The Norse Pre-Christian Religion
The pre-Christian religion of the Nordic people consisted of a number important gods and goddesses collectively called the Aesir. The most prominent gods include: Odin, the god of war, poetry and leader of the Norse gods; Thor, the god of thunder, strongest of the gods; and Balder, the god of light, the most gentle and beautiful. To every god there was a goddess wife, who were all highly esteemed but were not central characters in many of the stories. In many cases they take on a role of loyalty and mothering.
Worth mentioning is the mortality of the Aesir, high creator gods. These deities understood that a time would come when they would meet their own death. This fatalistic mindset seems to resonate with the mentality of a race of people whom are greatly involved in war. One of the noblest things a Norseman could achieve was to die honorably in battle fighting against the world’s evils, be those evils in the form of a rival clan, inclement weather, or a pack of wolves. To the Norse the world must have seemed full of evils. In their harsh landscape, seemingly all was against them. It’s no question why the enemies of the gods would happen to be giants of frost. It was believed that if they died heroically they would be called to dwell with Odin in Valhalla, his palace in the realm of the gods. Since their religion emphasizes that all was impermanent, even the Aesir, one can imagine how this mentality manifested on the battlefield. They thought it only right to fight fiercely, and to their deaths.
Ritual and ceremony of the Norse were held in temples of the gods. They were attended by priests responsible for the reading of omens and other types of divination. They also guarded the sacred groves and objects. Their duties were frequently performed by the chief of a particular tribe. Festivals and religious ceremonies were held throughout the year, usually for the celebration of the harvest or of victory in battle. At festivals, animal (or sometimes human) sacrifices and libations were offered to the gods, and the dead were commemorated. The dead were believed to retain their faculties and to affect the fate of the living. Burial places were considered sacred, and sacrifices were made at the sites.