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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.
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 ...
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period.
As previous and contemporary peoples of Scandinavia (the Vikings), the tribal Danes were practitioners of the Norse religion. Around 500 AD, many of the gods of the Norse pantheon had lost their previous significance, except a few such as Thor, Odin and Frey who were increasingly worshipped.
Ásatrúarfélagið was recognized as a religious organization by the Icelandic government in 1973. Its first leader was farmer and poet Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson . It is the largest non-Christian religious organization in Iceland and has some 3,583 members (as of January 1st, 2017), [ 4 ] making up just over 1% of the total population.
The Norse were also known as Ascomanni, ashmen, by the Germans, Lochlanach (Norse) by the Gaels and Dene (Danes) by the Anglo-Saxons. [ 21 ] The Gaelic terms Finn-Gall (Norwegian Viking or Norwegian), Dubh-Gall (Danish Viking or Danish) and Gall Goidel (foreign Gaelic) were used for the people of Norse descent in Ireland and Scotland, who ...
The history of Scandinavia is the history of the geographical region of Scandinavia and its peoples. The region is located in Northern Europe , and consists of Denmark , Norway and Sweden . Finland and Iceland are at times, especially in English-speaking contexts, considered part of Scandinavia.
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.