Building a Cast of Characters

Then the Æsir     in Idavöll
built altars, temples,     high-timbered halls
set up forges     to fashion gold,
strong tools     and well-shaped tongs.

— The Völuspá (trans. Terry)
If you ask someone today to picture the Norse god Thor, there is a very good chance the image brought to their mind will be that of Chris Hemsworth. The Australian actor reached superstardom depicting the god-turned-superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, notably in the 2017 film Thor: Ragnarok, which took inspiration from the myth presented in the Völuspá. Director Taika Waititi made a world populated by many familiar names in Norse myth, including Odin, Loki, Heimdall, and a Valkyrie—portrayed by A-list actors Sir Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, and Tessa Thomson, respectively. This has culminated in what may be one of the stranger paradoxes of modernity: the Norse gods are, in some sense, just as ‘alive’ for the average American today as they were when they were actively worshipped, a thousand years ago.

The vikings didn’t have human actors to depict their gods, but they did have methods for conceptualizing them—methods just as alien to us as our 21st-century film industry might be to them. Neil Price is a scholar of archaeology, notably of viking religion, based at the University of Uppsala. In his book chapter, “The Homes of their Shapes,“ from Children of Ash and Elm, Price is quick to emphasize the strangeness of the viking gods (31). How did the vikings imagine their gods? How might their methods for doing inform our reading of the poem and challenge our Marvel-tinged conceptions of Norse religion? First, we’ll take a birds-eye view of the two families of Norse gods, before turning to specific examples of how individual gods were imagined—often in physical, material form.
Æsir and Vanir
Any attempt to understand the Norse gods will first have to acknowledge their complexity. “As in most primitive religions,” writes Charles Dunn, in his introduction to The Elder Edda, “the Norse concept was comprehensive and systematic; the relation of gods to man provided a vital working hypothesis concerning the origins and nature of man’s universe” (xvii). Dunn places forming a religious cosmology at the heart of poems like the Völuspá. Price emphasizes both heterogeneity and locality in viking belief, arguing that there is “no fully comprehensible geography of the Norse cosmos” and that the stories “probably also varied considerably across… Scandinavia” (32). Piecing together a “coherent sense” (as Price puts it) to viking religion will end in abstraction if not in failure; the only safe place to turn is back to the songs and items the vikings left behind, tangible traces of their belief.

The Norse gods make an appearance in the first lines of the Völuspá, signaling their importance to the poem:
Hear my words,     you holy gods,
great men and humble     sons of Heimdall,
by Odin’s will,     I’ll speak the ancient lore,
the oldest of all     that I remember.

— The Völuspá (trans. Terry)
The first words of the volva are addressed to the gods; two are named specifically, Heimdall and Odin. The volva shows deference to the high god Odin, only speaking “by his will.” The narrator uses “gods,” a generalized term, to refer to all Norse deities. The Norse gods, however, are not a homogenous group. The distinction doesn’t exist in much of today’s pop- culture, but the Völuspá clarifies it quickly. Odin is the leader of not all the gods, but one of two families of gods, the ‘Æsir.’ Price describes them as “patriarchal” and “violent“ (40). The other family of gods is the Vanir, to Price, “gods of the earth and its riches” (40). Relations between the two families of gods are not always peaceful; the first battle in the Völuspá marks their conflict:
Odin’s spear     shot into the host—
this was the first war     fought in the world.
The wall of Asgard     proved too weak—
the victory was won     by Vanir magic.

— The Völuspá (trans. Terry)
Clearly, the distinction between the Æsir and Vanir families is important—important enough to generate the “the first war/fought in the world.” The scene ends with a loss for the Æsir. “The wall of Asgard,” according to Price the “Place of the Æsir” (37), is broken. The loss, however, is not lingered upon. In Terry’s translation, there is a gap in the narrative, and the next scene depicts a gathering between the two families, if not allyship.
Then the mighty gods     met to give judgement
the holy gods     took council together:
who had filled the air     with evil speech
offered to a giant     the goddess Freyja?

— The Völuspá (trans. Terry)
The gods meet to deliberate a wrong done to Freyja, one of the Vanir; it can be assumed that both families of “gods” are present. In an undefined moment between stanzas the Æsir and Vanir reconciled, and formed a body that could “meet” and “council” as well as fight. The word “gods” in this latter passage of the Völuspá—repeated twice in as many lines—mirrors its unclarified usage in the first line of the poem. The meeting’s conclusion is not happy. Thor, son of Odin and one of the Æsir, starts a second conflict. But this conflict is not based on otherness but a breach of contract: “vows were broken,/promises betrayed.” The clear distinction between the Æsir and the Vanir, while never vanishing altogether, is tested after the gods first fight. They may quarrel again, but only after forming a political body, in some sense moving past their differences while retaining a sense of identity. The pop-culture imagination of the Norse gods, then, is two steps removed from knowing the gods as they were in the viking age. Most today don’t know that the gods were divided; and that division wasn’t nearly as clear cut as it may seem.
Odin (or Freyja?)
The lack of clear-cut distinctions—as we see them—in Norse religion is well illustrated by the ‘Odin’ figure, found in Lejre, Denmark. Lejre was the site of the Beowulf legend, the center of Danish power before Roskilde gained prominence. The figure is finely wrought of silver; despite its minute stature of 1.8 centimeters, its careful working implies great value, perhaps ritual importance (Graham-Campbell 163).

Figure from Lejre, DK.
Silver with niello inlay.
1.8×2.0×1.3 cm.
(source: Wikimedia)

The figure sits on a throne. Because of its placement at a site of power, some have identified it as Odin, the highest of the Norse gods. In the Völuspá, the volva describes the famous scene of Odin sacrificing his eye for wisdom:
I know everything—     where you left your eye
Odin, in the water     of Mimir’s well.

— The Völuspá (trans. Terry)
Neil Price argues that the apparent missing eye on the statue may be further evidence that it represents Odin (43). James Graham-Campbell, a historian of viking art, argues that the two ravens on each side of the throne may represent Hugin and Munin, two messengers associated with Odin (163). There’s only one problem: both authors suggest that the statue’s clothing is often interpreted as a woman’s (43, 163). Why would Odin be depicted in women’s clothing? Does the figure represent Odin at all?

According to Graham-Campbell, another common theory as to the identity of the seated figure is the goddess Frejya— not only a different god, but with a different gender, from an entirely different family of deities. Such unresolvable ambiguities are implicit in attempts to schematize viking religion from objects. Neil Price argues it is “unwise and unnecessary” to identify the ‘Odin’ figure precisely (ctd. Graham-Campbell 163), but we can still draw a few conclusions from the piece. Heterogeneity of belief in the Viking Age may render it unwieldy to define the figure precisely; more likely the knowledge that would have been able to identify the figure, perhaps transmitted orally, has since been lost. Either way, there clearly wasn’t only one way to depict either Odin or Frejya. The physical form of the gods in art had a certain fluidity, leaving it up to the artist’s interpretation. Our current difficulty is in delineating what may have influenced these interpretations.

The vikings were willing to make images of important figures, and out of precious materials. Silver’s price may account for the figure’s diminutive size, but such a size also permits mobility. This image of the god isn’t necessarily fixed to a single geographical place, it may have moved around and spread an image of deity from one place to another. Finally, the vikings were willing to embed power in physical form. The figure, though not precisely identifiable, is carefully forged, with a variety of shapes: straight draping lines off the shoulder cape, scored bands around the chest, dots running down each leg. It’s impossible to know the precise meaning of these structures—almost a cognate to the impossibility of identifying the precise figure. But even if we don’t know what was depicted, we can see how the vikings found meaning in objects: shape, form, and craftsmanship.
Thor
We will end this section with a discussion of Thor, probably the most recognizable Norse god today. For Patricia Terry, translator of the Völuspá, Thor is the “personification of strength without intellect” (xii). For Charles Dunn, he is “the god of thunder, controlled the forces of nature, and as the supreme wielder of weapons he was therefore revered by hand-smiting warriors” (xviii). Neil Price emphasizes his hammer: “Found on pendants and on amulet rings, these items are the most common objects associated with the traditional religion“ (45). The scholars derived these impressions from texts and materials sources; where can we find reflections on the objects themselves?

Altuna Runestone (U 1161).
Granite.
H 1.95 m.
(source: Wikimedia)

Above is a picture stone of Thor from Altuna in Uppland, Sweden. Unlike the Odin/Freyja figure, Thor is not only precisely identifiable, but identifiable in two ways. He holds a hammer identical to the hammer amulets that Neil Price described. In addition, the image depicts a scene from the Ragnarök section of the Völuspá, when Thor fights the world serpent:
Far-famed Thor,     the son of Earth,
the son of Odin,     goes forth to fight the Snake.

— The Völuspá (trans. Terry)
The story in the Völuspá, however, is missing the specific element of the fight that renders it identifiable: while fishing for the world serpent, Thor’s feet break through the bottom of his boat (Graham-Campbell 185).

Thor is clearly identified in this image, though not necessarily by physical features. We don’t see that he is “personification of strength” because of a representation of muscles, for example. We know he is by the placement of a symbolic marker (the hammer) and a clear reference to a narrative in wide proliferation throughout the broader viking world. It’s worth mentioning that versions of the same story appear in different locations: while the Völuspá associated with Iceland (possibly Norway) and the picture stone in Altuna do not have the same version of Thor’s fight with the world serpent, both have enough of the story that audiences connect representation to mythological event—and identify the central deity.

Perhaps the viking gods didn’t exist in quite the same way we visualize them: with the discrete physical characteristics of Chris Hemsworth or Anthony Hopkins. Perhaps they existed more changeably, as a conglomeration of stories and symbols and embedded physical forms, creating less of a cosmology and more of a firmament: if you know some of the shapes, you can pick out some of the events, several of the constellations. Most things will be illegible, but the lasting questions are part of the continued interest. There’s always another story—for them as much as for us—that one won’t have discovered just yet.

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