(Old Norse and Old English) or (Old English) are religious ceremonies in Germanic paganism that centred on the killing and offering of an animal to a particular being, typically followed by the communal cooking and eating of its meat. Old Norse sources present it as a central ritual in Old Nordic religion that was intimately connected with many wider aspects of life. Large are often described as taking place in halls, organised by the rulers of the region who were expected to carry out the practice on behalf of the people. were central to the legitimacy of rulers and Christian rulers refusing to hold them were at times replaced by more willing alternatives and driven out of the land. Smaller, household were sometimes recorded as being led by women. Beyond strengthening legitimacy for the ruling elites, the performance of was often to ensure the fertility of the land, a good harvest and peace, although they are also recorded as being performed for divination or to achieve desired results in legal matters.
After the establishment of Christianity, were routinely made punishable offences, as seen in early Germanic legal codes, with the recipients of the worship and sacrifice often equated with demons. Despite this, some aspects of the practice were likely incorporated into local Christian culture and continued into the modern period. The conscious performing of has also been revived in the modern period as part of the practice of modern heathens.
Etymology and meaning Etymology The verb form is seen in ("to worship; to sacrifice"), ("to serve (God); to worship"; to honour (through sacrifice)"), ("to sacrifice") and . The Proto-Germanic form of the verb can be reconstructed as the strong verb , or meaning "to sacrifice".
The noun form is seen in and ("sacrifice"), and ("sacrifice; worship"). A Proto-Germanic form of the noun can be similarly reconstructed as . A similar and related form can be reconstructed as from ("sacrifice") and , a component of ("worshipper of God"). can also be used to mean "idol-worship" in general, an "idol" (often in the form ) or metaphorically to mean "cursing" or "swearing" in Christian times due to the negative view of heathenry.
The shared Germanic root has been proposed to be related to ("to blow; to bloom; to blossom"), which is further connected to ("blood"). A connection has been further proposed to ("priest"), although it has been argued that the validity of this is dependent on the exact root of which cannot be determined with certainty.
Usage In the context of "to worship" or "to worship with sacrifice", the Old Norse verb is typically used with that being worshipped in the accusative case, and rarely with it in the dative case. The dative case is more typically used for the object being sacrificed. The verb is often followed by the aim of the , for example ("for peace, victory, long life, good season, fair wind").
In compounds is found in many compound words relating to worship or sacrifice. These include adjectives such as ("rich in sacrifices") and terms for individuals also include it is a prefix such as , , or ("heathen priest"), ("heathen chief"). Other compounds include recipients of worship such as ("heathen god") and ("calf worshipped with sacrifices"). Items with religious function can also include it as a prefix such as ("sacrificial bowl") and ("garments worn at sacrifices"), and it can refer to religious concepts such as or ("idolatry"), and which is used to mean both "sacrificing to heathen gods" and "idolatry".
Components of the practice Location
It has been proposed that during the Migration Period, religious organisation drastically changed, with rulers gaining enough power to centralise sacrifices and ceremonies to their own homes rather than in outdoor spaces such as bogs and lakes, as had been done before. These indoor cultic buildings are referred to in Old Norse sources variously as , , , .
Sources do still record Viking Age taking place at a diverse range of sites, with groves, hofs and waterfalls being described as the recipients of , along with beings such as gods, elves and heathen vættir. Some nouns for places include as a prefix, suggesting them as sites where these ceremonies took place, such as ("sacrificial mound or cairn") and ("heathen house of worship"). Kjalnesinga saga describes how there was a site near a large hof called ("sacrificial fen/bog/well/spring" or "fen near the heathen temple") into which sacrifices were thrown during sacrifical feasts. This idea is also reflected in Icelandic placenames such as at Möðrudalur and ("fen/spring of the gods") at Mývatn.
Killing of humans and other animals The written sources and the archaeological record indicate that in Old Norse religious practice, the sacrifice of animals, particularly pigs and horses, played a significant part in the . Closer in conception to a gift, it usually involved killing animals, and sometimes humans, in ritual fashion.
Adam of Bremen's account of the temple at Uppsala notes that only the heads were offered. This practice is possibly supported by the archaeological record. At the temple-hall of Hofstaðir in northern Iceland, oxen were decapitated in seasonal rituals for many years and the heads displayed at the hall. Osteological analysis of the bones shows that the animals were killed with blows to the neck by axe or sword. This method was perhaps intended to produce the spectacle of a shower of arterial blood. Similar observations have been made at other sites such as the Viking Age birch stump found underneath the church at Frösön ("Freyr's island") in Jämtland, and a site of a possible cult-house in Borg in Östergötland. Both of these sites had a significant enrichment of skulls relative to other bones. It has been proposed that there was a widespread practice to offer the heads to the gods, whilst cooking the meat for the feast that followed. It has also been suggested that the number of skulls that a hall displayed would act as a status signal, indicating the size of the feast that could be hosted within.
The written sources speak of sacrifices made of prisoners of war; Roman descriptions of Germanic tribes sacrificing their defeated enemies to Mars or Mercury have a similarity with customs related to the cult of Óðinn in Old Norse religion. The Icelandic skáld Helgi Trausti mentions his killing an enemy as a sacrifice to Óðinn; Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana and Orkneyinga saga describe the sacrificing of captive enemies to Óðinn. In depositions of remains found near Uppland, most of the human bodies are of young males with healed bone trauma, a possible congruence with the sacrificed captives of war mentioned in the written corpus. In almost all instances, human sacrifices occurring in the context of the Old Norse texts are related to Óðinn. Criminals and slaves are the humans being sacrificed in the majority of cases which has been compared to modern executions. Scholars doubt the reliability of some claims of human sacrifice. In the case of Adam of Bremen's account of the sacrifices at Uppsala, for example, the author likely exaggerated about the sacrifices of humans to demonise Germanic religion. Similarly, the accuracy of the account of human sacrifice in Kjalnesinga saga has been doubted by some scholars.
Role of blood and
In Hákonar saga góða, Snorri Sturluson describes ("sacrificial twigs") being used like sprinklers to spread blood over the ("altars" or "platforms"), the walls of the hof (both inside and outside) and the people who were present there. It is possible that this description was influenced by the ecclesiastical ceremonies of the medieval church in which holy water was sprinkled over the congregation, or the account in the Old Testament, in which Moses sprinkles blood on his people. Snorri in his description explicitly notes the similarity between and ("aspergillum"). Building on this, it has been proposed that the use of terms such as , and to mean "sacrificial blood", "sacrificial twig" and "sacrificial bowl" respectively does not accurately reflect their use in pre-Christian times. This is partly based on the absence of the terms from Skaldic poetry and Eddic poems. Olof Sundqvist supports the idea that formerly had the meaning of "lot" in the context of divination.
While Klaus Düwel has taken this argument further, arguing that the sprinkling of sacrificial blood had no influence from heathen Germanic culture and was derived wholly from other sources such as the Old Testament, this has been challenged. The word (corresponding to one of the places sprinkled with blood in Snorri's account), likely did have a meaning related to sacrifice in pre-Christian Scandinavian contexts. The phrase ("sacred stand") is found in Skaldic poetry and there are attestations of blood being smeared on holy objects elsewhere in Western Scandinavia. In Hyndluljóð, Freyja says about how one of her worshippers has made a ("altar") for her, faced with stone that was turned to glass and reddened with ox blood. Similarly, the U-version of Hervarar saga tells how a holy tree, referred to as a , is reddened with blood from a sacrificial horse. It is unclear if this is meant to be interpreted as a literal tree or as a platform or altar (, or ). In Ynglinga saga, the king Dómaldi is sacrificed to make their crops grow and they redden the with his blood; Ynglingatal, the poem upon which this narrative is built, does not reference but it does emphasise that the ground was reddened with blood. It has been suggested that the pouring of blood on the ground below may be related to the taking of soil from below the by Þórólfr from Norway to Iceland during the settlement of the island, as described in Eyrbyggja saga. Religious objects are recorded as being reddened with blood during , like oath-rings according to the Hauksbók version of Landnámabók. The practice of collecting sacrificial blood and pouring it on altars is well attested in other cultures such as in Ancient Greek and Roman religion and in Jewish burnt offerings.
Along with having a role in divination, other suggestions for the importance of blood in have been put forward by scholars. It has been put forward that the violence used to kill the animals found at Hofstaðir may have acted as a way to remove tensions in the community. Olof Sundqvist instead proposes that the blood was used in a performative setting, creating a feeling of spectacle and that the event was strongly separate from usual daily life. If true, those participating in the ceremony would likely have become emotionally engaged in the ritual drama. He further suggests, consistent with ideas by Bruce Lincoln, that there may have been a perceived connection between the killing during the and the killing of Ymir during the creation account told in Gylfaginning, which acted as its mythic counterpart. In this context, the bloodshed may have signalled a renewal of the world, in which conditions would improve for those who performed the .
Feasting and drinking
Sacrificial feasts ( or ) had a prominent place in the ancient religious practices of the Scandinavians, and were part of the seasonal festivals attended by large numbers of people. Family rituals such as the álfablót in western Sweden mentioned by the Norwegian skald Sigvatr Þórðarson in an early 11th-century poem, were usually performed on farm homesteads. Feasts and ritual drinking at are also mirrored in a mythological context in the depictions of Valhǫll in Hákonarmál.
Horses are often recorded as being eaten in and the eating of horsemeat was made an offence punishable by fines and outlawry by a number of medieval Scandinavian laws made after the adoption of Christianity, such as the Borgarthings-Lov, Den ældre Gulathings-Lov and the Frostathings-Lov. In Iceland, an exception was made for eating horsemeat in private for a short time after the establishment of Christianity but was later repealed.