NORSE RELIGION &
MYTHOLOGY
Who are the Norse?
• The Norse people were
also called Vikings
(meaning expedition)
• The Vikings came from
Norway, Sweden and
Denmark.
• Scandinavia was not
fertile so the Vikings
travelled and expanded
their territory
establishing settlements
from Russia to Vinland
(present day
Newfoundland)
The Vikings were
the first Europeans
to reach North
America.
The Vikings seemed to get everywhere...
Eric the Red
founded a
new
settlement in
Greenland.
The Vikings
had
settlements
in Iceland
in the ninth
century.
The French king gave
the province of
Normandy to a
Viking duke named
Rollo to stop him
attacking.
The Vikings
settled in an
area called Rus.
The name Russia
comes from this
word.
Sagas and Runes
• Sagas
• Viking children did not go to school so instead, lessons came in the form
of Sagas or long stories.
• Described the adventures of great Viking warriors or gods.
• Used to teach history, geography and navigation.
• The Vikings often decorated buildings with pictures from famous sagas.
• Runes
• The Viking alphabet was called the Futhark.
• The letters or runes were carved into wood or stone. The runes are made
of straight lines so it is easier to carve them.
Norse
Myth
Sources
Norse myths existed only in oral form while they were central
to religious belief. They were only written down after
Northern Europe had become Christian.
So we have new problems with our primary sources:
• no coherent body of literature showing the myths and
legends
• possible alteration due to the influence of Christianity
• “fictionalization” of stories which originally had religious
importance.
Plus:
• a wide time span, wide geographical range and many
different sub-cultures
Sources
The Prose Edda. A narrative of
many different adventures of the
Norse gods.
Poetic Eddas: Traditional songs,
which often refer to mythic
incidents, usually just individual
adventures.
Skaaldic Songs: poems in honor
of human accomplishments, with
occasional references to myth,
sometimes very cryptic.
Creation: Fusion of hot and cold
In the south was a land of fire;
in the north was a land of ice.
They met in the great emptiness
of Ginnungagap, and the ice
began to melt.
From the melting ice came a
huge giant, Ymir.
The first man and woman grew
from under his arms. The frostgiants grew from his feet.
Ymir fed on the milk of a cow,
which licked another creature,
and created a man named Bur,
from the ice.
Creation
Bur’s grandsons, Odin and 2 others, killed Ymir and made
the world from his parts:
• his skull became the sky
• his eyebrows formed a barrier between the world of
men and the world of giants
• his blood became sea and lakes
• his bones became the mountains
Norse mythology was extremely complex with nine
different worlds. All nine worlds were connected by a tree.
Asgard (realm of the gods) could only be reached by
crossing the Rainbow Bridge.
The Realms of Existence
• Asgard – where the
gods lived
• Midgard – where
humans lived
• Hel – the underworld
of the dead
• Creation was all tied
together by
Yggdrasill, the world
tree.
The Gods
The Norse gods are
divided into two races:
Aesir and Vanir.
Aesir are dominant; they
are the gods most
associated with heroic
tales, conflict with giants,
warfare, and the
beginning and end of the
world.
Vanir tend to be fertility
deities; there are fewer of
them.
Odin, Thor, and Loki
• The most important figures in Norse
mythology were Odin and his sons Thor
and Loki.
– Odin is the chief of the gods. His wife is Frigg,
whose name means fate.
– Thor is a god of thunder, with the muscle,
violence, and brute strength laced with
intelligence, that we see in Heracles.
– Loki is a trickster figure, often on the side of
mischief or even evil; his father was a giant.
Thor:
ancient &
modern
ideas . . .
Ragnarok – The “Twilight of the Gods”
• The end of the
world
• Similar to Christian
concepts
• Good vs. Evil
• But…
Ragnarok – The “Twilight of the Gods”
Norse myth, unlike Greek, does
not portray a world in which the
gods have conquered discord
and established order, but a
world in which the gods are
constantly battling their
adversaries.
This battle comes to a head at
Ragnarok.
The death of Balder (god of
light and beauty) is one element
in the final episode of Norse
myth, Ragnarok, “The Twilight
of the Gods.”
Ragnarok
Loki remains suffering under
the poison of the serpent, and
Balder remains in Hel (rather
than in Valholl!) until the
conflicts of Ragnarok.
The end of the world is
preceded by an increase of
wars and conflicts among men;
then there is a three-year
winter.
Monsters break loose,
Iormungand emerges from the
sea and floods the earth. A
wolf swallows the sun and her
brother the moon; stars fall
from the sky.
An age of axes, an age of
swords, shattered shields, an
Age of tempests, an age of
wolves, before the age of
men crashes down.
Led by the giant Surt, with
Loki as the helmsman, the
giants arrive in their ship,
Naglfar, made from the uncut
fingernails of the dead.
A huge battle between gods
and giants takes place at the
gates of Asgard.
Ragnarok
• Thor is killed by the venom of
a poisonous serpent.
• Odin is eaten by Fenrir, a
monstrous wolf.
• But from this destruction
comes a new world and those
who remain hidden in
Yggdrasill will repopulate the
world.
• Thus the end will contain the
germ of a new beginning, and
the cycle will start again.
finis