The Lost Beliefs Of Northern Europe

Fragments of ancient belief mingle with folklore and Christian dogma until the original tenets are lost in the myths and psychologies of the intervening years. Hilda Ellis Davidson illustrates how pagan beliefs have been represented and misinterpreted by the Christian tradition, and throws light on the nature of pre-Christian beliefs and how they have been preserved. The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe stresses both the possibilities and the difficulties of investigating the lost religious beliefs of Northern Europe.

The author illustrates how pagan beliefs have been represented and misinterpreted by the Christian tradition, and throws light on the nature of pre-Christian beliefs and how they have been preserved.

This book reveals the various ways people have understood or reacted to Scandinavian paganism from the Middle Ages to today. Over more than a thousand years since pre-Christian religions were actively practised, European, and later contemporary, society has developed a fascination with the beliefs of northern Europe before the arrival of Christianity, which have been the subject of a huge range of popular and scholarly theories, interpretations, and uses. Indeed, the pre-Christian religions of the North have exerted a phenomenal influence on modern culture, appearing in everything from the names of days of the week to Hollywood blockbusters. Scholarly treatments have been hardly less varied. Theories, from the Middle Ages until today, have depicted these pre-Christian religious systems as dangerous illusions, the works of Satan, representatives of a lost proto-Indo-European religious culture, a form of "natural" religion, and even as a system non-indigenous in origin, derived from cultures outside Europe. The "Research and Reception" strand of the "Pre-Christian Religions of the North" project establishes a definitive survey of the current and historical uses and interpretations of pre-Christian mythology and religious culture, tracing the many ways in which people both within and outside Scandinavia have understood and been influenced by these religions, from the Christian Middle Ages to contemporary media of all kinds. The present volume (I) traces the reception down to the early nineteenth century, while Volume II takes up the story from c.1830 down to the present day and the burgeoning of interest across a diversity of new as well as old media--Publisher's statement.

While much work has been done on goddesses of the ancient world and the male gods of pre-Christian Scandinavia, the northern goddesses have been largely neglected. Roles of the Northern Goddess presents a highly readable study of the worship of these goddesses by men and women. With its use of evidence from early literature, popular tradition, legend and archaeology, this book investigates the role of the early hunting goddess and the local goddesses who were involved in all aspects of the household and the farm. What emerges is that the goddess was both benevolent and destructive, a powerful figure closely concerned with birth and death and with destiny of individuals.

An introduction to Ásatrú, also called Odinism, the native religion of the Teutonic peoples, discussing the basic philosophic and moral ideals of this ancient belief system.