123-561: Sigyn ( Old Norse "(woman) friend of victory") is a deity from Norse mythology . She is attested in the Poetic Edda , compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda , written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson . In the Poetic Edda , little information is provided about Sigyn other than her role in assisting her husband Loki during his captivity. In
246-420: A gýgr named Bestla . Some of the features of this myth, such as the cow Audumbla, are of unclear provenance; Snorri does not specify where he obtained these details as he did for other parts of the myths, and it may be that these were his inventions. Völuspá portrays Yggdrasil as a giant ash tree. Grímnismál claims that the deities meet beneath Yggdrasil daily to pass judgement. It also claims that
369-673: A memorial stone ; carving his hammer on the stone also served this function. In contrast to the few runic fragments, a considerable body of literary and historical sources survive in Old Norse manuscripts using the Latin script , all of which were created after the Christianisation of Scandinavia , the majority in Iceland. The first extensive Nordic textual source for the Old Norse Religion
492-482: A "cultural paganism", the re-use of pre-Christian myth "in certain cultural and social contexts" that are officially Christian. For instance, Old Norse mythological themes and motifs appear in poetry composed for the court of Cnut the Great , an eleventh-century Christian Anglo-Scandinavian king. Saxo is the earliest medieval figure to take a revived interest in the pre-Christian beliefs of his ancestors, doing so not out of
615-459: A "cultural patchwork" which emerged under a wide range of influences from earlier Scandinavian religions. It may have had links to Nordic Bronze Age : while the putatively solar-oriented belief system of Bronze Age Scandinavia is believed to have died out around 500 BCE, several Bronze Age motifs—such as the wheel cross—reappear in later Iron Age contexts . It is often regarded as having developed from earlier religious belief systems found among
738-561: A "grove of hot springs ". Sigyn is mentioned a second (and final) time in the ending prose section of the poem Lokasenna . In the prose, Loki has been bound by the gods with the guts of his son Nari , his son Váli is described as having been turned into a wolf, and the goddess Skaði fastens a venomous snake over Loki's face, from which venom drips. Sigyn holds a basin under the dripping venom. The basin grows full, and she pulls it away, during which time venom drops on Loki, causing him to writhe so violently that earthquakes occur that shake
861-520: A broader Germanic religion found across linguistically Germanic Europe; of the different forms of this Germanic religion, that of the Old Norse is the best-documented. Rooted in ritual practice and oral tradition, Old Norse religion was fully integrated with other aspects of Norse life, including subsistence, warfare, and social interactions. Open codifications of Old Norse beliefs were either rare or non-existent. The practitioners of this belief system themselves had no term meaning "religion", which
984-701: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse
1107-405: A depiction of a long-haired female, kneeling figure holding an object above another prostrate, bound figure. Above and to their left is a knotted serpent. This has been interpreted as Sigyn soothing the bound Loki. While the name Sigyn is found as a female personal name in Old Norse sources (Old Norse sigr meaning 'victory' and vina meaning 'female friend'), and though in surviving sources she
1230-614: A desire to revive their faith but out of historical interest. Snorri was also part of this revived interest, examining pagan myths from his perspective as a cultural historian and mythographer. As a result, Norse mythology "long outlasted any worship of or belief in the gods it depicts". There remained, however, remnants of Norse pagan rituals for centuries after Christianity became the dominant religion in Scandinavia (see Trollkyrka ). Old Norse gods continued to appear in Swedish folklore up until
1353-578: A detailed description of a ship burial . Since the literary evidence that represents Old Norse sources were recorded by Christians, archaeological evidence, especially of religious sites and burials is of great importance, particularly as a source of information on Norse religion before the conversion. Many aspects of material culture —including settlement locations, artefacts and buildings—may cast light on beliefs, and archaeological evidence regarding religious practices indicates chronological, geographic and class differences far greater than are suggested by
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#17328767339621476-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within
1599-569: A form of sorcery that some scholars describe as shamanistic . Various forms of burial were conducted, including both inhumation and cremation, typically accompanied by a variety of grave goods. Throughout its history, varying levels of trans-cultural diffusion occurred among neighbouring peoples, such as the Sami and Finns . By the 12th century, Old Norse religion had been replaced by Christianity, with elements continuing into Scandinavian folklore . A revival of interest in Old Norse religion occurred amid
1722-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has
1845-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive
1968-489: A literary creation designed to meet the ruling class' aspirations since the idea of deceased warriors owing military service to Oðinn parallels the social structure between warriors and their lord. There is no archaeological evidence clearly alluding to a belief in Valhalla. According to Snorri, while one-half of the slain go to Valhalla, the others go to Frejya's hall, Fólkvangr , and those who die from disease or old age go to
2091-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,
2214-456: A new conversion process to Christianise this incoming population. The Nordic world first encountered Christianity through its settlements in the already Christian British Isles and through trade contacts with the eastern Christians in Novgorod and Byzantium . By the time Christianity arrived in Scandinavia it was already the accepted religion across most of Europe. It is not well understood how
2337-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to
2460-538: A particular deity. Transmitted through oral culture rather than through codified texts, Old Norse religion focused heavily on ritual practice, with kings and chiefs playing a central role in carrying out public acts of sacrifice. Various cultic spaces were used; initially, outdoor spaces such as groves and lakes were typically selected, but after the third century CE cult houses seem to also have been purposely built for ritual activity, although they were never widespread. Norse society also contained practitioners of Seiðr ,
2583-513: A passage quoted from the 9th-century Haustlöng , "the burden of Sigyn's arms". The final mention of Sigyn in Skáldskaparmál is in the list of ásynjur in the appended Nafnaþulur section, chapter 75. The mid-11th century Gosforth Cross located in Cumbria , England , has been interpreted as featuring various figures from Norse mythology. The bottom portion of the west side of the cross features
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#17328767339622706-587: A realm known as Hel ; it was here that Baldr went after his death. The concept of Hel as an afterlife location never appears in pagan-era skaldic poetry, where "Hel" always references the eponymous goddess. Snorri also mentions the possibility of the dead reaching the hall of Brimir in Gimlé , or the hall of Sindri in the Niðafjöll Mountains . Various sagas and the Eddic poem Helgakviða Hundingsbana II refer to
2829-419: A serpent gnaws at its roots while a deer grazes from its higher branches; a squirrel runs between the two animals, exchanging messages. Grímnismál also claims that Yggdrasil has three roots; under one resides the goddess Hel, under another the frost-þursar, and under the third humanity. Snorri also relates that Hel and the frost-þursar live under two of the roots but places the gods, rather than humanity, under
2952-472: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after
3075-417: A son of Loki only, and "Nari or Narfi", earlier described a son of Sigyn and Loki. Váli is changed into a wolf by the gods, and rips apart his brother "Nari or Narfi". The guts of "Nari or Narfi" are then used to tie Loki to three stones, after which the guts turn to iron, and Skaði places a snake above Loki. Sigyn places herself beside him, where she holds out a bowl to catch the dripping venom. However, when
3198-601: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It
3321-460: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created
3444-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding
3567-489: Is Ásynjur , which is properly the feminine of Æsir . An old word for goddess may be dís , which is preserved as the name of a group of female supernatural beings. Ancestral deities were common among Finno-Ugric peoples and remained a strong presence among the Finns and Sámi after Christianisation. Ancestor veneration may have played a part in the private religious practices of Norse people in their farmsteads and villages; in
3690-486: Is again stated that the Old Norse cosmogony began with a belief in Ginnungagap, the void. From this emerged two realms, the icy, misty Niflheim and the fire-filled Muspell , the latter ruled over by fire- jötunn , Surtr . A river produced by these realms coagulated to form Ymir, while a cow known as Audumbla then appeared to provide him with milk. Audumbla licked a block of ice to free Buri , whose son Bor married
3813-686: Is apparent in Hávamál , a poem found in the Poetic Edda . In stanza 138 of Hávamál , Oðinn describes his self-sacrifice, in which he hangs himself on Yggdrasill, the world tree, for nine nights, to attain wisdom and magical powers. In the late Gautreks Saga , King Víkarr is hanged and then punctured by a spear; his executioner says "Now I give you to Oðinn". Textual accounts suggest a spectrum of rituals, from large public events to more frequent private and family rites, which would have been interwoven with daily life. However, written sources are vague about Norse rituals, and many are invisible to us now even with
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3936-537: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke
4059-461: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At
4182-403: Is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian
4305-514: Is largely restricted to a single role, she appears in the 9th century skaldic poem Haustlöng from pagan times, written by the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir . Due to this early connection with Loki, Sigyn has been theorized as a god dating back to an older form of Germanic paganism . The scene of Sigyn & Loki has been depicted on a number of paintings, including "Loke och Sigyn" (1850) by Nils Blommér , "Loke och Sigyn" (1863) by Mårten Eskil Winge , "Loki och Sigyn (1879) by Oscar Wergeland , and
4428-524: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to
4551-576: Is one reported example from pagan Norway in the family cult of Vǫlsi , where a deity called Mǫrnir is invoked. The Norns are female figures who determine individuals' fate. Snorri describes them as a group of three, but he and other sources also allude to larger groups of Norns who decide the fate of newborns. It is uncertain whether they were worshipped. The landvættir , spirits of the land, were thought to inhabit certain rocks, waterfalls, mountains, and trees, and offerings were made to them. For many, they may have been more important in daily life than
4674-456: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of
4797-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩
4920-551: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on
5043-475: The Landnámabók , recounting the settlement and early history of Iceland, and the so-called sagas of Icelanders concerning Icelandic individuals and groups; there are also more or less fantastical legendary sagas . Many skaldic verses are preserved in sagas. Of the originally heathen works, we cannot know what changes took place either during oral transmission or as a result of their being recorded by Christians;
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5166-434: The jötnar were not worshipped, although this has been questioned. The Eddic jötnar have parallels with their later folkloric counterparts, although unlike them they have much wisdom. Several accounts of the Old Norse cosmogony, or creation myth, appear in surviving textual sources, but there is no evidence that these were certainly produced in the pre-Christian period. It is possible that they were developed during
5289-478: The Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse
5412-478: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation
5535-626: The Prose Edda , her role in helping Loki through his time spent in bondage is reiterated, she appears in various kennings , and her status as a goddess is mentioned twice. Sigyn may appear on the Gosforth Cross and has been the subject of an amount of theory and cultural references. Sigyn is attested in the following works: In stanza 35 of the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá , a völva tells Odin that, amongst many other things, she sees Sigyn sitting very unhappily with her bound husband, Loki , under
5658-558: The Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peoples . It was replaced by Christianity and forgotten during the Christianisation of Scandinavia . Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic Religion by historical linguistics , archaeology , toponymy , and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in
5781-657: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks
5904-658: The Younger Futhark , a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet. Numerous Old Norse works dated to the 13th-century record Norse mythology , a component of North Germanic religion. Old Norse religion was polytheistic , entailing a belief in various gods and goddesses . These deities in Norse mythology were divided into two groups, the Æsir and the Vanir , who in some sources were said to have engaged in an ancient war until realizing that they were equally powerful. Among
6027-570: The de facto ruler of Norway, and although he agreed to be baptised under pressure from the Danish king and allowed Christians to preach in the kingdom, he enthusiastically supported pagan sacrificial customs, asserting the superiority of the traditional deities and encouraging Christians to return to their veneration. His reign (975–995) saw the emergence of a "state paganism", an official ideology which bound together Norwegian identity with pagan identity and rallied support behind Haakon's leadership. Haakon
6150-762: The romanticist movement of the 19th century, during which it inspired a range of artworks. Academic research into the subject began in the early 19th century, initially influenced by the pervasive romanticist sentiment. The archaeologist Anders Andrén noted that "Old Norse religion" is "the conventional name" applied to the pre-Christian religions of Scandinavia . See for instance other terms used by scholarly sources include "pre-Christian Norse religion", "Norse religion", "Norse paganism", "Nordic paganism", "Scandinavian paganism", "Scandinavian heathenism", "Scandinavian religion", "Northern paganism", "Northern heathenism", "North Germanic religion", or "North Germanic paganism". This Old Norse religion can be seen as part of
6273-428: The sagas of Icelanders , in particular, are now regarded by most scholars as more or less historical fiction rather than as detailed historical records. A large amount of mythological poetry has undoubtedly been lost. One important written source is Snorri's Prose Edda , which incorporates a manual of Norse mythology for the use of poets in constructing kennings; it also includes numerous citations, some of them
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#17328767339626396-597: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for
6519-483: The 10th century, Norwegian pagans attempted to encourage the Christian king Haakon to take part in an offering to the gods by inviting him to drink a toast to the ancestors alongside several named deities. Þorgerðr Hölgabrúðr and Irpa appear to have been personal or family goddesses venerated by Haakon Sigurdsson , a late pagan ruler of Norway. There are also likely to have been local and family fertility cults; there
6642-551: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within
6765-524: The 12th century, Christianity was firmly established across Northwestern Europe. For two centuries, Scandinavian ecclesiastics continued to condemn paganism, although it is unclear whether it still constituted a viable alternative to Christian dominance. These writers often presented paganism as being based on deceit or delusion; some stated that the Old Norse gods had been humans falsely euhemerised as deities. Old Norse mythological stories survived in oral culture for at least two centuries, being recorded in
6888-957: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants
7011-642: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian
7134-400: The 13th century. How this mythology was passed down is unclear; it is possible that pockets of pagans retained their belief system throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, or that it had survived as a cultural artefact passed down by Christians who retained the stories while rejecting any literal belief in them. The historian Judith Jesch suggested that following Christianisation, there remained
7257-482: The Althing in 999, an agreement was reached that the Icelandic law would be based on Christian principles, albeit with concessions to the pagan community. Private, albeit not public, pagan sacrifices and rites were to remain legal. Across Germanic Europe, conversion to Christianity was closely connected to social ties; mass conversion was the norm, rather than individual conversion. A primary motivation for kings converting
7380-568: The Bishops of Hamburg), written between 1066 and 1072, which includes an account of the temple at Uppsala , and Saxo Grammaticus ' 12th-century Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes), which includes versions of Norse myths and some material on pagan religious practices. In addition, Muslim Arabs wrote accounts of Norse people they encountered, the best known of which is Ibn Fadlan 's 10th-century Risala , an account of Volga Viking traders that includes
7503-629: The Christian institutions converted these Scandinavian settlers, in part due to a lack of textual descriptions of this conversion process equivalent to Bede's description of the earlier Anglo-Saxon conversion. However, it appears that the Scandinavian migrants had converted to Christianity within the first few decades of their arrival. After Christian missionaries from the British Isles—including figures like St Willibrord , St Boniface , and Willehad —had travelled to parts of northern Europe in
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#17328767339627626-560: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French
7749-535: The Germanic Iron Age peoples. The Germanic languages likely emerged in the first millennium BCE in present-day Denmark or northern Germany, after which they spread; several of the deities in Old Norse religion have parallels among other Germanic societies. The Scandinavian Iron Age began around 500 to 400 BCE. Archaeological evidence is particularly important for understanding these early periods. Accounts from this time were produced by Tacitus; according to
7872-622: The Good had converted to Christianity while in England. On returning to Norway, he kept his faith largely private but encouraged Christian priests to preach among the population; some pagans were angered and—according to Heimskringla —three churches built near Trondheim were burned down. His successor, Harald Greycloak , was also a Christian but similarly had little success in converting the Norwegian population to his religion. Haakon Sigurdsson later became
7995-456: The Helgi lays, where they are depicted as princesses who assist and marry heroes. Conflict with the jötnar and gýgjar (often glossed as giants and giantesses respectively) is a frequent motif in the mythology. They are described as both the ancestors and enemies of the gods. Gods marry gýgjar but jötnar 's attempts to couple with goddesses are repulsed. Most scholars believe
8118-598: The Norse interacted closely with other ethnocultural and linguistic groups, such as the Sámi , Balto-Finns , Anglo-Saxons , Greenlandic Inuit , and various speakers of Celtic and Slavic languages. Economic, marital, and religious exchange occurred between the Norse and many of these other groups. Enslaved individuals from the British Isles were common throughout the Nordic world during
8241-487: The Old Norse Religion was Tacitus ' book, the Germania , which dates back to around 100 CE and describes religious practices of several Germanic peoples , but has little coverage of Scandinavia. In the Middle Ages, several Christian commentators also wrote about Scandinavian paganism, mostly from a hostile perspective. The best known of these are Adam of Bremen 's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (History of
8364-468: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused
8487-738: The Viking Age, Norse people left Scandinavia and settled elsewhere throughout Northwestern Europe . Some of these areas, such as Iceland, the Orkney and Shetland Islands , and the Faroe Islands , were hardly populated, whereas other areas, such as England, Southwest Wales, Scotland, the Western Isles, Isle of Man, and Ireland, were already heavily populated. In the 870s, Norwegian settlers left their homeland and colonized Iceland , bringing their belief system with them. Place-name evidence suggests that Thor
8610-523: The Viking Age. Different elements of Old Norse religion had different origins and histories; some aspects may derive from deep into prehistory, others only emerging following the encounter with Christianity. In Hilda Ellis Davidson 's words, present-day knowledge of Old Norse religion contains "vast gaps", and we must be cautious and avoid "bas[ing] wild assumptions on isolated details". A few runic inscriptions with religious content survive from Scandinavia, particularly asking Thor to hallow or protect
8733-569: The afterlife. Snorri refers to multiple realms which welcome the dead; although his descriptions reflect a likely Christian influence, the idea of a plurality of other worlds is likely pre-Christian. Unlike Christianity, Old Norse religion does not appear to have adhered to the belief that moral concerns impacted an individual's afterlife destination. Warriors who died in battle became the Einherjar and were taken to Oðinn's hall, Valhalla. There they waited until Ragnarok when they would fight alongside
8856-451: The archaeologists Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere stated that "pre-Christian Norse religion is not a uniform or stable category", while the scholar Karen Bek-Pedersen noted that the "Old Norse belief system should probably be conceived of in the plural, as several systems". The historian of religion Hilda Ellis Davidson stated that it would have ranged from manifestations of "complex symbolism" to "the simple folk-beliefs of
8979-423: The arrival of Christianity has generated consciousness of Old Norse religion as a distinct religion. Old Norse religion has been classed as an ethnic religion , and as a "non-doctrinal community religion". It varied across time, in different regions and locales, and according to social differences. This variation is partly due to its transmission through oral culture rather than codified texts. For this reason,
9102-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,
9225-489: The bowl becomes full she leaves to pour out the venom. As a result, Loki is again described as shaking so violently that the planet shakes, and this process repeats until he breaks free, setting Ragnarök into motion. Sigyn is introduced as a goddess, an ásynja , in the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál , where the gods are holding a grand feast for the visiting Ægir , and in kennings for Loki: "husband of Sigyn", "cargo [Loki] of incantation-fetter's [Sigyn's] arms", and in
9348-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/
9471-466: The country was fully Christian by the early 12th. Olaf Tryggvason sent a Saxon missionary, Þangbrandr , to Iceland. Many Icelanders were angered by Þangbrandr's proselytising, and he was outlawed after killing several poets who insulted him. Animosity between Christians and pagans on the island grew, and at the Althing in 998 both sides blasphemed each other's gods. In an attempt to preserve unity, at
9594-403: The dead residing in their graves, where they remain conscious. In these thirteenth century sources, ghosts ( Draugr ) are capable of haunting the living. In both Laxdæla Saga and Eyrbyggja Saga , connections are drawn between pagan burials and hauntings. In mythological accounts, the deity most closely associated with death is Oðinn. In particular, he is connected with death by hanging; this
9717-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it
9840-742: The early 20th century. There are documented accounts of encounters with both Thor and Odin, along with a belief in Freja's power over fertility. Norse mythology , stories of the Norse deities, is preserved in Eddic poetry and in Snorri Sturluson 's guide for skalds , the Poetic Edda . Depictions of some of these stories can be found on picture stones in Gotland and in other visual records including some early Christian crosses, which attests to how widely known they were. The myths were transmitted purely orally until
9963-517: The earth out of the sea. A different account is provided in Vafþrúðnismál , which describes that the world is made from the components of Ymir's body: the earth from his flesh, the mountains from his bones, the sky from his skull, and the sea from his blood. Grímnismál also describes the world being fashioned from Ymir's corpse, although adds the detail that the jötnar emerged from a spring known as Élivágar . In Snorri's Gylfaginning , it
10086-558: The eighth century, Charlemagne pushed for Christianisation in Denmark, with Ebbo of Rheims , Halitgar of Cambrai , and Willeric of Bremen proselytizing in the kingdom during the ninth century. The Danish king Harald Klak converted (826), likely to secure his political alliance with Louis the Pious against his rivals for the throne. The Danish monarchy reverted to Old Norse religion under Horik II (854 – c. 867). The Norwegian king Hákon
10209-455: The encounter with Christianity, as pagans sought to establish a creation myth complex enough to rival that of Christianity; these accounts could also be the result of Christian missionaries interpreting certain elements and tales found in the Old Norse culture and presenting them to be creation myths and a cosmogony, parallel to that of the Bible , in part to aid the Old Norse in the understanding of
10332-638: The end of the period, and were subject to variation; one key poem, "Vǫluspá", is preserved in two variant versions in different manuscripts, and Snorri's retelling of the myths sometimes varies from the other textual sources that are preserved. There was no single authoritative version of a particular myth, and variation over time and from place to place is presumed, rather than "a single unified body of thought". In particular, there may have been influences from interactions with other peoples, including northern Slavs, Finns, and Anglo-Saxons, and Christian mythology exerted an increasing influence. Old Norse religion
10455-585: The entire earth. Sigyn appears in the books Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál in the Prose Edda . In Gylfaginning , Sigyn is introduced in chapter 31. There, she is introduced as being married to Loki, and that they have a son by the name of " Nari or Narfi ". Sigyn is mentioned again in Gylfaginning in chapter 50, where events are described differently than in Lokasenna . Here, the gods have captured Loki and his two sons, who are stated as Váli , described as
10578-540: The exchange of hostages. Some mythographers have suggested that this myth was based on recollection of a conflict in Scandinavia between adherents of different belief systems. Major deities among the Æsir include Thor (who is often referred to in literary texts as Asa-Thor), Odin and Týr . Very few Vanir are named in the sources: Njǫrðr , his son Freyr , and his daughter Freyja ; according to Snorri all of these could be called Vanaguð (Vanir-god), and Freyja also Vanadís (Vanir- dís ). The status of Loki within
10701-479: The gods they venerated more or at all. There are also accounts in sagas of individuals who devoted themselves to a single deity, described as a fulltrúi or vinr (confidant, friend) as seen in Egill Skallagrímsson 's reference to his relationship with Odin in his " Sonatorrek ", a tenth-century skaldic poem for example. This practice has been interpreted as heathen past influenced by the Christian cult of
10824-436: The gods. Texts also mention various kinds of elves and dwarfs . Fylgjur , guardian spirits, generally female, were associated with individuals and families. Hamingjur , dísir and swanmaidens are female supernatural figures of uncertain stature within the belief system; the dísir may have functioned as tutelary goddesses . Valkyries were associated with the myths concerning Odin, and also occur in heroic poetry such as
10947-454: The idea of an inescapable fate pervaded Norse worldviews. There is much evidence that Völuspá was influenced by Christian belief, and it is also possible that the theme of conflict being followed by a better future—as reflected in the Ragnarok story—perhaps reflected the period of conflict between paganism and Christianity. Old Nordic religion had several fully developed ideas about death and
11070-409: The illustration "Loki und Sigyn; Hel mit dem Hunde Garm" (1883) by K. Ehrenberg. Various objects and places have been named after Sigyn in modern times, including the Norwegian stiff-straw winter wheat varieties Sigyn I and Sigyn II , a Marvel Comics character (1978) of the same name , the Swedish vessel MS Sigyn , which transports spent nuclear fuel in an allusion to Sigyn holding a bowl beneath
11193-675: The less sophisticated". During the Viking Age , the Norse likely regarded themselves as a more or less unified entity through their shared Germanic language, Old Norse . The scholar of Scandinavian studies Thomas A. DuBois said Old Norse religion and other pre-Christian belief systems in Northern Europe must be viewed as "not as isolated, mutually exclusive language-bound entities, but as broad concepts shared across cultural and linguistic lines, conditioned by similar ecological factors and protracted economic and cultural ties". During this period,
11316-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If
11439-661: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse
11562-407: The most widespread deities were the gods Odin and Thor . This world was inhabited also by various other mythological races, including jötnar , dwarfs , elves , and land-wights . Norse cosmology revolved around a world tree known as Yggdrasil , with various realms existing alongside that of humans, named Midgard . These include multiple afterlife realms, several of which are controlled by
11685-480: The name of a deity. Magnus Olsen developed a typology of such place names in Norway, from which he posited a development in pagan worship from groves and fields toward the use of temple buildings. Personal names are also a source of information on the popularity of certain deities; for example, Thor's name was an element in the names of both men and women, particularly in Iceland. Andrén described Old Norse religion as
11808-503: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around
11931-459: The new Christian religion through the use of native elements as a means to facilitate conversion (a common practice employed by missionaries to ease the conversion of people from different cultures across the globe. See Syncretism ). According to the account in Völuspá , the universe was initially a void known as Ginnungagap . There then appeared a jötunn , Ymir , and after him the gods, who lifted
12054-435: The only record of lost poems, such as Þjóðólfr of Hvinir 's Haustlöng . Snorri's Prologue eumerises the Æsir as Trojans , deriving Æsir from Asia , and some scholars have suspected that many of the stories that we only have from him are also derived from Christian medieval culture. Additional sources remain by non-Scandinavians writing in languages other than Old Norse. The first non-Scandinavian textual source for
12177-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having
12300-406: The pantheon is problematic, and according to " Lokasenna " and "Vǫluspá" and Snorri's explanation, he is imprisoned beneath the earth until Ragnarok , when he will fight against the gods. As far back as 1889 Sophus Bugge suggested this was the inspiration for the myth of Lucifer . Some of the goddesses— Skaði , Rindr , Gerðr are jötnar origins. The general Old Norse word for the goddesses
12423-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because
12546-447: The saints. Although our literary sources are all relatively late, there are also indications of change over time. Norse mythological sources, particularly Snorri and "Vǫluspá", differentiate between two groups of deities, the Æsir and the Vanir , who fought a war during which the Vanir broke down the walls of the Æsir's stronghold, Asgard , and eventually made peace utilizing a truce and
12669-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains
12792-464: The scholar Gabriel Turville-Petre , Tacitus' observations "help to explain" later Old Norse religion. Tacitus described the Germanic peoples as having priests, open-air sacred sites, and seasonal sacrifices and feasts. Tacitus notes that the Germanic peoples were polytheistic and mentions some of their deities trying to perceive them through Roman equivalents, so Romans could try to understand . During
12915-766: The surviving texts. Place names are an additional source of evidence. Theophoric place names, including instances where a pair of deity names occur near, provide an indication of the importance of the religion of those deities in different areas, dating back to before our earliest written sources. The toponymic evidence shows considerable regional variation, and some deities, such as Ullr and Hǫrn , occur more frequently, than Odin place-names occur, in other locations. Some place-names contain elements indicating that they were sites of religious activity: those formed with - vé , - hörgr , and - hof , words for religious sites of various kinds, and also likely those formed with - akr or - vin , words for "field", when coupled with
13038-471: The third root. The term Yggr means "the terrifier" and is a synonym for Oðinn, while drasill was a poetic word for a horse; "Yggdrasil" thereby means "Oðinn's Steed". This idea of a cosmic tree has parallels with those from various other societies, and may reflect part of a common Indo-European heritage. The Ragnarok story survives in its fullest exposition in Völuspá , although elements can also be seen in earlier poetry. The Ragnarok story suggests that
13161-602: The time of its first settlement. Scandinavian settlers brought Old Norse religion to Britain in the latter decades of the ninth century. Several British place-names indicate possible religious sites; for instance, Roseberry Topping in North Yorkshire was known as Othensberg in the twelfth century, a name deriving from the Old Norse Óðinsberg ("Hill of Óðin"). Several place-names also contain Old Norse references to religious entities, such as alfr , skratii , and troll . The English church found itself in need of conducting
13284-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/
13407-413: The venom to spare Loki, and the antarctic Sigyn Glacier . Old Norse Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age ,
13530-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though
13653-414: The Æsir. According to the poem Grímnismál , Valhalla had 540 doors and a wolf stood outside its western door, while an eagle flew overhead. In that poem, it is also claimed that a boar named Sæhrímnir is eaten every day and that a goat named Heiðrún stands atop the hall's roof producing an endless supply of mead. It is unclear how widespread a belief in Valhalla was in Norse society; it may have been
13776-534: Was polytheistic , with many anthropomorphic gods and goddesses, who express human emotions and in some cases are married and have children. One god, Baldr , is said in the myths to have died. Archaeological evidence on the worship of particular gods is sparse, although placenames may also indicate locations where they were venerated. For some gods, particularly Loki , there is no evidence of worship; however, this may be changed by new archaeological discoveries. Regions, communities, and social classes likely varied in
13899-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to
14022-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in
14145-571: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of
14268-428: Was killed in 995 and Olaf Tryggvason , the next king, took power and enthusiastically promoted Christianity; he forced high-status Norwegians to convert, destroyed temples, and killed those he called 'sorcerers'. Sweden was the last Scandinavian country to officially convert; although little is known about the process of Christianisation, it is known that the Swedish kings had converted by the early 11th century and that
14391-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut
14514-416: Was only introduced with Christianity. Following Christianity's arrival, Old Norse terms that were used for the pre-Christian systems were forn sið ("old custom") or heiðinn sið ("heathen custom"), terms which suggest an emphasis on rituals, actions, and behaviours rather than belief itself. The earliest known usage of the Old Norse term heiðinn is in the poem Hákonarmál ; its uses here indicates that
14637-635: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into
14760-516: Was the Poetic Edda . Some of the poetic sources, in particular, the Poetic Edda and skaldic poetry, may have been originally composed by heathens, and Hávamál contains both information on heathen mysticism and what Ursula Dronke referred to as "a round-up of ritual obligations". In addition there is information about pagan beliefs and practices in the sagas , which include both historical sagas such as Snorri Sturluson 's Heimskringla and
14883-754: Was the desire for support from Christian rulers, whether as money, imperial sanction, or military support. Christian missionaries found it difficult convincing Norse people that the two belief systems were mutually exclusive; the polytheistic nature of Old Norse religion allowed its practitioners to accept Jesus Christ as one god among many. The encounter with Christianity could also stimulate new and innovative expressions of pagan culture, for instance through influencing various pagan myths. As with other Germanic societies, syncretisation between incoming and traditional belief systems took place. For those living in isolated areas, pre-Christian beliefs likely survived longer, while others continued as survivals in folklore. By
15006-424: Was the most popular god on the island, although there are also saga accounts of devotés of Freyr in Iceland, including a "priest of Freyr" in the later Hrafnkels saga . There are no place-names connected to Odin on the island. Unlike other Nordic societies, Iceland lacked a monarchy and thus a centralising authority which could enforce religious adherence; there were both Old Norse and Christian communities from
15129-406: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Norse paganism Old Norse religion , also known as Norse paganism , is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during
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