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VELKOMIN. WELCOME.

Norse Mythology for Smart People provides reliable, well-documented information on the enthralling mythology and religion of the Norse and other Germanic peoples. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place.

“Odin the Wanderer” by Georg von Rosen (1886)

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What Is Norse mythology?

Before the Norse (a.k.a. the Vikings) converted to Christianity during the Middle Ages, they had their own vibrant native pagan religion that was as harshly beautiful as the Nordic landscape to which it was intimately connected. The centerpiece of that religion was what we today call “Norse mythology:” the set of religious stories that gave meaning to the Vikings’ lives. These myths revolved around gods and goddesses with fascinating and highly complex characters, such as Odin, Thor, Freya, and Loki. The Norse religion that contained these myths never had a true name – those who practiced it just called it “tradition.” However, people who continued to follow the old ways after the arrival of Christianity were sometimes called “heathens,” which originally meant simply “people who live on the heaths” or elsewhere in the countryside, and the name has stuck. Religions are attempts by mankind to reach the numinous, and the Norse religion was of course no exception. It provided a means of doing this that was fitting for the Vikings’ time and place. Even though some aspects of it may strike the modern reader as bizarre, if we approach it with the open mind it deserves, we can recognize within it the common human quest to live life in the presence of the transcendent majesty and joy of the sacred. And even though it’s been a thousand years since the last Vikings laid down their swords, people today continue to be inspired by the vitality and wonder of the Norse myths and the gods who inhabit them. For the Vikings, the world as they found it was enchanted – that is, they didn’t feel the need to seek salvation from the world, but instead delighted in, and marveled at, “the way things are,” including what we today would call both “nature” and “culture.” Their religion and myths didn’t sugarcoat the sordidness, strife, and unfairness of earthly life, but instead acknowledged it and praised the attempt to master it through the accomplishment of great deeds for the benefit of oneself and one’s people. A life full of such deeds was what “the good life” was for the Vikings.

thor midgard serpent jormungand jormungandr snake ragnarok battle poison norse myth mythol
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Who Were the Vikings?

The Vikings were seafaring raiders, conquerors, explorers, settlers, and traders from modern-day Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland who ventured throughout much of the world during the Viking Age (roughly 793-1066 CE). They traveled as far east as Baghdad and as far west as North America, which they discovered some five hundred years before Christopher Columbus. They spoke the Old Norse language, wrote in runes, and practiced their ancestral religion. The Vikings were motivated to sail from their homelands by timeless, universal human desires: wealth, prestige, and power. As in most human societies, those aims were intertwined for the Vikings; those who had more wealth typically had more prestige and power, and vice versa. The Vikings sought wealth in both its portable form – gold, silver, gemstones, and the like – and in the form of land. We have the Vikings to thank for our present understanding not only of their own pre-Christian religion and mythology, but of that of the other Germanic peoples as well. Thanks to the Old Norse poems, treatises, and sagas that were written during or relatively soon after the Viking Age, we have a much, much fuller picture of what the Vikings’ religion was like (despite the many unfortunate holes that nevertheless remain in that picture) than we do for the religions of any of the other pre-Christian Germanic peoples. But from the little that we do know about those religions directly, they seem to have been variations on common themes that were also shared by the Norse, so we can use the Norse sources to help us reconstruct those hoary religions, too.

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Who Are the Germanic peoples?

The Germanic peoples are one of the indigenous peoples of northern Europe, along with the Celts, Sami, Finns, and others. Historically, they’ve occupied much of Scandinavia, Iceland, the British Isles, and continental Europe north of the Alps. Their best-known representatives are the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons, and the continental Germanic tribes, but they included many other groups as well. In the modern era, they – we – are spread out across the world.

While there were certainly regional and temporal variations in the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic peoples, there was nevertheless a common core worldview, cosmology, and, to a large extent, a common pantheon as well.

If you’re a person of northern European descent (including English, Scottish, German, and northern French descent), it’s a safe bet that you’ve got some Germanic blood in you. That means, in turn, that it’s a safe bet that some of your ancestors practiced something very close to the religion represented by Norse mythology.

Of course, you very well may still find Norse/Germanic mythology to be fascinating and illuminating if you don’t have any Germanic in your ancestry. Mythologies are certainly expressions of a particular person or people, but they’re far from only that; there tends to be a spark of something more timeless and universal in them as well.

Til árs ok friðar,


Alexander Hansen.

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Berserker Transe (Berserkergangr)

Updated: Feb 24, 2023


Transe Berserker, (Berserkergangr) Reality and story by an old Norse family from the Danemark.

  • When we talk about the state of madness or the animal behavior of the berserker, we must not think that it was unfounded. Jaw disintegrating, redness on the skin, body heat rising, anger, feeling no pain and dying of dehydration. Although there is the theory, as it has been stated that some warriors fall into this state due to post-traumatic stress. And some historians, archaeologists have thought that there were additives in play.

  • Like the Amanita muscaria which grew in abundance in the birch forests of the northern lands, not to mention that it is a mushroom so could only be picked at a certain time of the year. ergot is also named, which could be found in contaminated bread and among the chemicals it contains: (lysergine acid, precursor of LSD).

Well, let's put our cards on the table and stop with this type of erroneous information and come together to deepen the truth in every detail.
 

The First:

  • The amanita can not launch the rage of the berserker, it is a story of energy, which is activated mixing with adrenaline, and the heart rate accelerate. and the activation this fact by the nature of the berserker, who passed younger the shamanic rites of initiation.

  • Like that of awakening, and merging with his power animal which represents his Primal part. In many cultures, initiations have been found when a child passes into adulthood. All his initiations have always been diverse and varied, and the oldest many speak of history link to this animal power. The quest for the animal, the journey, the awakening, the fusion, the initiatory combat. All his practices are part of his various initiations.

  • On the other hand, such as the legend, alcohol or rather mead, which quickly surprises you with its sweet taste. The sweeter the alcohol, the easier it is to drink. And raising alcohol will have the advantage of being much stronger while surprising the person, whether it is from our conscious or unconscious part. But its has the advantage nevertheless of giving a boost to let go, And thus arrived at this letting go in our instincts.

 

Secondly:

  • Animal blood can cause him the same effect, but has a ready difference. This invigorates the berserker like vitamins for the winter but also can excite his animal part and put him in a rage that is both strong and light, without forgetting that unlike a normal person, he can afford to abuse the power. meat, it will not affect his body, on the contrary, he will tend to lose weight of fat, which will be replaced by muscle mass gain. Because without effort it will very quickly gain physical strength and muscle development.

 

Thirdly:

In my family in Danemark its practices have remained preserved. Have thus preserved our identity and values ​​through our rites.


- With us the women are völvas.


  1. The ancient Germans called "völva" ("vala" or "wala" in Old High German) the priestesses and prophetesses. The terms "seiðkona", "spákona" in Norse, "spaewife" or "wicce" (generic term for witch) in Old English are used for women practicing at least one of the Nordic magics. They are recurring characters in Germanic mythology.

  2. - The word "völva" is said to come from vǫlr, cattail. This word is to be compared with the proto-Germanic *walwōn (itself related to the Latin volvere), which will give wand in English. The völva (masculine völvo, plural völur) would thus be, like the Norns, a cattail carrier1. The völur, among other traditional esoteric disciplines, practiced seydr (enchantment), spá (prophecy) and galdr (runic magic, shamanism). In this case, they were called fjölkunnig, those whose knowledge (kunne) is whole or full (fjol)2.

  3. - For those who only practiced spá, we speak of spákona or spækona3, an Old Norse term for a woman who practiced prophecy or predicting the future. In Old English, it is also referred to as spæwīfe.

  4. - This word is said to come from the Proto-Germanic *spah- and a Proto-Indo-European root *(s)peḱ (to look, observe, see) and therefore related to Latin specio ("(I) see") and Sanskrit spáçati and páçyati ("(he/she) sees," etc.)4. Men practicing the latter discipline were called spámaðr. Similarly for seiðr, one speaks of seiðkona (woman) or seiðmaðr (man).

  5. - According to mythology and historical accounts, the völur were supposed to possess such powers that Odin himself, the father of the gods, called upon their services to know the future of the gods: this is notably what is reported in the Völuspá, whose title itself, "völv-s-spá", translates as "song of the prophetess".

  6. -The distaff is called seiðstafr, "seydr's staff" (magic wand). It is one of Freyja's attributes and a tool of the völva.

  7. And they also cultivate the rage of the berserker. Because if you ignore it, it's not just men who have the ability to be Berserkers or any other power animal. Women surely find it easier to let go of things than men. Some adrenaline-boosting excitement can help, but if you're not and haven't gone through the rites, you'll have a hard time achieving the berserkergangr result.

  • Because the information that you often see circulating generally comes from historians and archaeologists having no knowledge and science of the real shamanic practice of the men of the north. Berserkers are tied to justice and cases of injustice could drive them crazy, and if he turned red and started shaking and if the berserker had no other choice to come to blows, come to this state of tremor he could launch the berserkergangr, but like any power, you have to know when it is wise to use it, (The eyes can also turn red.) and to conclude, a berserker can this launch naturally, without drugs, any way if the heart is not in significant activity it will not work.

  • And for the result of dehydration and fatigue, it's just linked to the amount of energy that rises in him, and that requires a lot. Watch yourself after an adrenaline rush during an intimate sex with your partner. it's tiring.

 

Fourth:

Since medieval times the church, historians and others have always demonized the Berserkers as madmen and drug addicts, but the truth is that they were protectors, guardians of justice.


  • This is why a book was written called the Witch's Hammer to identify völvas and Berserkers. This book defined what behavior a witch or a wolf man could have. A woman who does not hesitate to say things and defend her cause or who was just rebellious in front of a man could quickly be taken to the stake. As for men, the slightest growl and the slightest animal sign, or just the fact of being seen naked in the forest in a cold season, an abnormal summer in the eyes of the church and thus declare as being a wolf man who will have made a pact with the devil . Moreover, many legends come to say that the wolf men are cursed. All this results in a demonization made by the church to dictate to us how it was good to behave. And if they don't go their way, beware the stake was definitely waiting for you.


  • Thus begins the denunciations, massacre and burning of women and men in flames under the yoke of priests and other ecclesiastics, wishing to convert and bring to their knees the men of the north. Many have immigrated from all over the world to escape this nightmare.


  • This contributed to us losing its rites. Tell the children to no longer assume what they are more likely to have animal behavior at risk of falling under the flames of the church. To force women to be silent causing them to lose all integrity. A people who had to learn to forget this at the risk of their lives.

Give me your impressions and comments, I would be happy to answer them

 


Finally, if you want to learn more about the Nordic shamanism’ conception of learning and experiences in general .

Looking for more great information on Nordic shamanism ?

While this site provides the ultimate online introduction to the topic, my book Northern shaman provides the ultimate introduction by an Völva and a shaman who are not like the others . I’ve also written a popular list of The 10 Best Norse Mythology Books, which you’ll probably find helpful in your pursuit.




 




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