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Vikings Religion
During the time of the Vikings, Europe was becoming Christian.
Almost every country on the continent was Christian.
The Christian priests preached against the heathen religions and hence people
disliked the heathen Vikings and their religion.
They also disliked them because of their alleged violent behavior.
Viking religion was more violent than Christianity; they believed that the only way to get into the Viking heaven (Valhalla) was to be killed in a battle.
They would drink, eat and fight every day.
This made the ordinary Viking more willing to fight than the ordinary Christian
This was a double standard, actually, because of the fact that the Christians
were just as violent as the Vikings.
The only difference was that the Christians killed.. in the name of God,
which is ridiculous for in the Bible it clearly says,
* Thou shall not kill”*.
The difference was that the Christians killed in the name of God and the
Vikings did it for the Gods
The Christians had a very negative view of the Viking religion.
The Vikings had one God for each occasion.
The Vikings had no spiritual leader as the Christians had in their priest.
Vikings had many different rituals that were unchristian.
Vikings had, a ritual, which was called midvinterblod.
It was a ritual in which the Vikings killed animals and hung them in trees
as a sacrifice to their Gods.
Did the Vikings drink the blood of the animals? Who know?
Vikings had many other unchristian rituals, which provoked the Christians.
Many Vikings were convinced that their destinies lay in the hands of their gods1). When something went wrong, it was the gods will.
If you wanted a fruitful harvest, it was important to sacrifice to the god of vegetation, before sowing.
If you study the different Vikings Gods you see that they fulfil different functions
in the Viking society and daily rituals.
For example a person prayed to Freja when they wanted to become pregnant because she was the goddess of fertile.
It was very common to have big feasts for the Gods.
Every autumn there was a feast in her honor.
At the Yule feast they sacrificed Frejs boar and prayed so that the years vintage would be abundant.
Viking Gods & Goddess
Aegir Ship-Bane
Aurvandil the Bold
Balder, the Dying God
Bil, Captured by the Moon
Bragi, God of Poetry
Frey, God of Fertility
Freya, Goddess of Fertility & War
Frigg, Mother Goddess
Fulla the Handmaiden
Gefjon, Goddess of Virgins
Heimdall the Watcher
Hel, Goddess of the Underworld
Idun, Goddess of Immortality
Loki the Trickster
Njord of the Beautiful Feet
Odin, God of Vikings
Ran, Goddess of the Drowned
Skadi, Goddess of Skis
Thor, God of Thunder
Tyr the One Handed
Ull, God of Archery
In the Viking Age there were two groups of gods and goddesses, the Aesir
and the Vanir.
The Aesir cult was an essential masculine warrior cult and the Vanir that
was the more ancient of the two cults emphasised the importance of women
(they actually held a key role in this cult).
The main gods of the Vanir, were Niord, his wife Freyja and
Freyja's brother Freyr.
The Vanir was celebrated in the privacy of homes and in large family assemblies. During these ceremonies, sacrifices were offered to the gods, of whom the most important was Freyja, also known as "Lady of the Vanir."
This cult was also associated with the worship of ancestral mothers of powerful families or clans and it was the women who were in charge of these ceremonies.
Odin and Tor were the main gods of the Aesir cult.
Later on, during the "real" Viking Age, the old Vanir cult became intertwined;
with the new Aesir cult and so did the gods.
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