Norse / Germanic Paganism

Gods, giants, and fate arrayed on the branches of a world-tree.

c. 500 BCE – 1100 CE · Scandinavia & N. Europe · Indo-European Pagan

Norse religion imagined the cosmos as the world-tree Yggdrasil, joining realms of gods, giants, and the dead, all moving toward the foretold cataclysm of Ragnarök. Odin, Thor, and Freyja headed a pantheon served through blót sacrifice and feasting, with fate woven by the Norns. Recorded chiefly in the medieval Eddas, it too fuels modern heathen revivals.

Key figures

• Odin, Thor, Freyja
• The Norns (fate-weavers)

Texts

• Poetic & Prose Edda
• Runic inscriptions

Beliefs

• A cosmos on the world-tree Yggdrasil
• Fate (wyrd) binding gods and men
• Ragnarök — the doom and renewal of the world

Rituals

• Blót sacrifice and feasting
• Seiðr (magic and divination)
• Burial with grave goods

Grew from

• Proto-Indo-European Religion

Connections in the atlas

• The Rök Runestone
• Draugr
• Vegvísir
• Old Uppsala
• Akershus Fortress
• Frigg
• Snorri Sturluson
• The word hell
• The figure in the moon
• The kraken and the hafgufa
• Parallel texts: The end of the world
• The Sami