CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF

OLD NORSE RELIGION

Anne-Sofie Gräslund

R

eligion has always existed in the form of ideas about supernatural powers guiding
people’s lives. Religious practice allows people to communicate with these powers
through rituals and cults. Bronze Age sites contain evidence of rituals documented in
rock carvings as well as in a large number of sacrificial artefact deposits. These finds
indicate that fertility cult was an important part of old Scandinavian religion.
A common theme in Scandinavian prehistory is the widespread use of sacrifices in
water or wetlands. Many sacrificial finds from the Stone Age up to the middle of the first
millennium ad have been discovered in springs and bogs, the most famous ones being
the large bog finds containing booty, weapons and other military equipment, dated to
ad 100 – 500. At the end of this period the religious cult seems to have changed: old
wetland sacrificial sites were abandoned, and thereafter the rituals were mainly per-
formed on dry land, in the halls of the chieftains or in the open air. Cults were organised
on a regional basis in different levels within society: on a local level in the farm, on
a regional level in the chieftain’s farm and on a superregional level, as for example
probably in Old Uppsala and in Uppåkra in Skåne.
In the Old Norse language there was no specific word for religion. The closest
concept was siðr, meaning ‘custom’, showing how integrated religion was in daily life.
Unlike today, when religion is often separated from secular life, it was then a natural
part of all occupations. Old Norse religion should not be regarded as a static phenom-
enon, but as a dynamic religion that changed gradually over time and doubtless had
many local variations. By the second half of the first millennium ad, the influence of
Christianity is evident, for by that time there were frequent contacts with western
Europe. In particular, the myths about the end of the world, Ragnaro ̨k, have many
features in common with the Biblical treatment of the Day of Judgement.
Is it possible to trace Old Norse religion – or any religion – through the evidence of
material culture? The answer is yes, to a certain degree. Religious practice includes
ceremonies and rituals, normally very difficult to trace. But sometimes these actions
have left some material remains. As always in Viking Age research an interdisciplinary
approach is needed, we have to use all available evidence in order to get a better picture.
Some fields of research are of special archaeological interest in this connection: sacrifices,
meaning communication with the gods and the supernatural world, taking place at cult