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Baltic Finnic pagans were polytheistic, believing in a number of different deities.Most of the deities ruled over a specific aspect of nature; for instance, Ukko was the god of the sky and thunder (ukkonen and ukonilma ["Ukko's air"] are still used in modern Finnish as terms for thunderstorms).
Yngvi is a name of the god Freyr, perhaps Freyr's true name, as freyr means 'lord' and has probably evolved from a common invocation of the god. In the Íslendingabók (written in the early twelfth century by the Icelandic priest Ari Þorgilsson ) Yngvi Tyrkja konungr 'Yngvi king of Turkey ' appears as the father of Njörðr who in turn is the ...
The Christian kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden were also greedy for conquests on the Eastern shores of the Baltic. While the Swedes made only one failed foray into western Estonia in 1220, the Danish Fleet headed by King Valdemar II of Denmark had landed at the Estonian town of Lindanisse [11] (present-day Tallinn) in 1219.
Swedish culture is an offshoot of the Norse culture which dominated southern Scandinavia in prehistory.Sweden was the last of the Scandinavian countries to be Christianised, with pagan resistance apparently strongest in Svealand, where Uppsala was an old and important ritual site as evidenced by the tales of Uppsala temple.
Sweden is considered one of the world's most secular nations, with a high proportion of irreligious people. [9] Phil Zuckerman, an associate professor of Sociology at Pitzer College, [10] writes that several academic sources have in recent years placed atheism rates in Sweden between 46% and 85%, with one source reporting that only 17% of respondents self-identified as "atheist". [11]
In chapter 5, Snorri asserts that the æsir settled in what is now Sweden and built various temples. Snorri writes that "Odin took up his residence at the Maelare lake, at the place now called Old Sigtun. There he erected a large farm shrine (hof), where there were offerings (blót) according to the customs of the Asaland people.
In the first half of the 17th-century, churches were built in Sápmi by the order of king Charles IX of Sweden, and the Sámi people were compelled to subject themselves to the law of Sweden by attending them. [4] They were however silently allowed to practice Sámi shamanism in private until the second half of the 17th-century, when Swedish ...
The merging/assimilation of the two nations took a long time, however. In the early-20th century, Nordisk familjebok noted that svensk had almost replaced svear as a name for the Swedish people. [29] At the same time, the Swedish ancestors were often referred to as Geats, especially when their heroism or connection to the Goths was to be stressed.