Anglo-Saxon hundreds (note, however, that OSw hundari is not linguistically identical
with OE hundred). In other words all these administrative terms are linked to armed
men, a force. The traditional explanation for both hærað and hundare is that they have a
background in the naval organisation called the OSw leþunger, ODa lething, ON leiðangr
(Andersson 1965 , 1982 ; cf. Lund 1996 ).
For reconstructing this hundred division the place names become vital. In the same
way as for the bygd, the hundred names have a background in either a name of the settle-
ment district, the bygd, which hence was used as a unit for the hundred, or the assembly
place of the district, hence the thing site (Andersson 1965 , 1982 ; the same is the case for
the Anglo-Saxon hundreds, see Anderson/Arngart 1934 , 1939 a, b). For example the
name Møre hærað in Småland has an older history as a name of a settlement district, a
bygd or a land, mentioned already in the famous journey by Wulfstan in the late ninth
century as Meore (Brink 2007 a: 69 ), and Ulleråkers hundare in Uppland is originally the
name of the thing assembly site for this hundred (Vikstrand 2001 : 182 ff.).
CULTIC AND THEOPHORIC NAMESFinally the place names can give an important contribution to our reconstruction of the
pagan religion. Since we lack written records from the time of the Viking Age, we have
to rely on the Poetic Edda, Snorri’s Edda and Saxo Grammaticus, all written down
during the Middle Ages. The contribution of the theophoric place names (containing
the name of a god or a goddess) are twofold in this respect, they show us: ( 1 ) which of the
gods and goddesses were actually worshipped, and also ( 2 ) where cult was executed,
hence giving us a geographical dimension to the analysis. Moreover, we have the cultic
place names, hence names containing an element denoting a pagan cult site, such as vi,
hov/hof, vang, åker etc.
Not all of the deities mentioned in the Eddas are found in place names, and thus
they probably had no active cult, at least not in the landscape. The deities found in place
names are Óðinn, Þórr, Ullr, Ullinn, Freyr, Týr, ON Njo ̨rðr and probably also the god-
desses Freyja, Frigg, OSw Niærþer and Hærn(?). This is to be compared with the much
larger pantheon mentioned by Snorri in his Edda.
When we map all the known theophoric place names in Scandinavia, we find a
surprising distribution. For example the gods Ullr and Freyr are, in principle, never
found in southern Scandinavia, while the god Týr (Figure 6. 3 ) is only found in Denmark
and with a single occurrence in southern (probably Danish-dominated) Norway, and the
god Ullinn – never mentioned in the literature, only in place names – is only to be found
in south-central and western Norway. This is an indication that the pagan religion in
Scandinavia was never homogeneous. It must have had regional variations and cults,
where certain gods and goddesses were worshipped (Brink 2007 b).
Some place-name elements are certainly, in some cases probably, denoting a pagan
cult site (Andersson 1992 ; Vikstrand 2001 ). The most ‘secure’ one is vi (see above), Da
væ, ON vé. It is found all over Scandinavia, both as a simplex Vi/Væ, and in compounds,
such as Odense (< ODa Othæns-væ ‘the cult site dedicated to Óðinn’) and Ullevi (< OSw
Ullar-vi ‘the cult site dedicated to Ullr’). The element hov, ON hof, is etymologically not
to be placed in a sacral semantic sphere. It originally meant ‘hillock’. No doubt in the
Icelandic sagas, and also in some place names, the word hof denoted a cultic building or
site. This is also the case for the compound hofstaðir. In the cases where hof obviously
–– chapter 6 : Naming the land––