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How To Make A Viking Ritual Sacrifice
Manage episode 311866867 series 3194682
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Create a wooden idol of a Norse or Saxon god or goddess of your choice - or a whole family of gods - and ask them for whatever it is you need, and leave an offering.
From historical sources, it is pretty clear that our Northern European pagan ancestors would take offerings to a circle or ring of wooden idols that depicted the gods, and would literally ask them for a given favour. In return, they'd leave offerings, which could be fruit and vegetables, some personal possession of value, or they'd sacrifice an animal (which from a modern perspective I don't condone).
Anyway, there's an account from the tenth century that shows how the Vikings made offerings to their gods in return (usually) for material favours. In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad called Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River and recorded a meticulous account of their customs and practices, including making offerings to the gods.
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References
Odin's Wife: Mother Earth in Germanic Mythology by William P. Reaves
And William P. Reaves' scholarly website Germanic Mythology at: http://www.germanicmythology.com/
Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North (Penguin Classics) by Paul Lunde and Caroline E.M.Stone
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