Long before the conversion to Christianity, the Vikings celebrated Yule in December in the lead up to the Winter Solstice and the turning of the year. One of the most important mythological events that was believed to happen around Yule was Odin’s Wild Hunt, known as Oskoreia, Odens jakt (Odin’s hunt), or Asgardreien (Asgard Ride).…
Avalon holds a special place in the hearts of anyone interested in the magical and supernatural. While it first appeared in the stories of the Arthurian legends, it grew in the popular imagination with the publication of Marion Summer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon in 1983. She retells the Arthurian legends from the female perspective,…
Many cultures have stories of “riddlers,” who block heroes at some point on their journey. They pose challenging questions, which the hero must answer correctly, or face the consequences. In Greek mythology, this is usually a sphinx, such as the one who challenged Oedipus. In Norse mythology, the riddler is Vafthrudnir, whose name means “strong…
The Nordic countries were not immune to the hysteria of the European witch trials. While laws against witchcraft had been on the books in each country since the Middle Ages, the executions began in the 16th century in the period of the Reformation, when there was a new focus on weeding out heresy with the…
In polytheistic religions, individual gods are often best identified by their attributes, key things they carried with them that distinguished them from the other gods in the pantheon. In Greek mythology, Zeus has his thunderbolts, and Hermes has his winged shoes. Norse religion is no different. Odin always carries his famous spear Gungnir and ravens…
It is now well-known that the Vikings set foot in the New World around the year 1000, when Leif Erikson and his family led several expeditions to areas around Newfoundland, which they called Vinland. However, the Vikings didn’t settle in the region, as the goods they were able to take back home weren’t worth the…
The Vikings began raiding the coastal regions of France at the end of the 8th century, at around the same time that they started raiding in England. Just as in England, the scale of their raids grew over time. Five thousand Vikings, under the leadership of a chief named Ragnar, sacked Paris in 845, and…
The Vikings started raiding England at the end of the 8th century and moved to invading and colonizing in the 9th and 10th centuries. By the early 11th century, there were even Viking kings of England. But not long after that, the Norman Conquest happened, and Viking influence largely disappeared from England. But what happened…
It is not uncommon for people to ask me why the Vikings, who were so active to the west in England and France, did not give the same attention to their German neighbors in the East. The short answer to that question is that they did, but it is not as well-documented as the English…
I was recently asked whether the Celts had a version of Valhalla. The simple answer is no, since Valhalla emerged from the old Germanic religion, and the Celtic religion had a different root. But they did have an idea of an Otherworld, where the divine and the dead meet. That is not unlike Valhalla, where…
