The cold seas of the North have given rise to some of the fiercest sailors of all time, who eventually came to be known as the Vikings. To their contemporaries the Vikings were little more than monsters from their darkest nightmares, the savage sea wolves come to pillage and plunder anything of worth and setting the rest aflame.
However, the Vikings were much more than murderers and thieves. Within their own lands and colonies the Viking life was steeped in rich cultural and religious practices. Their myths and rituals feature four beings prominently: Odin, the king of all gods, Thor, the guardian of gods and men, and the god and goddess of fertility, Frey and Freya. The rituals and practices that were performed to honour the gods are to a large extent shrouded in mystery. Despite this it is possible to gleam how the deeds of the gods shaped the Viking culture.
War, death, sacrifice and revelry seem to have been the central tenets of the Viking culture. The idea of death and what lies beyond especially seems to have ignited the Vikings’ imagination, driving them to envision a universe of countless worlds populated with strange and mystical creatures. These worlds may have been denied to the living but became accessible in the afterlife. The gods themselves could not escape the icy grip of death as depicted by the event called Ragnarök when they meet their fate along with the mortal men while all of creation is engulfed by the raging forces of nature.
|
