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. … See more

In Hilda Ellis Davidson's words, present-day knowledge of Old Norse religion contains "vast gaps", and we must be cautious and avoid "bas[ing] wild assumptions on … See more

Iron Age origins
Andrén described Old Norse religion as a "cultural patchwork" which emerged under a wide range of influences from earlier Scandinavian … See more

Textual accounts suggest a spectrum of rituals, from large public events to more frequent private and family rites, which would have been … See more

The archaeologist Anders Andrén noted that "Old Norse religion" is "the conventional name" applied to the pre-Christian religions of Scandinavia. See for instance other terms used by scholarly sources include "pre-Christian Norse religion", "Norse … See more

Norse mythology, stories of the Norse deities, is preserved in Eddic poetry and in Snorri Sturluson's guide for skalds, the Poetic Edda. Depictions of some of these stories can be found on See more

The myth preserved in the Eddic poem "Hávamál" of Odin hanging for nine nights on Yggdrasill, sacrificing himself to secure knowledge of the See more