VIKINGS AND SLAVS

By Dominika Czop - University of Aberdeen, 16th December 2011

In many cultures, the universe has a tree, a mountain, or an island as its axis. Such representations are found in the heathen beliefs of the Norse and the Slavs.

Chapter 4

Archaeological evidence, historic sources, as well as toponomy and folklore suggest how these beliefs about the universe structure were materialized in sacred space and material culture. As the center of the universe is symbolizing its structure, often this center of the world had ritual functions. Cult places in Scandinavia included natural and artificial higher points of the landscape, water bodies, islands, groves, and funeral barrows as well as other places, often where ritual constructions were built, including stone altars and shrines.

Written sources regarding Slavic beliefs do not show the same coherent and clear picture of the universe in mythology as the Poetic Edda or Snorri’s Prose Edda. Although these historic sources, studies of Slavic folklore and archaeology suggest that Slavic cosmology was familiar with similar images of the universe. Trees, mountains, and islands had a special place in the pre-Christian beliefs of the Slavs and the Norse. Different evidence provides clues on how the universe and world were imagined in pre-Christian northern and Eastern Europe.

Although these scattered ideas should not be used to create one static image of cosmology, because it is unlikely that there was one rigid structure of the universe for the beliefs of the Norse and the Slavs in the pre-Christian period. The NorseIn the Old Norse mythology Yggdrasill is the world tree that holds the nine worlds. This evergreen ash tree reaches the sky and touches all of the nine worlds with its branches and roots. It creates the axis of the universe in the Old Norse cosmology.

A place where the Yggdrasill grew from marks the middle of the human and god’s worlds. There are also giants living under the roots of Yggdrasill. Hel, which is the dead residence, is located under the World Tree. Dwarves and elves also dwell within the Yggdrasill. Yggdrasill is associated with beliefs about the world structure, it's beginning, and its end. The World Tree is also associated with ideas of place and time, death, and destiny because it connects every realm of the universe and everything happens within its roots and branches (Andrén 2005:15).

Davidson proposed similarities between the central position of Yggdrasill and the function of a pillar inside of a temple. They both represent the world axis and its center, as well as they are the place of ritual action. Hedeager suggested that Asgard, the abode of the Asir 20gods, in fact, was the sacred center of the world where the ritual practice took place. The well of destiny — Urðr is situated under the roots of Yggdrasill.19

I know that an ash tree stands called Yggdrasill, a high tree, soaked with shining loam; from there come the dews which fall in the valley, evergreen, it stands over the well of fate. From there come three girls, knowing a great deal, from the lake which stands under the tree; Fated one is called, Becoming another — they carved on wooden slips — Must-be the third; they set down laws, they chose lives, for the sons of men the fates of men. She knows that Heimdall’s hearing is hidden under the radiant, sacred tree;(Voluspa)From the well of Urðr Odin gained his knowledge.

The well and the tree were apparently associated with the sacrifice by hanging and drowning, as well as representing the universe. Yggdrasill was most probably the tree on which Odin sacrificed himself by hanging to gain knowledge from the dead. However, it is not clearly stated that it was Yggdrasill that Odin hang on, although it is rather argued that it was the case.

Odin hanged on Yggdrasill, wounded with his own spear, for nine days and nights to access wisdom and knowledge of magic from the dead in the underworld. I know that I hung on a windy tree, nine long nights, wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to me, on that tree of which no man knows, from where its roots run. (Havamal)

The World Tree was not a static and fixed axis, as well as connecting the different worlds, Yggdrasill also served as the point of entry into the ‘other world’ or even a means of transport. Indeed Yggdrasill is often translated as ‘Odin’s Horse’. Odin’s self-sacrifice reminds me of shaman spirit quests. Shamanistic functions of Yggdrasill were proposed as the central world tree appears in the beliefs of the Siberian shamans. It was used by the shaman-like ladder to travel into the Otherworld.

Bronze Age/Early Iron Age up to the Middle Ages. The feet of the gold figurine from Lund had its toes pointing downwards, which perhaps suggested that it was a victim of hanging. In Frӧsӧ, under the altar of a church, there were remains of a large birch tree found. Around the tree bones of different wild and domestic animals were found. These animals including five bears, were hanged in the tree. The site dates to between the eighth and eleventh century AD.

The birch tree atFrӧsӧ was surrounded by a burial ground and mounds. It took the central position as well as it was the focus of the ritual practice, therefore it probably represented the World Tree. In the site of Uppåkra in Sweden, which dates between the sixth and eleventh century AD, there were also human and animal bones found together with weapons including spears. This was interpreted as a sacrificial site as well.

Andrén suggested that the concept of the World Tree was present in Scandinavia long before the Icelandic written sources recorded it. Triangular stone settings represented three roots of the World Tree. Stone placed in the central position of this monument represented the trunk of the World Tree. These triangular monuments date from the third to the tenth century AD. These monuments were representations of Yggdrasill and gateways into the other world.

Andrén also interpreted an Iron Age ring-fort of Ismantorp on Öland island, Sweden as a representation of the universe. The ring fort consisting of ninety-five houses was built in the century AD. A wooden pole in the middle was interpreted as the World Tree, which connected nine worlds represented by nine gates of the fort. Ismantorp Fort became a material representation of the cosmological Old Norse beliefs. There was apparently a strong correlation between cosmology and warfare, as the military command ‘must have been legitimated through divine or cosmological sanction’.

This particular structure created a sense of being settled in reality and at the same time having a connection with the sacred. It represented the order and reflected the structure of the universe for this community; at the same time, it maintained this order. Water had a special place in Norse mythology. Spring of Urðr located under the Yggdrasillroots was a place where Norns decided men’s fate and the gods held a council. Water was also a place of ritual sacrifice, as well as it was associated with the forces of chaos.

The child of Loki and a giantess, the serpent Midgardsormr, who was mentioned in Snorri’s Eddaas well as in the Poetic Edda, lay in the ocean surrounding the world. He threatened the order in the universe and represented the forces of chaos, as he will fight against the gods in Ragnarok. In two slightly different versions of the myth, Thor caught the serpent while fishing, although he did not kill it. This myth also appeared on picture stones at Hørdum in Denmark and at Altuna in Sweden. The site of Skedemosse inÖland, Sweden showed the ritual importance of water bodies in the Old Norse beliefs.

Deposits of animal and human remains, as well as gold objects and weapons were found in the lake atSkedemosse. The site was used from the Iron Age until the tenth century AD. For the Norse, lakes, wetlands, artificial mounds, hills, and other similar places were used as places of hoard deposition. Through such a deposition objects were kept under gods’ custody or given to the ancestors. This clearly indicates that these places served as gates between the other worlds and the world of humans.

Spirits also resided in holy groves, trees, and even rocks. Another example of large hoard deposition comes from a lake at Illerup Ådal in Jutland, Denmark. The site was used since the Bronze Age, although the largest hoard of weapons was deposited in the third century AD. The tradition of hoard deposition in water bodies declined in the fourth and fifth centuries when ritual buildings started appearing (Andrén 2005:130). Like in the pre-Christian Slavic beliefs, natural and artificial hills were associated with the Old Norse cosmology.

This is attested in the historical sources and archaeological evidence, as well as place names. In Icelandic sagas, people believed that the dead dwelt in burial mounds or even inside mountains. In modern art, Yggdrasill was often presented with the abode of the dead- Hel beneath its roots. Although this interpretation of the written sources should not necessarily imply that the Norse believed that the underworld was located under the ground. According to Snorri and Poetic Edda, some of the deceased stayed with Odin, Freya or the goddess Ran in the sea if they drowned and others traveled downwards to Hell, located somewhere in the north.

Burial mounds of kings in Old Uppsala were built over burial mounds from the Migration Period. Such burial mounds were considered places where one could meet the dead. Therefore the dead were underground as well as they were also present in the world of the living on earth. These mounds were usually associated with political power, and as sacred centers of the world were often associated with creation myths. The Icelandic saga Eyrbyggja Saga mentioned that an early Norse settler in Iceland, Thorolf of Mostur chose a rock outcrop of Helgafell as a holy place.

Helgafell overlooks the landscape around it. By choosing this place Thorlof made a claim over the land. After their death, Thorolf and his son left to reside on the family hill where their ancestors dwell. Landnámabók also mentioned that other Icelanders refused Christianity and worshipped ‘holy mountains’ on which temples were built. Toponomy suggested another sacred site associated with hills. The archaeological site of Gudme, which is located on the island of Funen in Denmark, was probably a pre-Christina cult site.

Place names of the hills located in the vicinity of the site called Albjerg and Galbjerg, which mean sacred mountain’ and ‘sacrificial mountain’, suggest their function as sacred places. Hedeager saw Gudme as a ‘symbolically constructed place that represented cosmological order’. A great hall excavated in Gudme, an abundance of items made of gold, silver, and iron, as well as a lake connected with the Gudbjerg and Galbjergwith a stream and a cemetery were supposed to reflect on the cosmology of the Norse myths. 27 The great hall represented Odin’s residence in Asgard. Lake and stream were probably associated with Urðr spring. The Iron Age to early Viking Age cemetery at Gudme was supposed to serve as the abode of the dead.