature: the Eddas and skaldic poetry. The single most important early Icelandic writer is Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241). These early writ ings tell stories about the gods, but it is often dif ficult to separate pre-Christian from post-Christian elements. Other sources that provide information about Nordic religion include archaeological exca vations, inscriptions written in runes, ancient art work, and writings by outside observers such as Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus. Nordic stories identify two groups of gods, the Aesir (generally military gods) and the Vanir (generally fertility gods). In the distant past these two groups fought with one another, but they then made peace. Another story tells how the trickster god, L OKI , engineered the death of the god Balder, the son of Odin (known as W OTAN further south). When Balder was born, his mother, Frigg, had made him invincible against all the weapons she named. She did not mention the wood of the mis tletoe. Balder died from an arrow of mistletoe. Nordic speakers told different stories about the creation of the world. According to one of these stories, which resembles one found in a famous hymn of the Rig V EDA , the world came from the killing and dismembering of a giant named Ymir. Perhaps best known of all Nordic stories, however, are those about the end of the world, called Ragn arok. At that time, the god Odin, the highest god, will die in battling against the wolf Fenrir. (The spirits of slain human warriors who have been liv ing with him in his castle, Valhalla, will join him in the battle.) The god T HOR will die battling the serpent who surrounds the world, Jörmungand. The cosmic ash tree, Yggdrasill, at whose foot the well of wisdom sits, will shake and perhaps fall. The sun will go out, the sky will go black, and the earth will sink beneath the ocean. This will not, however, be the true end. The earth will rise again and peace will be restored.