While Thor might be the best-known of the Norse gods, Odin was the most important of the Viking deities. Called the “Allfather” in recognition of his role as the ruler of the Aesir gods, he was a complex being. He was the god of war, wisdom, magic, death and the runes. He was intelligent and…
In Thor: The Dark World we are taken to Svartalfheim, where Peter Dinklage plays a dwarf of giant stature. Upon seeing it, we would be forgiven for thinking that it looked like Tolkien’s home of the dwarves, Moria, but in space. Both fictional worlds are based on the home of the dwarves, also known as…
The Vikings called that the land in which they, human beings, dwelled Midgard (Middle Earth) or Mannheim (Home of Man). They believed that it was one of the nine worlds that made up the cosmos of Norse mythology. It was separated and protected from the rest of the cosmos by a great body of water…
Helheim, which literally means “house of Hel” in Old Norse, was one of the nine worlds within the universe of Norse mythology. It was an underworld realm of the dead, where those who did not find themselves in Valhalla, the afterlife of brave warriors, were destined to spend eternity. But despite the similarity in their…
The Valkyries are some of the most well-known and ferocious women from our Viking past. Sometimes called Walachuria, they were servants of Odin whose principal role was to select brave fallen warriors and take them to dwell in Valhalla. But what do we really know about the Valkyries as a group of divine shield maidens,…
We are all familiar with the stories of Thor, and have heard rumors of human sacrifices, but what was the Viking religion really like? The pagan beliefs of the Old Norse religion are difficult to decipher, as they are not recorded anywhere. Old Nordic religion was a folk religion that was passed down via word…
According to Norse mythology, the cosmos is comprised of nine distinct worlds, each of which sits among the branches of the Tree of Life, Yggdrasil. Each world is home to a different species of beings, for example, Midgard is the world of men and Asgard is the world of the Aesir gods. One of the…
The cosmos as described in Norse mythology is very different from the universe as we understand it today. According to the Norse tales, the universe is composed of nine realms, one for each of the races of beings: gods, giants, men, and more. One of the most intriguing of these realms is Alfheim, the homeland…
According to Norse mythology, the cosmos is composed of nine discreet worlds, all of which are held together and connected by Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life. Chief among these worlds, and situated high above the others in the heavens, is Asgard. This is the realm of the Aesir gods, the principal gods in Norse mythology.…
Ragnarok, which means “Fate of the Gods” in Old Norse, is a prophecy about how the world will come to an end and the gods of Norse mythology will meet their doom. In the story, many of the gods die and the nine worlds of the Norse cosmos held in the branches of Yggdrasil are…