Cult, Worship, and Sacrifice. by stevengoesmyths

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Discussions of the ritual practices associated with Norse mythology usually begin with descriptions by Roman writers of the Germanic peoples, and this is justifiable because the gods we know from our mythological texts also left traces in such forms as the names of the days of the week .

The foremost witness is the Germania of Tacitus, from the last years of the first century C.E. Tacitus describes several ritual acts carried out by various Germanic tribes, of which the most famous is surely the worship of the goddess Nerthus described in chapter 40 of his Germania. Nerthus, Mother Earth, covered by a cloth, is transported in a cart drawn by cows and accompanied by a priest who recognizes when she is present. This procession takes place in a holy grove on the island on which she lives, and all weapons are laid aside on the days on which it takes place, which are ones of peace and quiet. After the procession, everything is washed in the ocean by slaves who are then drowned. A number of the aspects of this ceremony agree with what scholars think they know about cult and ritual of the Germanic peoples. Tacitus says elsewhere— and other sources, including place-names, agree—that worship occurs in a sacred grove. The killing of the slaves might also be regarded as a form of sacrifice, a subject to which I will return shortly. Other aspects of the worship of Nerthus find striking agreement with texts recorded much later that are associated specifically with the vanir. Freyja’s cart is pulled by cats, and according to Ögmundar tháttr dytts, admittedly a late text, (an idol of) Frey is pulled about in a cart accompanied by an attendant, female in this case. Fródi, who shares many characteristics with Frey, was also pulled in a cart, and a time of great peace and prosperity was associated with both Frey and Fródi. Although there does not seem to have been a separate priestly class, the term goði, as suggested above, implies a religious function for the leaders of Icelandic society before the conversion to Christianity. As a Roman, Tacitus used the vocabulary of his own era and therefore called the man who accompanied Nerthus a “priest,” but he could easily have been something like a goði, a person of status and a secular leader on the days when the goddess was not present. It is the “goði” who notices when the goddess is present, and unlike the slaves, he survives to preside over the ceremonies another day. Most or all cults must have been of this nature, led by the chieftain when public ritual was enacted and by the head of household in the case of private ritual. Many historians of religion have argued for a close connection between law, society, and religion, and this connection would be embodied in the men who presided over secular and sacred affairs.

A goði leads the people in sacrificing to an idol of Thor in this painting by J.L. Lund.

Although Tacitus says the Germanic peoples worshipped in the open, the notion of pagan temples is common in many of the later sources. This probably marks both a change in paganism, perhaps as building techniques changed, and the influence of Christian (and also pagan Roman) worship. In the northern reaches of Scandinavia, the Sámi people seem to have retained an open-air priestless paganism, and they were far from such influences. The eddic poems have references to the building of places of worship (e.g., the “high-timbered” altar and temple of Völuspá, stanza 7), and there is one very explicit description of a pagan temple in Eyrbyggja saga, which shows, if nothing else, where a thirteenth- century Icelander thought his pagan ancestors had worshipped three centuries earlier. Adam of Bremen’s account of the pagan temple at Uppsala, mentioned above, is difficult to discount, but it must be remembered that the end of the eleventh century, when Adam was writing, was a time of enormous Christian influence in Sweden, and it is quite conceivable that the notion of a building reserved for religious purposes could have resulted from such influence. Scandinavian pagans had probably much earlier come in out of the rain for their religious ceremonies: Scholars now agree that large homesteads were the sites of cult activities as well as of other social activities. 

The sources mention something called a hörgr, which is translated “altar”. The eddic poems suggest the hörgr was something that could be reddened, and they make it appear to be some sort of altar, at least in the sense that sacrifices were made upon it. Etymologically the word seems to have to do with stones or rocks, and it is not difficult to imagine the Germanic hörgr as a pile of rocks in a sacred grove; the Old High German cognate is in fact sometimes found with the meaning “sacred rock” and sometimes with the meaning “sacred grove.” Tacitus says the Germanic peoples did not produce images of their gods. Adam of Bremen says the pagan temple at Uppsala had idols of Thor, Wodan (Odin), and Fricco (Freyr). Again, the difference lies in the millennium that passed  between the times the two authors wrote, and probably also to some extent in the influence of other models. Certainly medieval Scandinavians believed that their pagan forbears had worshipped idols, for they routinely put idols in their historical writings. In the Sagas of Icelanders, the expression “the gods” almost always refers to idols, and when Icelanders translated the lives of the Christian saints, they sometimes attached the names of their own pagan gods to the idols worshipped by the pagans whom the early saints encountered.

A detail from runestone G 181 in the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm. The three men are interpreted as the Norse gods Odin, Thor, and Freyr.

The word used for pagan cult activity is blót. The etymology is disputed, and that is a pity, for if we could recover the original meaning of the word we would at least know something of the origin and perhaps nature of the activity among the Germanic or pre-Germanic peoples. The two credible suggestions are that blót is related to Latin flamen, “priest of a specific deity,” from a root meaning ultimately something like “sacrificial activity,” or to a root meaning “to make strong,” ultimately deriving from a root meaning “swollen.” The first has the advantage of being associated with religious activity, but it does not tell us much about the actual conception. Far more important are the loans of blót into Finnish, namely luote, “magic charm,” and Sámi luotte, “magic song.” These show us the importance of verbal activity at a blót, specifically verbal activity aimed at producing a result, presumably by means of intervention by the deities. Another way to influence the deities was of course to make sacrifices to them, and here we have an ample record to draw on. Bogs, wells, lakes, and the earth have yielded such objects as broken weapons, which can only be interpreted as gifts to the gods after battle. Classical sources report that the Germanic peoples killed their defeated enemies rather than take them prisoner, again as a form of sacrifice, and Adam of Bremen says that every ninth year at the pagan temple at Uppsala, sacrifices of all kinds of creatures took place, including humans. But the most important sacrifices at the blót were surely animals that were slaughtered and eaten, presumably in some form of honor of a god.

Artistic impression of a mid-winter blót in Uppsala in the painting “Midvinterblot” by Carl Larsson.

In chapter 8 of his Ynglinga saga, Snorri Sturluson says that Odin established the succession of blót ceremonies in the north. Towards winter (i.e., in fall) there should be a blót for prosperity; at midwinter, one for the growth of the soil; and at summer, a third one, the victory-blót. There is an evident connection here, as one would expect, with the rhythm of the year: The fall ceremony would occur after the last harvest was in, and the animals slaughtered would be those who were not to survive the winter. Some of their meat could be eaten fresh at the blót, but much would be preserved for winter. The midwinter blót would occur after the longest nights had passed and would celebrate the rebirth of the earth; and the summer ceremony, if it was for victory, would coincide with the departure of ships on raiding (and, more mundanely, trading) voyages. Later in his Heimskringla, in Hákonar saga góda (The Saga of Hákon the Good), Snorri gives an elaborate description of a blót that shows just how pervasive the influence of Christian liturgy was on the view of late Nordic paganism of Snorri and other Icelandic intellectuals. The word hlaut is cognate with English “lot,” as in “to cast lots.” I cannot find a reasonable translation, so I have left it in the original.

It was the ancient custom, when a blót was to be held, that all farmers should
come to where the temple was, and to transport there the supplies they would
need as long as the banquet lasted. At the banquet everyone was to drink beer.
All sorts of cattle and horses were killed there, and all the blood that came from
them was called hlaut, and the vessels in which it stood hlaut-bowls, and the
hlaut-twigs were made like an aspergillum [a brush used to sprinkle holy water
in Catholic liturgy]. With it one was to redden the pedestal together with the
walls of the temple inside and out and also to sprinkle it on the people, while
the meat of the slaughtered animals was to be cooked for people to enjoy… A
tankard was to be carried to the fire, and the one who made the banquet and was
the chieftain should bless the tankard and all the sacrificial meat and should
first toast Odin—that should be drunk for victory and for the kingdom of his
king—and after that a toast to Njörd and Frey for peace and prosperity. Then
people were eager to drink the bragafull [chieftain’s toast] next. People also
drank a toast to their kinsmen who had been buried in mounds; that was called
minni [memorial].

Take away the references to the gods and the blood spattered all about, and one might well have a picture of a wealthy man’s feast in medieval Norway or Iceland.