Old Norse religionOld Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is the most common name for a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peoples. It was replaced by Christianity and forgotten during the Christianisation of Scandinavia. Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic Religion by historical linguistics, archaeology, toponymy, and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in the Younger Futhark, a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet.
Icelandic literatureIcelandic literature refers to literature written in Iceland or by Icelandic people. It is best known for the sagas written in medieval times, starting in the 13th century. As Icelandic and Old Norse are almost the same, and because Icelandic works constitute most of Old Norse literature, Old Norse literature is often wrongly considered a subset of Icelandic literature. However, works by Norwegians are present in the standard reader Sýnisbók íslenzkra bókmennta til miðrar átjándu aldar, compiled by Sigurður Nordal on the grounds that the language was the same.
Icelandic languageIcelandic (aɪsˈlændɪk; íslenska ˈis.tl̥ɛn.ska) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct language Norn. It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German.
IcelandIceland (Ísland, ˈistlant) is a Nordic island country between the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is linked culturally and politically with Europe, and is the region's most sparsely populated country. Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which is home to about 36% of the country's roughly 380,000 residents. Located on a rift between tectonic plates, Iceland's geologic activity includes geysers and frequent volcanic eruptions.
Icelandic krónaThe króna ˈkhrouːna or krona (sometimes called Icelandic crown; sign: kr; code: ISK) is the currency of Iceland. Iceland is the second-smallest country by population, after the Seychelles, to have its own currency and monetary policy. Like the Nordic currencies (such as the Danish krone, Swedish krona and Norwegian krone) that participated in the historical Scandinavian Monetary Union, the name króna (meaning crown) comes from the Latin word corona ("crown").
Heathenry (new religious movement)Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th century, its practitioners model it on the pre-Christian religions adhered to by the Germanic peoples of the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages. In an attempt to reconstruct these past belief systems, Heathenry uses surviving historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence as a basis, although approaches to this material vary considerably.
History of ScandinaviaThe history of Scandinavia is the history of the geographical region of Scandinavia and its peoples. The region is located in Northern Europe, and consists of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Finland and Iceland are at times, especially in English-speaking contexts, considered part of Scandinavia. Scandinavian prehistory Little evidence remains in Scandinavia of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, or the Iron Age except limited numbers of tools created from stone, bronze, and iron, some jewelry and ornaments, and stone burial cairns.
Norse mythologyNorse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The northernmost extension of Germanic mythology and stemming from Proto-Germanic folklore, Norse mythology consists of tales of various deities, beings, and heroes derived from numerous sources from both before and after the pagan period, including medieval manuscripts, archaeological representations, and folk tradition.
RitualA ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or revered objects. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more.
Ritual purificationRitual purification is the ritual prescribed by a religion by which a person is considered to be free of uncleanliness, especially prior to the worship of a deity, and ritual purity is a state of ritual cleanliness. Ritual purification may also apply to objects and places. Ritual uncleanliness is not identical with ordinary physical impurity, such as dirt stains; nevertheless, body fluids are generally considered ritually unclean.
ReligionReligion is a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacredness, faith, and a supernatural being or beings.
NorwayNorway (Norge), formally the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency of Norway; it also lays claims to the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo, situated in the south of the country.
IslamIslam (ˈɪslɑːm; ۘالِإسْلَام, al-ʾIslām ʔɪsˈlæːm, ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centered on the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam, called Muslims, number approximately 2 billion globally and are the world's second-largest religious population after Christians. Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times through earlier prophets such as Adam (believed to be the first man), Ibrahim, Moses, and Isa (Jesus), among others.
NorwegiansNorwegians (Nordmenn) are an ethnic group and nation native to Norway, where they form the vast majority of the population. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegians are descended from the Norse of the Early Middle Ages who formed a unified Kingdom of Norway in the 9th century. During the Viking Age, Norwegians and other Norse peoples conquered, settled and ruled parts of the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.
TacitusPublius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus (ˈtæsɪtəs , ˈtakɪtʊs; AD 56 – 120), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals (Latin: Annales) and the Histories (Latin: Historiae)—examine the reigns of the emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD).
Germanic peoplesThe Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Northwestern and Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and early medieval Germanic languages and are thus equated at least approximately with Germanic-speaking peoples, although different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic".
GermanyGermany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south. Its 16 constituent states are bordered by Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west.
VikingsVikings is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, Volga Bulgaria, the Middle East, and North America. In their countries of origin, and some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a whole.
GermansInfobox ethnic group | group = Germans | native_name = Deutsche | native_name_lang = de | region1 = Germany | pop1 = 72,569,978 | region2 = United States | pop2 = 534,000 | region3 = Brazil | pop3 = 21,000 5,000,000 | region4 = Canada | pop4 = 157,000 3,322,405 | region5 = Australia | pop5 = 125,000 1,026,140 | region6 = Kazakhstan | pop6 = 900,000 | region7 = Russia | pop7 = 142,000 840,000 | region8 = Argentina | pop8 = 9,000 500,000 | region9 = Switzerland | pop9 = 357,000 | region10 = United Kingdom | p
