Norse Cosmology: Did you mean...?

Pets were as important to the Norse of the Viking Age (c. 790-1100 CE) as they were to any other culture, past or present. The Vikings kept dogs and cats as pets and both feature in Norse religious iconography and literature...

In Norse belief, the soul of the deceased might wind up in any one of a number of afterlife realms. There was Valhalla, the realm of Odin where the dead warriors drank, fought, and told stories, Folkvangr ('the Field...

The idea that it was the Norse who discovered America first emerged in the late 18th century, long before there was any public awareness of the sagas on which such claims were based. In the course of the 19th...

Vinland (Old Norse Vínland, 'Wine Land') is the name given to the lands explored and briefly settled by Norse Vikings in North America around 1000 CE, particularly referring to Newfoundland, where a Viking site known as L'Anse aux Meadows...

In Norse mythology, the Sun and the Moon appear as personified siblings pulling the heavenly bodies and chased by wolves, or as plain objects. Written sources, such as the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, have surprisingly...

Alcohol played an integral part in Norse culture. People drank ale more than water because the brew had to be boiled as part of the process and so was safer to drink. The Norse of Scandinavia had four main types...

The Vikings were originally diverse Scandinavian seafarers from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark (though other nationalities were later involved) whose raids and subsequent settlements significantly impacted the cultures of Europe and were...

Elves and dwarves represent minor divine figures in Norse mythology. Elves (álfar) and dwarves (dvergar) have in common their talent for creating precious objects, skill, agility, and moral ambiguity. Dwarves appear...

Frigg is a fertility goddess in Norse mythology. She is the wife of Odin, king of the gods, and is the greatest goddess of the Norse pantheon. She is thought to have developed, along with the goddess Freyja, from an earlier fertility...

The Norse may have ruled parts of northern Wales in the early 11th century, specifically in Anglesey and Gwynedd, though the degree to which is unclear. Old Norse had relatively little impact on Welsh linguistics, and the Old...