the wealth of the spear-bridge allows the merry messengers of the gods to inhabit the
sanctuaries.’ This information has been associated with the idea of sacral kingship (see
below).
Narratives from the conversion period mention rulers who refused to perform the
sacrifices at the ceremonial feasts. Often such rulers were driven from the land and
deposed from the rulership (see e.g. Hervarar saga). Some of these accounts may reflect
historical facts. A passage in Adam of Bremen’s Gesta (scholion 140 ) mentions that
when the most Christian king of the Swedes, Anunder, would not offer to the demons
the prescribed sacrifice of the people, he was deposed and driven away from the place.
The people thus expected that the king would perform the great calendric sacrifices as
other kings used to do.
A SACRAL KINGSHIP?It has been argued that the early Scandinavians had a religiously legitimated kingship
(e.g. Ström 1954 ). This discussion has been associated with a trans-cultural category and
theory called ‘the sacral kingship’. This implied that in ancient agrarian societies the
king’s authority was built on specific religious elements. In addition to the cultic aspects
of the kingship the king was regarded as divine or as the offspring of the gods. He was
also supposed to possess supernatural powers in order to gain legitimacy, that is, an
intrinsic ability to give prosperity to his people. Scholars stated that these features were
visible in the traditions about the Swedish–Norwegian royal family called the Ynglingar
and there was a widespread consensus among them that the ancient Scandinavians had a
sacral kingship (e.g. Ström 1954 ).
When Walther Baetke published his work Yngvi und die Ynglinger in 1964 , this
entire issue was reconsidered. Employing a radical source criticism, Baetke argued
that the fundamental features of the sacral theory were not visible in the reliable
primary sources. They could only be seen in the uncertain Icelandic saga literature.
Today scholars accept that royal families legitimated their position by referring to their
divine or mythic origin (e.g. Steinsland 1991 ; Sundqvist 2002 ). In the pre-Christian
poem Ynglingatal (c. 890 ) the Ynglinga-kings’ divine descent is proclaimed by epithets
of kings, such as Freys afspringr ‘Freyr’s offspring’ and týs o ́ ̨ttungr ‘the descendant of
the god’. Also the cultic aspects are accepted in recent research, while the notions of
Königsheil or ‘divine kings’ are still very controversial (ibid.).
There is thus weak evidence of exclusive religious specialists or ‘priests’ performing
rituals in public cult. Certain terms and names indicate, however, that some individuals
had religious assignments. In the narrative sources these persons seem to appear with
several societal functions. According to these sources also the king or the earl played
important roles at the ceremonial feasts. Whether Scandinavian kingship should be
regarded as sacral is uncertain.
BIBLIOGRAPHYAndersson, Th. ( 1992 ) ‘Orts- und Personennamen als Aussagequelle für die altgermanische
Religion’, in H. Beck et al. (eds) Germanische Religionsgeschichte. Quellen und Quellenprobleme,
Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.
Baetke, W. ( 1964 ) Yngvi und die Ynglinger. Eine quellenkritische Untersuchung über das nordische
–– chapter 16 ( 2 ): Cult leaders, rulers and religion––