The people of the North; worshipers of many gods, sacrificers of men, women, and animals alike, and practicers of arcane magics the likes of which the world will never see again. But, when we think about the brute strength of the Vikings, why is it that they needed magic at all? And more to the point, how did they discover it and what did they use it for?
We’ve heard the horrors of their ritualistic occult practices of ‘Blood Eagles’ and human sacrifices, and there are few who have not caught themselves in awe over the artful inscriptions of seemingly indecipherable Norse runes, whether from the ancient Elder Futhark or any of the more modern forms. We have heard of Thor and Odin, and thanks to Marvel movies, even Loki the trickster has is fair share of fans in the modern world, but while this blog will talk about all these things, its real focus will be one pagan magic and its relationship to the Norse in their daily lives.
Let’s be honest, “magic” is a topic that just seems a little far-fetched in our modern world of computers, stocks and bonds, and instant Amazon delivery. There is no uncertainty anymore, so why would anyone need to fill their minds with anything so inordinate as the hocus-pocus of dusty spell-books and bubbling cauldrons?
Well, before we dive in, I have to pose one critical piece of wisdom that I have learned throughout my years on this Earth.
“There are three subjects that you do not discuss at a bar: Religion, Politics, or Sports, because they are all religion.” This, as I have found, holds true for magic (magick) as well. There are many forms of magic and many ways to practice it, and about 10 times more beliefs about what is good, bad, or ugly about the practice itself.
Fortune-Telling, Scrying, Divination, Spell-Casting, Chanting, Shamanistic Possession, Trance, Scapulimancy, Ritual, Numerology, Incantation, and Hexing & Blessing are all various ways to enact magics of various forms and for various purposes. And, if you even have the slightest belief in the Supernatural, some of these terms may have just made the little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. But, don’t worry. This blog won’t seek out spirits or look too deeply into the far corners of the unknown. We will merely be clarifying a few terms and learning about a simple facts about magic and paganism, specifically the magic of the Norse.
Magic is defined quite simply as, “the apparent ability to influence the course of events by mysterious or supernatural forces.”
By saying “mysterious or supernatural,” it means that magic may or may not have anything to do with the spiritual world. According to the definition, even Alchemy, which uses mysterious secret sciences, would be considered to be a form of magic. In modern times, this definition would also include the well-documented “placebo effect,” which baffles doctors in nearly every field of medicine. The placebo effect happens, when a patient is told that they have been given a cure, and their body reacts as if it were true, fighting illness and disease on its own, as if by magic.
The other hidden aspect of this definition is, that magic’s effects are “apparent”. The word apparent here almost appears to be intentionally vague, as it has two distinctly different meanings, possibly to satisfy those who believe in magic, and those who don’t. “Apparent” can meant “obvious,” but it can also mean “supposed”. So, it will be up to you to decide if magic is an obvious cause for certain happenings in our world, or whether it is merely the supposed cause for the unexplained.
This is a good question, and much like magic itself, the word “Pagan” has become a bit lost in translation, as our world as evolved. “Pagan” basically means, “religious beliefs other than those of mainstream religions, or persons holding those beliefs.”
A bit cryptic, and again, more than a little vague. But, picking it apart, we can see that any religion could be considered to be pagan, as long as it is in the minority. This also means that by definition, until religions like Buddhism and Christianity took center stage as world religions, they too were at one point considered by others to be quite pagan. (I have to admit, that last thought does make me chuckle just a little bit.)
So, in point of fact, if your beliefs don’t quite align with at least one of the popular religions of the world, you may be a little bit of a pagan yourself!
“Occult” is a great word, because it is so vague and so misunderstood. Like pagan, the occult has much to do with deviations from the mainstream systems of beliefs, but where “occult” and “pagan” differ is quite interesting. “Occult” is not limited to religion, nor is it limited to science, but it dwells firmly (and somehow loosely) in the gap between them.
Things of the occult do deal with the unseen, the mystical, the magical, and the practical (meaning things that are practiced). But the occult also includes the fringe-sciences, para-sciences, and pseudo-sciences like alchemy, OBE’s (out of body experiences), UFOlogy (the study of UFO’s), and Faraday Cages and theories on teleportation. Surprisingly enough, even much of the work of Nikola Tesla would qualify as existing within the realms of the occult.
If we take it out of its shroud of mysticism, we can think of “occult” as referring to things that seem like they could be proven by scientific method, but are just out of our reach. But, just like pagan religions, what is or is not occult depends largely on the acceptance or alignment with the mainstream. So, the day that we invent time-travel, or capture a ghost on video, those topics will no longer find themselves on the dusty shelves of the occult section at Barns and Noble.
As we can clearly see from the definitions of terms, the Norse religions practiced in the days before science and computerized technologies clearly fit the definition of Pagan. Reading back through epics, historical accounts, mythologies, and the occasional rant of a Frankish monk, it is clear that the Vikings practiced not only a system of worship, but a system of morality that could not be further removed from our “modern” standardized religions.
Most people are aware that the Norse and Scandinavian peoples were polytheistic (believed in many gods), but not many are aware of the exact relationship the Norse gods had with the Norse people themselves. There was a reason that the Vikings not only believed in magic but found it absolutely necessary in everyday life. And this was due to the peculiar relationships the Vikings shared with each of their deities.
Since Marvel released its movie series starring a Hollywood hunk paying Thor, the Norse god who carries the mighty hammer Mjolnir, there are many who would recognize the names of Thor, Loki, Odin, and Freya. Maybe some would even recognize names like Heimdall or Yggdrasil, the world tree, but I would put hard money down that not many if any of the superhero pop-culture fans of Asgard have any idea who or what these figures actually were.
The gods of the Norse were not benevolent. It’s not that they hated man, but just the opposite. The gods loved mankind, but not like Zeus. That guy loved everything… like there was literally nothing that god didn’t try to get pregnant. The Norse gods like humans, but they didn’t really feel that there was any need to interact with them. Humans and gods were on different plains of existence – temporal and eternal – and they each had their own problems to deal with. And, this is actually why the Vikings needed magic.
The gods controlled everything, but not in a micromanaging way. The existence of the gods were pure personifications of natural forces and characteristics of being. If there were no Freya, there would be no beauty in the world: if there were no Braggi, there would be no poetry, and so on and so forth. In this way, the Norse gods were life itself, divided and organized as living beings who laughed and cried and fought, and yes, even aged (if it weren’t for Idun and her golden apples that is).
It was Odin himself that unlocked the magic of the forces of the world itself. Odin committed both them most selfless and bravest act that could have been imagined and earned himself his place as the greatest and wisest god of all the gods. He gave himself as a human sacrifice to himself and was hanged on a tree for 3 days before being reborn (sound familiar?). It was this act that caused the universe to bequeath to him the forbidden knowledge of Viking Runes: the oldest and most powerful magic of the universe itself. You can find out more about this in our Rune Blog.
Odin bragged that he knew all of the runes, even those that had not been written among the Elder Futhark and that he knew the power within them. Odin boldly stated that he could inscribe runes on the base of a tree from which a dead man was hanged and bring him back for conversation. Runes held the power of the wind and the air, and even of life itself. But while Odin was kind enough to bring runes to the Earth, he was not so foolish as to give away all of this secrets. After all, even the Vikings knew that knowledge was power.
Among the greatest magicians, we may conjure up images of Rasputin and his quatrains, alchemists such as Nicolas Flamel and their transcriptions of angelic dialects, or even modern masters such as David Blane and his mastery of illusion, but I doubt we would typically think of someone chiseling madly at a stone. However, after reading this, you may.
Embedded deeply within the occult world of the Norse were the “Rune Masters.” These people were not only literate, which was a rarity in and of itself, but they were in possession of sagely wisdom of the world and of the gods. They could both read and write runic scripts, but more than that, they were aware of the hidden powers within each rune, that when used correctly or when combined with others, could invoke the gods.
As we talked about before, the gods of the Vikings were a bit like absentee parents. They cared for humans they just didn’t really care to do anything about them. The gods were after all gods and they had their own problems to deal with. However, embodying the forces of hatred, love, swiftness, life, death, and even poetry, the world of humans did require their aid from time to time, and it was through the careful workings of the rune masters that the attributes of the gods could be “borrowed”.
Inscribing runes could be done by anyone, and in point of fact, learning to phonetically read and write runes is pretty simple. The grammar and morphology is a bit more complicated, but that is neither here nor there when concerning runic magic and the mastery of the universe. But, if you want to learn some runes for yourself, check out our last blog on how to read runes!
Looking at archaeological records, we find runic inscriptions on just about everything, not just those gigantic rune stones that we see brightly painted in the National Geographic. Runes were carved into weapons, brooches, pins, sewn into cloths, painted on pots, carved into ale horns, and into just about everything your can imagine. Though there are no more rune masters living who can tell us exactly what magical powers each inscription may have been able to imbue on its user, the patterns in the inscriptions as they were duplicated and changed over time to give us some insights into these occult significance of certain groupings.
Most commonly, runes were grouped in rhyming pairs or groups of three and were seen on everyday items. Primarily these were charms used for luck or protection and were worn by many. More rarely we see full inscriptions or even the names of items etched into the items themselves. Most popular among these would likely be the “Ulfberht” sword, whose name means something akin to “shining wolf.” There is no perfect definition for the mysterious engraving on the blade, but two things are largely agreed upon. 1) Ulfberht is the name of the sword, and 2) Ulfberht is a runic word of power – it is one of very few magic words know to this day.
Well my friends, it has been a pleasure discussing topics of might and magic, but don’t worry, we will be going deeper into many of these topics in later blogs. As our Viking cousins have taught us, knowledge is power, so keep reading and keep learning.
Live long and live strong, my modern Vikings!
Cody Dees
“Resident Viking”
Norse Tradesman
The guess of the wise is truth. -Grettir Saga, c.31
The people of the North; worshipers of many gods, sacrificers of men, women, and animals alike, and practicers of arcane magics the likes of which the world will never see again. But, when we think about the brute strength of the Vikings, why is it that they needed magic at all? And more to the point, how did they discover it and what did they use it for?
We’ve heard the horrors of their ritualistic occult practices of ‘Blood Eagles’ and human sacrifices, and there are few who have not caught themselves in awe over the artful inscriptions of seemingly indecipherable Norse runes, whether from the ancient Elder Futhark or any of the more modern forms. We have heard of Thor and Odin, and thanks to Marvel movies, even Loki the trickster has is fair share of fans in the modern world, but while this blog will talk about all these things, its real focus will be one pagan magic and its relationship to the Norse in their daily lives.
Let’s be honest, “magic” is a topic that just seems a little far-fetched in our modern world of computers, stocks and bonds, and instant Amazon delivery. There is no uncertainty anymore, so why would anyone need to fill their minds with anything so inordinate as the hocus-pocus of dusty spell-books and bubbling cauldrons?
Well, before we dive in, I have to pose one critical piece of wisdom that I have learned throughout my years on this Earth.
“There are three subjects that you do not discuss at a bar: Religion, Politics, or Sports, because they are all religion.” This, as I have found, holds true for magic (magick) as well. There are many forms of magic and many ways to practice it, and about 10 times more beliefs about what is good, bad, or ugly about the practice itself.
Fortune-Telling,Scrying, Divination, Spell-Casting,Chanting, Shamanistic Possession,Trance, Scapulimancy, Ritual, Numerology, Incantation, and Hexing & Blessing are all various ways to enact magics of various forms and for various purposes. And, if you even have the slightest belief in the Supernatural, some of these terms may have just made the little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. But, don’t worry. This blog won’t seek out spirits or look too deeply into the far corners of the unknown. We will merely be clarifying a few terms and learning about a simple facts about magic and paganism, specifically the magic of the Norse.
Let’s be honest, “magic” is a topic that just seems a little far-fetched in our modern world of computers, stocks and bonds, and instant Amazon delivery. There is no uncertainty anymore, so why would anyone need to fill their minds with anything so inordinate as the hocus-pocus of dusty spell-books and bubbling cauldrons?
Well, before we dive in, I have to pose one critical piece of wisdom that I have learned throughout my years on this Earth.
“There are three subjects that you do not discuss at a bar: Religion, Politics, or Sports, because they are all religion.” This, as I have found, holds true for magic (magick) as well. There are many forms of magic and many ways to practice it, and about 10 times more beliefs about what is good, bad, or ugly about the practice itself.
Fortune-Telling,Scrying, Divination, Spell-Casting,Chanting, Shamanistic Possession,Trance, Scapulimancy, Ritual, Numerology, Incantation, and Hexing & Blessing are all various ways to enact magics of various forms and for various purposes. And, if you even have the slightest belief in the Supernatural, some of these terms may have just made the little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. But, don’t worry. This blog won’t seek out spirits or look too deeply into the far corners of the unknown. We will merely be clarifying a few terms and learning about a simple facts about magic and paganism, specifically the magic of the Norse.
Magic is defined quite simply as, “the apparent ability to influence the course of events by mysterious or supernatural forces.”
By saying “mysterious orsupernatural,” it means that magic may or may not have anything to do with the spiritual world. According to the definition, even Alchemy, which uses mysterious secret sciences, would be considered to be a form of magic. In modern times, this definition would also include the well-documented “placebo effect,” which baffles doctors in nearly every field of medicine. The placebo effect happens, when a patient is told that they have been given a cure, and their body reacts as if it were true, fighting illness and disease on its own, as if by magic.
The other hidden aspect of this definition is, that magic’s effects are “apparent”. The word apparent here almost appears to be intentionally vague, as it has two distinctly different meanings, possibly to satisfy those who believe in magic, and those who don’t. “Apparent” can meant “obvious,” but it can also mean “supposed”. So, it will be up to you to decide if magic is an obvious cause for certain happenings in our world, or whether it is merely the supposed cause for the unexplained.
This is a good question, and much like magic itself, the word “Pagan” has become a bit lost in translation, as our world as evolved. “Pagan” basically means, “religious beliefs other than those of mainstream religions, or persons holding those beliefs.”
A bit cryptic, and again, more than a little vague. But, picking it apart, we can see that any religion could be considered to be pagan, as long as it is in the minority. This also means that by definition, until religions like Buddhism and Christianity took center stage as world religions, they too were at one point considered by others to be quite pagan. (I have to admit, that last thought does make me chuckle just a little bit.)
So, in point of fact, if your beliefs don’t quite align with at least one of the popular religions of the world, you may be a little bit of a pagan yourself!
“Occult” is a great word, because it is so vague and so misunderstood. Like pagan, the occult has much to do with deviations from the mainstream systems of beliefs, but where “occult” and “pagan” differ is quite interesting. “Occult” is not limited to religion, nor is it limited to science, but it dwells firmly (and somehow loosely) in the gap between them.
Things of the occult do deal with the unseen, the mystical, the magical, and the practical (meaning things that are practiced). But the occult also includes the fringe-sciences, para-sciences, and pseudo-sciences like alchemy, OBE’s (out of body experiences), UFOlogy (the study of UFO’s), and Faraday Cages and theories on teleportation. Surprisingly enough, even much of the work of Nikola Tesla would qualify as existing within the realms of the occult.
If we take it out of its shroud of mysticism, we can think of “occult” as referring to things that seem like they could be proven by scientific method, but are just out of our reach. But, just like pagan religions, what is or is not occult depends largely on the acceptance or alignment with the mainstream. So, the day that we invent time-travel, or capture a ghost on video, those topics will no longer find themselves on the dusty shelves of the occult section at Barns and Noble.
As we can clearly see from the definitions of terms, the Norse religions practiced in the days before science and computerized technologies clearly fit the definition of Pagan. Reading back through epics, historical accounts, mythologies, and the occasional rant of a Frankish monk, it is clear that the Vikings practiced not only a system of worship, but a system of morality that could not be further removed from our “modern” standardized religions.
Most people are aware that the Norse and Scandinavian peoples were polytheistic (believed in many gods), but not many are aware of the exact relationship the Norse gods had with the Norse people themselves. There was a reason that the Vikings not only believed in magic but found it absolutely necessary in everyday life. And this was due to the peculiar relationships the Vikings shared with each of their deities.
Since Marvel released its movie series starring a Hollywood hunk paying Thor, the Norse god who carries the mighty hammer Mjolnir, there are many who would recognize the names of Thor, Loki, Odin, and Freya. Maybe some would even recognize names like Heimdall or Yggdrasil, the world tree, but I would put hard money down that not many if any of the superhero pop-culture fans of Asgard have any idea who or what these figures actually were.
The gods of the Norse were not benevolent. It’s not that they hated man, but just the opposite. The gods loved mankind, but not like Zeus. That guy loved everything… like there was literally nothing that god didn’t try to get pregnant. The Norse gods like humans, but they didn’t really feel that there was any need to interact with them. Humans and gods were on different plains of existence – temporal and eternal – and they each had their own problems to deal with. And, this is actually why the Vikings needed magic.
The gods controlled everything, but not in a micromanaging way. The existence of the gods were pure personifications of natural forces and characteristics of being. If there were no Freya, there would be no beauty in the world: if there were no Braggi, there would be no poetry, and so on and so forth. In this way, the Norse gods were life itself, divided and organized as living beings who laughed and cried and fought, and yes, even aged (if it weren’t for Idun and her golden apples that is).
It was Odin himself that unlocked the magic of the forces of the world itself. Odin committed both them most selfless and bravest act that could have been imagined and earned himself his place as the greatest and wisest god of all the gods. He gave himself as a human sacrifice to himself and was hanged on a tree for 3 days before being reborn (sound familiar?). It was this act that caused the universe to bequeath to him the forbidden knowledge of Viking Runes: the oldest and most powerful magic of the universe itself. You can find out more about this in our Rune Blog.
Odin bragged that he knew all of the runes, even those that had not been written among the Elder Futhark and that he knew the power within them. Odin boldly stated that he could inscribe runes on the base of a tree from which a dead man was hanged and bring him back for conversation. Runes held the power of the wind and the air, and even of life itself. But while Odin was kind enough to bring runes to the Earth, he was not so foolish as to give away all of this secrets. After all, even the Vikings knew that knowledge was power.
Among the greatest magicians, we may conjure up images of Rasputin and his quatrains, alchemists such as Nicolas Flamel and their transcriptions of angelic dialects, or even modern masters such as David Blane and his mastery of illusion, but I doubt we would typically think of someone chiseling madly at a stone. However, after reading this, you may.
Embedded deeply within the occult world of the Norse were the “Rune Masters.” These people were not only literate, which was a rarity in and of itself, but they were in possession of sagely wisdom of the world and of the gods. They could both read and write runic scripts, but more than that, they were aware of the hidden powers within each rune, that when used correctly or when combined with others, could invoke the gods.
As we talked about before, the gods of the Vikings were a bit like absentee parents. They cared for humans they just didn’t really care to do anything about them. The gods were after all gods and they had their own problems to deal with. However, embodying the forces of hatred, love, swiftness, life, death, and even poetry, the world of humans did require their aid from time to time, and it was through the careful workings of the rune masters that the attributes of the gods could be “borrowed”.
Inscribing runes could be done by anyone, and in point of fact, learning to phonetically read and write runes is pretty simple. The grammar and morphology is a bit more complicated, but that is neither here nor there when concerning runic magic and the mastery of the universe. But, if you want to learn some runes for yourself, check out our last blog on how to read runes!
Looking at archaeological records, we find runic inscriptions on just about everything, not just those gigantic rune stones that we see brightly painted in the National Geographic. Runes were carved into weapons, brooches, pins, sewn into cloths, painted on pots, carved into ale horns, and into just about everything your can imagine. Though there are no more rune masters living who can tell us exactly what magical powers each inscription may have been able to imbue on its user, the patterns in the inscriptions as they were duplicated and changed over time to give us some insights into these occult significance of certain groupings.
Most commonly, runes were grouped in rhyming pairs or groups of three and were seen on everyday items. Primarily these were charms used for luck or protection and were worn by many. More rarely we see full inscriptions or even the names of items etched into the items themselves. Most popular among these would likely be the “Ulfberht” sword, whose name means something akin to “shining wolf.” There is no perfect definition for the mysterious engraving on the blade, but two things are largely agreed upon.
1) Ulfberht is the name of the sword, and
2) Ulfberht is a runic word of power – it is one of very few magic words know to this day.
Well my friends, it has been a pleasure discussing topics of might and magic, but don’t worry, we will be going deeper into many of these topics in later blogs. As our Viking cousins have taught us, knowledge is power, so keep reading and keep learning.
Live long and live strong, my modern Vikings!
Cody Dees
“Resident Viking”
Norse Tradesman
The guess of the wise is truth. -Grettir Saga, c.31
