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Norse religious worship is the traditional religious rituals practiced by Norse pagans in Scandinavia in pre-Christian times. Norse religion was a folk religion (as opposed to an organized religion), and its main purpose was the survival and regeneration of society. Therefore, the faith was decentralized and tied to the village and the family ...
Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is a branch of Germanic religion which developed during 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.
Gold jewellery from the 10th century Hiddensee treasure, mixing Norse pagan and Christian symbols. Pair of "tortoise brooches," which were worn by married Viking women. Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the ...
A depiction of Freyja. Within Norse paganism, Freyja was the deity primarily associated with seiðr.. In Old Norse, seiðr (sometimes anglicized as seidhr, seidh, seidr, seithr, seith, or seid) was a type of magic which was practised in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age.
Based on Old Norse evidence, Germanic paganism probably had a variety of words to refer to gods. [115] Words descended from Proto-Germanic * ansuz , the origin of the Old Norse family of gods known as the Aesir (singular Áss), are attested as a name for divine beings from around the Germanic world. [ 116 ]
Heitstrenging (pl. heitstrengingar) is an Old Norse practice of swearing of a solemn oath to perform a future action. They were often performed at Yule and other large social events, where they played a role in establishing and maintaining good relationships principally between members of the aristocratic warrior elite.
The pagan Germanic peoples referred to holy places by a variety of terms and many of these terms variously referred to stones, groves, and temple structures. From Proto-Germanic * harugaz , a masculine noun, developed Old Norse hǫrgr meaning 'altar', Old English hearg 'altar', and Old High German harug meaning 'holy grove, holy stone'.
Tissø in Zealand, which was the site of a religious centre in the Viking Age [1]. A prominent position was held by wetlands and islands in Germanic paganism, as in other pagan European cultures, featuring as sites of religious practice and belief from the Nordic Bronze Age until the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples.