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Norse religion was at no time homogeneous, but was a conglomerate of related customs and beliefs. These could be inherited or borrowed, [2] and although the great geographical distances of Scandinavia led to a variety of cultural differences, people understood each other's customs, poetic traditions and myths. [3]
Norse clothing. In modern scholarship, Vikings is a common term for attacking Norsemen, especially in connection with raids and monastic plundering by Norsemen in the British Isles, but it was not used in this sense at the time. In Old Norse and Old English, the word simply meant 'pirate'. [18] [19] [20]
Ask and Embla, the first human beings in Norse mythology, created from trees and whose names may mean "ash" and "elm" Dream of the Rood, an Old English poem describing the crucifixion of Jesus from the point of view of a sentient tree; Hlín, a Norse goddess whose name some scholars have suggested may mean 'maple tree'
Three figures on the Skog tapestry; they have been interpreted as the Norse gods Odin (one eye), Thor (hammer in hand) and Freyr.. 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.
The gods were thought to live in farms together with their spouses and children, just like their mortal worshippers. [2] The Eddas also mentioned the jötnar (or giants), describing them as the gods' superhuman enemies. [2] Old Norse religious practises are poorly documented. [3]
North Germanic peoples, Nordic peoples [1] and in a medieval context Norsemen, [2] were a Germanic linguistic group originating from the Scandinavian Peninsula. [3] They are identified by their cultural similarities, common ancestry and common use of the Proto-Norse language from around 200 AD, a language that around 800 AD became the Old Norse language, which in turn later became the North ...
The Christianization of Scandinavia, as well as other Nordic countries and the Baltic countries, took place between the 8th and the 12th centuries. The realms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden established their own archdioceses, responsible directly to the pope, in 1104, 1154 and 1164, respectively.
A more specific theory about the word Gautigoths is that it means the Goths who live near the river Gaut, [5] today's Göta älv (Old Norse: Gautelfr). [8] It might also have been a conflation of the word Gauti with a gloss of Goths. [9] In the 17th century the name Göta älv, 'River of the Geats', replaced the earlier names Götälven and ...