20
votes
What do the "runes" on this pendant say?
Sorry to say, it's actually nothing more than the Elder Futhark, the eldest of the runic alphabets.
You can read more on it on Wikipedia. A good giveaway that it doesn't "say" anything is the lack of ...
- 7,158
17
votes
Odin's Counterpart
The key point here is Roman Syncretism. The romans believed the world was full of different gods, and they didn't presume to know about all of them, or to know everything about the ones they already ...
- 9,188
17
votes
Accepted
What is the Norse equivalent to the Great Flood?
The Norse flood myth is actually a flood of blood, created when Odin, Vili and Vé slew Ymir, the primeval ancestor of the jötnar. From Snorri's Prose Edda:
The sons of Bor slew the giant Ymer, but ...
- 7,786
16
votes
Did Loki spend 8 years underground as a maid, milking cows and bearing children?
Maybe he actually did.
Hypothesis 1. The Dwarven Arts
According to The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society, Preben Meulengracht Sørensen is convinced, for some ...
- 9,772
16
votes
Accepted
Why is the story of Odin hanging from Yggdrasil so similar to that of Jesus on the cross?
Taking a look at a few things here.
The word Yggdrasil itself firstly. "Ygg," means Death. "Drasil" is a Nordic term that has the dual meanings of both "gallows" and "horse." So Yggdrasil itself ...
- 427
14
votes
What is Loki considered to be?
I have slightly modified the following from a Yahoo! Answers question I answered sometime ago.
He is referred to as a god in the Nibelungenlied and the Völsungasaga. In the Eddas he is generally ...
- 9,772
14
votes
Accepted
Is "Viking mythology" the same as "Norse mythology"
A "Viking" was a a warrior who went raiding abroad. (See the Jorvik site for more on this.) They were probably the most famous medieval Scandinavians, but they were a small subset of all the Norse ...
- 5,878
13
votes
Accepted
Did the Sami affect Norse mythology?
Yes, both as figures in historical and semi-legendary stories, and possibly through borrowings of mythological themes and ideas.
History and semi-legendary material
First, let's note the actual ...
- 6,006
12
votes
Is there a Western (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Norse) god of the cosmos?
For Egyptian, you'd have several choices. Going from the largest (at least in the Heliopolitian cosmology):
Nuun (Nun) is the cosmic ocean that our universe is a bubble in:
https://henadology....
12
votes
What is the source of the fable of Thor’s attempt to drink up a small spring?
I love this story! According to good ol' Wiki, which is sourced, this story comes from an Icelandic rímur cycle. It is also cited in the Gylfaginning.
Your story and the rest of it are from the third ...
12
votes
Accepted
Does Hel have a role in Ragnarok?
None, as far as we know. She is not mentioned at all in either the poem Voluspa, which describes the event of Ragnarok, nor in Snorri's version of events in the Prose Edda. All he says is that when ...
- 5,878
12
votes
Accepted
What kind of cats pulled Freya's chariot?
There are actually two references to her cats in Gylfaginning (part of the Prose Edda):
Sessrumir, her hall, is large and beautiful. And when she travels, she
drives two cats and sits in a ...
- 5,878
11
votes
Accepted
Friday: the day of Frigg, or Freyja?
Friday is named for Frigg, see e.g. Gro Stensland's Fornnordisk Religion (if you can read Scandinavian) or Etymology Online. A few Icelandic writers appears to have called it "Freyjudagr" (it would ...
- 6,006
11
votes
What was the role of the bear in Norse mythology? (Are there bears in Asgard?)
You raise a really good point. It is strange that there are no bears in Norse myth. The wolf seems to have really engaged them, perhaps because of the duality of wolf/dog, tame and wild, while the ...
- 5,878
11
votes
What do the "runes" on this pendant say?
As others said, the symbols spell the runic alphabet from the Elder Futhark. They circle Yggdrasil, the mythical tree that connects the nine worlds in Norse cosmology, where Odin hung himself in order ...
- 111
10
votes
Is there a Western (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Norse) god of the cosmos?
Ouranos (Roman Uranus) is the Greek (night) sky god. You will find him at the beginning of Hesiod's Theogony. Wikipedia has an extensive list of sky gods, among whom you will find the Egyptian goddess ...
- 1,613
10
votes
Is there a Western (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, or Norse) god of the cosmos?
This depends entirely on your stance of if you're asking for a sky god or if you'd prefer only "outer space", so to speak. Given that these are ancient cultures / mythologies we're discussing, it ...
- 101
10
votes
Accepted
Did Frigg cheat on Odin?
Well, your telling is pretty distorted, but there is a story of Odin's brothers taking possession of his wife, Frigg. From the Ynglinga Saga, Chapter 3:
Odin had two brothers, the one called Ve, the ...
- 9,188
10
votes
Did Odin Have A Relationship With Freya?
This is a convoluted topic, and I will start from a somewhat different angle: we are told by Snorri (and find confirmation in Völuspá) that Freya was for a while married to a figure by the name of Od, ...
- 6,006
10
votes
Why is the story of Odin hanging from Yggdrasil so similar to that of Jesus on the cross?
It would be hard to know definitively if this was due Christian influence on Odin's narrative b/c we don't have pre-Christian textual sources for Odin's. (i.e. This material was first recorded about ...
- 14.1k
10
votes
Accepted
What is the source of the fable of Thor’s attempt to drink up a small spring?
This seems to be a somewhat distorted version of a story from Gylfaginning, in which Thor, Loki and Tjalvi travels to Útgarða-Loki, a jotun and sorceror, who presents Thor, Loki and Tjalvi with ...
- 6,006
10
votes
Accepted
What are the functions of Giantesses in the Norse Mythology and Folklore?
Jotuns in general served as a sort of the Other for the gods: a group that they used to define themselves by contrast. Female Jotuns were in some senses even more so.
Here is a list of different ...
- 6,006
10
votes
What kind of cats pulled Freya's chariot?
They were tomcats.
There is really not very much told about Freyas cats. In Gylfaginning, XXIV, we are told that
When she goes forth, she drives her cats and sits in a chariot.
(Note that the ...
- 6,006
10
votes
Is Odin Thor's father?
As you say Snorri Sturluson writes this cited text in the prologue to his Prose Edda, one of our chief sources of Norse mythology. The old Scandinavian worshipers did not have a written language ...
- 166
10
votes
Accepted
What is the relationship between Thor and storms?
The 11th century Christian missionary Adam of Bremen wrote,
"Thor, they say, presides over the air, he governs the thunder and lightning. the winds and rains."
The Norse believed that ...
- 4,051
9
votes
Are dwarves and dark elves the same?
The thirteenth-century writings of Snorri Sturluson are remarkable, but they must be placed in context. He wrote long after conversion, and his work was likely affected by the fogging of the lens ...
- 131
9
votes
Accepted
In Norse mythology, is there a reference to a stone/rock place, entity, object?
Hrungnir, a mighty jötunn, is said to have a stone head and heart, as well as a stone shield and weapon. He appears in the Prose Edda where he fought and was slain by Thor. A translation of the ...
- 7,786
9
votes
Accepted
How was it decided which warriors would go to Fólkvangr and which to Valhalla?
The poetic Eddas say that Freya chose half of the dead in battle and the other half went to Odin in Valhalla, the Valkyries take the slain only after Freya chooses her half. Odin gave this right to ...
9
votes
Who is the mother of Freyr and Freyja?
There is another candidate for Njord's sister: Njorun. Her claim isn't a lot better than Nerthus', based mainly on linguistic similiarity. Njorun turns up in a list of goddesses, and in kennings. (...
- 5,878
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible