Sites associated with pre-Christian Norse religious practice, known through later medieval texts such as the Eddas as well as archaeology, with the usual caution that those texts were written down well after Christianisation and filtered through that later perspective. Sacred sites are grouped by tradition at a fine grain here, so a heading can be narrow without that saying anything about the tradition's own reach.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe picture of a Norse "temple" comes very largely from Adam of Bremen, writing about 1075 about a place he had not visited and making a case about a mission field. Excavation at the site he describes has not produced the building he describes, and nearly every later reconstruction traces back to his page. 3 Overview
What Defines This GroupingCult places of pre-Christian Scandinavia - halls, groves, springs and assembly sites rather than temples in the later sense. The written sources are Christian and late: the sagas were set down two centuries and more after conversion, by people who had never seen the rites they describe. 2 Learn More
Norse Sacred Sites
This small group gathers a sacred site of Norse and Germanic paganism, a temple, sacred grove or cult place of the pre-Christian north, known from the sagas, chronicles and archaeology.
The browser will find the site the atlas classes here. The entry describes what is known of its ritual use, noting the limits of the evidence for pre-Christian Norse worship.
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Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Dictionary of Northern Mythology
3. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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