lokavinr:

paganconnection:

Who are the Norse Gods and Goddesses and Who worships them?

Asatru is the modern re-birth of the old Norse beliefs. The Old Norse culture is the ancestors of the Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, the Icelanders, and probably a few other peoples in that general area. They follow the Norse Pantheon, See…

All right. We need to talk about this list.

The word “Norse” means exactly what it sounds like…Nordic. When people use the term “Norse Gods” or “Ásatrú” (a word derived from Icelandic), they are generally referring to the deities discussed in Eddic and skaldic poetry, Snorra Edda, the Icelandic or Norwegian sagas, or those attested in place names and/or identified in archeological sites in Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Denmark, and parts on the UK heavily influenced by Norse settlers in the Middle Ages.

Looking at this list as a practitioner of Norse Heathenry/Ásatrú I am only familiar with about two thirds of the names you have included, and only worship about half of them. The deities you included that actually belong on a list of Norse Gods are:

• Óðinn
• Frigg
• [The Æsir]
• [The Vanir]
• Buri
• Forseti
• Freyja
• Gefjun
• Hel
• Iðunn
• Njörðr
• Norns
• Ríg (Heimdallr)
• Skaði
• Þórr
• Týr
• Víðarr
• [Valkyries…though I’ve never seen anyone worshiping them]

Moreover, you’ve left out quite a few, including:

• Loki
• Sif
• Sigyn
• Ullr
• Freyr (How did you miss him?!)
• Bragi
• Sunna
• Máni
• Baldr
• Váli
• Magni and Móði
• Ect…

Now the degree to which some of these beings (on both lists) were worshiped is a matter often debated, but at the very least you missed the well-attested and widely worshiped Gods Freyr and Ullr who are very much “Norse Gods.”

In their place, you filled in many Gods who do not belong here, erasing Slavic cultural identity and shepherding several region-specific groups of Deities under the label of “Norse.” You may have been going for “heathen” rather than “Norse” as your label, but even still, the identity of Slavic and Finnish branches as “heathen” is likewise contested. 

In general, “heathen” is applied to the religions of people in the “Germanic” language tree (Goths, Saxons, Frisians, Norsemen, and occasionally some of the earlier tribes attested by Tacitus). Each of these groups has its own religion, with some similarities but many more deities and practices unique to that area. For example:

Suebian (ca. 100 CE):

• Nerthus
• Cisa (?)

Frisian/Saxon (ca. 300 CE?):

• Nehalennia

Hessian (ca. 800 CE):

• Donar

Saxon/Franconian (ca. 800 CE):

• Uuôtan/Uuodan
• Phol
• Donar
• Frîja/Friia
• Balder
• Uolla
• Sinthgunt
• Zîu

(Anglo) Saxon (ca. 700-800 CE):

• Wôden
• Eorðe
• Frige
• Hretha
• Eostre
• Seaxnēat
• Þunor
• Tîw

There are also a few deities people have attempted to reconstruct based on more modern folklore, though there is a danger in doing this and assuming this reflects an earlier tradition:

• Holda (Continental Germanic)
• Perchta (Alpine)

In any case, the bottom line here is that these deities cannot all be labeled as “Norse,” and certainly cannot be lumped into one single religious tradition. They are region and time period specific, and, while there may be some crossover (Uuôtan/Wôden/Óðinn), each location had their own way of describing and honoring these deities and must be viewed as their own distinct religious tradition.

Furthermore, Finnish and Slavic deities are even more distinct from the “Norse” heathen group, and should not be lumped together. For one thing, the Finnish religion (through their possible connection with the Sami and other indigenous people of Scandinavia) probably predates the arrival of the Nordic people. There is evidence suggesting that some religious/magical practices (such as seiðr) and possibly certain “Norse” deities were appropriated early on by Norse settlers, but in any case that makes it even more disrespectful to erase Finnish religion by calling it Norse.

Similarly, the Baltic and Slavic regions were raided and settled by Norsemen, but we do not know for certain what elements of their religion predate these invasions and which were borrowed from the Norse. Mythologists have noted similarities in the stories from these religions, but we have no way of knowing who had them first, when they were borrowed, and, because Slavic mythology was largely recorded by outsiders, how often Slavic deities were conflated with Norse ones by outsiders who traveled there.

It is better to be safe and stick with the Gods actually recorded in Norse sources when talking about “Norse Heathenry” or the modern revival of these practices in Ásatrú or Forn Sed. To lump together all “Germanic” deities under the label of “Germanic” is to erase region-specific practices and beliefs and to collapse over a thousand years of history into one box. Furthermore, to call Slavic and Finnish Gods Norse is to completely ignore those cultures and traditions, and to assert the supremacy of a religion that, particularly in the case of the Finns, is newer in the region than those indigenous beliefs.

Norse Gods and Goddesses and the Asatru