Sticking with Vikings here for our theme of the month for February! Hey! Let's find out some more about the Vikings!
Viking
Religion:
The
Vikings were polytheistic. They believed in a variety of Gods (e.g
Thor, Loki, Odin, Grimnir etc) who lived in Asgard.
These God’s controlled everything, and people would often carry the
hammer, symbol of Thor, for luck.
If
you died in battle, you would be promised entry into Valhalla.
Here,
it was said that the hunt was good and that you would drink sweet
mead (an alcoholic drink made from honey) from the souls of your enemies.
(Apparently this was a pretty attractive prospect to Viking
warriors!) The equivalent of Viking Hell, however, wasn’t quite so
good. You would be forced to drink goats urine, you were eternally
two cold and blood would always drip down on you from above.
(Disgusting!)
The
Vikings also believed some other things too! Odin, had two ravens,
Huginn and Munnin (thought and mind) who would watch over the world.
Another common belief was that the sky was held up by four giants,
North, South, East and West. (They sound familiar?)
Many
Viking’s believed that the world would end with the battle of
Ragnarok. On this day, the seas were destined to fill with blood and
brother would turn on brother. It was something many Viking’s
feared.
A
portion of Viking’s were converted to Christianity when King Alfred
became ruler in Wessex.
