Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 June 2009
BEFORE CHRISTIANITY: RELIGION AND POWER
If the Danish evidence were considered in isolation, very little would be known of the Danish pagan religion. A few rune-stones carry invocations to the god Thor, and onomastic evidence indicates that Thor was by far the most popular of the gods of the Nordic pantheon. The name of the god Freyr is attested as a component in a few names on rune-stones, but while the names alluding to Thor remained in use after the conversion, the names referring to Freyr did not. Although its philological roots have nothing to do with the pagan god, the name Odinkar seems to have been understood in the eleventh century to be referring to Odin (Wodan). A broader range of the Nordic pantheon is represented in place names; the name of the later episcopal city of Odense is derived from ‘Odin's vi’, that is, the sacred ground of Odin, indicating that it was a location for pagan cult before the conversion.
Any idea of the myths and beliefs connected with these gods can be obtained only from Icelandic literature; Saxo Grammaticus's heavily reworked and classicizing rendering of the myths (c. 1200) is ultimately derived from Icelandic informants. A few pieces of art can be identified as representations of mythical episodes known from the Icelandic literature.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.