The Norse sagas often feel like modern soap operas when you read them, with the characters trapped in a cycle of love, betrayal, and vengeance. This is particularly true for the Volsunga Saga, probably the best-known of the Norse sagas, especially since it inspired Wagner’s Viking operas and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.…
The Ynglinga Saga is one of the most important Old Norse sagas. It is one of the works composed by the Icelandic Christian scholar Snorri Sturluson in the 12th century. It is part of his Heimskringla and is based on a 9th-century Skaldic poem called the Ynglingatal by Thjodolfr of Hvini. The saga tells the…
If, like me, you are a fan of Old Norse symbols, then you have probably come across the “Web of Wyrd” described as a Viking symbol linked with ideas of fate and destiny. However, if you search for examples of the Web of Wyrd symbol from the Viking Age, you will be disappointed. The Web…
Any Viking enthusiast will be familiar with the Marvel film Thor: Ragnarok and the idea that Ragnarok is the story of the end of the world in Norse mythology. But Marvel takes significant liberties for the sake of entertainment and the continuity of their timeline. What really happens in the story of Ragnarok, and why…
Questions of destiny and pre-determined fate loom large in Viking culture. They believed that the moment of every person’s death was preordained from the moment of their birth. Even the gods are subject to the laws of fate. The Ragnarok prophecy tells the story of the death of all the gods, which is inevitable and…
The god Tyr is always listed as among the most important Viking deities in the surviving sources. For example, he is one of the 12 gods enthroned in high seats in the Skáldskaparmál. Despite that, Tyr is rarely mentioned in the surviving sources and we know very little about him. His name, Tyr, simply means…
The Viking world was full of symbols, many of which have become popular designs for Viking tattoos (I may have one or two). Understanding what common surviving symbols meant to the Vikings and how they were used is a bit like putting together an historical puzzle. We look at archaeological evidence, surviving art, and often…
Title Image: Tin alloy dragon head found in Brika, Sweden, c. 750-900. Source: Science Nordic Dragons are important figures in many mythologies, including Norse. However, understanding Norse dragons can be difficult because almost everything we know about them comes from Christian sources, which project established Christian ideas about the mythical beasts onto the Norse stories.…
The Vikings firmly believed in life after death, as indicated by the elaborate burial practices, which ensured that people were able to take what they needed with them from this life into the next. They also believed in multiple different afterlives, most of which were a reflection of this life. Where you ended up depended…
While Loki is often cast as the major villain in retellings of Norse mythology, it is actually Loki’s children who are some of the most terrifying creatures in Norse tales. The children of Loki with the giantess Angrboda were Fenrir, Jormungandr, and Hel. These children were feared and persecuted by the Aesir gods, acts that…