The Good and Bad in Old Norse Religion: Some Ideas
A recent interest in Norse mythology has led me to the question how good the Old Norse religion, of which Norse mythology is, of course, an expression, is as a guide for individual and social life.
At first glance, the Old Norse religion seems fundamentally at odds with the modern world. Indeed, an unambiguously negative element in Norse religion, by modern standards at any rate, is its mysticism. It does not appear to encourage rational exploration or invention in any significant measure. Historian David Landes writes, in an attempt to discover the roots of the exceptional success of Western Civilisation:
The story of rationality as value and way of life has yet to be written, although a number of social scientists, notably Max Weber, have expatiated on its significance for the course of Western development. It shows up earliest perhaps in the sphere of religion, where one finds a strong tendency in the Judaic tradition to eliminate magic and superstition as a senseless degradation of faith. To be sure, this catharsis was never complete, and the rise of Christianity introduced a new emphasis on the instinctual and emotional aspects of faith and action. Yet the rational tradition remained powerful […] (Landes 2003: 21).
Rationality is not exactly extolled in the Old Norse religion. Tine Jeanette Biering has even written an article about “shamanism in Old Norse religion” (Biering 171). There is also some indication that Old Norse religion reflects a rather mystical view of technology. Barndon (2011) writes that in Norse mythology,
Metalworking is linked to dwarfs and dwarfs are those with magical powers […]. The smith is like a dwarf or he is a dwarf surrounded by mystical beliefs, distance and fear […]. Thus, […] the smith was associated with gods, rulers and dwarfs (100; emphasis in original).
On the other hand, we see the figure of Odin, famous as a seeker of knowledge. According to Dr. Jackson Crawford, “Óðinn’s own sacrifices of his eye and of himself were in order to achieve wisdom” (Jackson Crawford 2018). Superficially, this may make hims appear as a champion of reason. However, seeking knowledge is one thing, and doing so with a rational frame of mind is another. Dr. Crawford adds that Odin “shares quite a bit of wisdom with us humans, at least in the form of the poem Hávamál” (ibid.). Inspection of Hávamál shows the nature of the wisdom in question: it is mainly life advice expressed in aphorisms. Most of the poem, as translated by Olive Bray and edited by D. L. Ashliman, consists of the sections “Wisdom for Wanderers and Counsel to Guests”, “Maxims for All Men” and “Lessons for Lovers” (Bray). The knowledge mentioned in “Odin’s Quest after the Runes”, the section wherein Odin describes the second sacrifice mentioned by Dr. Crawford, also does not seem particularly scientific:
Dost know how to write, dost know how to read,
dost know how to paint, dost know how to prove,
dost know how to ask, dost know how to offer,
dost know how to send, dost know how to spend? (ibid., st.143).
Indeed, maybe the clearest instance where a character in Norse mythology invents something useful and non-magical is Loki’s invention of the fishing net, and that is almost immediately used against him (see Turco 2016: 201f.).
Another important element identified by Landes is the “Faustian spirit”. In his words,
the high value placed on the rational manipulation of the environment[…] may be decomposed into two elements: rationality, and what we may call the Faustian sense of mastery over man and nature (Landes 2003: 21).
This attitude can be stymied by certain religious or superstitious ideas. As Landes writes, “So long as every tree had its dryad and every fountain or stream its naiad, man was intimidated and inhibited in his confrontation with nature” (Landes 2003: 24).
So what of the presence or absence of such a “Faustian spirit” in Norse mythology? Here, the picture seems to look better. For instance, while Odin’s quest for knowledge may not be indicative of a fully rational worldview, it certainly does seem to show a desire for understanding and mastery. In the Hávamál, we find this passage:
Hidden Runes shalt thou seek and interpreted signs,
many symbols of might and power,
by the great Singer painted, by the high Powers fashioned,
graved by the Utterer of gods (Bray: st.141).
It seems at least possible that the Faustian spirit of control over nature grew more prominent within Norse religion as time went on. Gunnar Andersson writes that “[t]here is a great deal to suggest that [a certain] hill at Lunda actually was a holy grove where a specific ritual was carried out” (Andersson 2011: 199). In his opinion, the site shows a symbolically significant contrast between “nature[ and ]culture” (ibid.). He also writes that
[i]ts main features were crushed and uncrushed stones, fire ceremonies and dispersion of burnt bones, clay and drops of resin. Some time during the seventh century something happened and things changed somewhat. The ritual was expanded to also include colourful beads, arrowheads, knives and other such sharp-edged tools of steel, all untouched by fire (ibid.: 198–199).
This seems to suggest a greater emphasis on the element of “culture” as opposed to “nature”, although the author adds that “[t]he reason for these changes and why they came to include these artefacts too will probably remain unknown” (ibid.: 199).
Moreover, while Norse religion does prominently feature some natural phenomena, this aspect can be subjected to a significant distinction sketched by George T. Flom in “The Drama of Norse Mythology”. He distinguishes between
Lower Mythology and Higher Mythology. Lower Mythology […] has to do with rocks and stones, trees and groves, rivers, springs, and sacred wells, vegetation in general, and the lower animals. In so far as there are explanatory myths, they are merely naive tales about something in nature, and fables about animals. […]
Higher Mythology is the name we give to the narratives and explanatory myths connected mainly with Major Nature Worship; in this the major phenomena of nature play a central role. One will here also meet with the minor objects of nature as elements in the often quite complex myths of Higher Mythology. But that which engaged the mind of man in this stage, and in this type of early literature, was such problems as the relationship between, and the origin of, such forces or aspects of nature as earth and heaven, the sun, the moon, and the stars; thunder, lightning, and storm; the clouds, the mountains, and the ocean; dawn and twilight, night and day; light and darkness; the northern lights, the rainbow; the offices and the paths of the heavenly bodies; the regular succession of winter and summer; the seasons and the reckoning of time; the origin of these things; and the origin of man (Flom 1939: 138f.).
The observations that follow this passage show that he classifies Norse mythology as “Higher Mythology” (see ibid.: 139f.). Thus, while the worship of nature criticised by Landes is present to some extent in Old Norse religion, it appears that it is at least less liable to restrain the Faustian spirit than other instances of it. Dr. Flom also notes another aspect of Norse mythology which, if he is correct, may support the notion that it is a mythology which exhibits the Faustian spirit. Namely, he avers:
The quality that is most prominently associated with the gods in Norse Mythology is the being capable, knowing so well how to do things in their various spheres. All the gods and the goddesses are supreme and unsurpassed in this respect in their several offices. It is a worship of skill we might say, looking at Norse Mythology from this point of view (Flom 1939: 140).
We have entered into the thorny question of what, if anything, made the Western world exceptionally successful. In a previous post, I have already argued, by refuting an obverse thesis, that the West has at least in some major ways exceeded other civilisations, so that shall be taken for granted here. We are left with the question why. As Goody (2006) points out, Landes’s notion that “Judeo-Christianity” was the source of Western superiority is but one of several explanations advanced by historians, another being a certain Macfarlane’s view that the fountainhead was “the Germanic tradition” (197). This is interesting because it suggests that some Old Norse ideas may have contributed to the rise of modernity as we know it. Goody’s reference is clearly to historian Alan Macfarlane, so let us see what he has to say.
In one book chapter, he seeks out the sources of “the birth of the modern world” (Macfarlane 1986: 149) in English history. One of the ones he finds is distinctive marriage practices, among which he names “monogamy” (ibid.: 151). He explains its presence by remarking that “the Germanic peoples who invaded England had long been monogamous and the Christian Church, despite minor lapses, reinforced this cultural premise” (ibid.: 152). Thus, we see a component of “the Germanic tradition” to which Goody so vaguely refers. Another one Macfarlane mentions is “late age at marriage” (ibid.:151). According to Macfarlane, this
is mentioned as a characteristic of the early Germanic peoples who brought their culture to England and there is certainly no strong evidence to show that women ever universally married at puberty, as they have done in much of the rest of the world (ibid.).
This vision seems corroborated by Norse mythological texts, which do exhibit a favourable view of monogamy. Firstly, there is the Lokasenna, in which Loki repeatedly insults other gods by accusing them, rightly, of infidelity or promiscuity. John Mckinnell identifies such examples in an analysis of that text. Thus, “Loki’s attack on Freyja concentrates on her well-known promiscuity” (Mckinnell 2014: 183); “Loki[…] remind[s Frigg] that she too has an unsavoury past to hide, in her semi-incestuous adultery with her husband’s two brothers, Vili and Vé[. Thus, he] points out that she is not quite the loyal wife she pretends to be” (ibid.: 182). Mckinnell also mentions another text in which similar moral judgments are passed:
In Vǫluspá 39 the crucial offences, for which men are condemned to wade in Vaðgelmir, are oath-breaking, murder and adultery (ibid.: 195).
In a commentary on another Norse text, the Þrymskviða, Mackinnell writes of “Freyja’s outraged sense of sexual propriety when she is told to marry a giant” (Mackinnell 2014: 203), which seems to reflect a rather serious attitude towards marriage in the social context in which the text arose.
Of course, these texts may have been influenced by Christianity and, although I am no expert in Norse mythology, I suppose it possible that the monogamous ethic may be at least partly a result of such influence. However, this is a problem which applies to very much of what can be said about Norse mythology. Thus, even Snorri Sturluson’s Edda was written in a Christian context: “The world of gods presented by Snorri Sturluson in his Edda is a monument to the past, but it is never superior to Christianity” (Andrén, Jennbert and Raudvere 2006: 12). Moreover, even “[a] symbol like the Thor’s hammer is not evidenced before the ninth century, when it should probably be viewed as a conscious reaction to the Christian cross” (ibid.: 14).
Furthermore, I suppose that the Christian influence on the Lokasenna cannot have been profound, since it is not even certain “whether the poet himself was heathen or Christian” (Mckinnell 2014: 196f.) and Mckinnell writes only of a “possibility of Christian influence” (ibid.: 197). As for the Þrymskviða, he notes strong evidence for a very early origin of the text. He remarks that “we [can]not agree about whether some poems [in the Poetic Edda] date from the tenth century or the early thirteenth” (ibid.: 200), and writes:
Þrymskviða shows heavier use of [a certain archaic particle] than any other eddic poem, and by a long margin; this would seem to suggest a very early date (ibid.).
This seems to mean that the Þrymskviða likely dates back to the tenth century at the latest. Andrén, Jennbert and Raudvere (2006) state, regarding a monument from “the start of the ninth century”, that it “was written in an age that is conventionally regarded as “pagan” ” (11). To be sure, Mckinnell adds that there was “probably […] a revision of the poem in the twelfth century or later” (Mckinnell 2014: 202). However, the possibility that the moral messages which the poem conveys were to a significant degree implanted by Christianity still appears as just a possibility, all the more unlikely given that Freyja’s objection to marriage is used for comedic effect because it is hypocritical (Mackinnell 2014: 203), and it intuitively seems unlikely that a moralistic revision of a story would have been carried out in this humorous style.
As for Macfarlane’s second point, the tendency towards comparatively “late age at marriage”, this also seems to be in evidence in the Norse myths. I am not aware of any marriages during puberty in these myths. The marriages, actual or proposed, which I do know to occur in them all seem to happen between adults, and generally quite mature adults at that. For example, there is the marriage between Skadi and Njörd. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica puts it, the indirect cause of the wedding was the following:
In order to avenge the death of her father, the giant Thiazi, Skadi took up arms and went to attack the rival tribe of the gods (the Aesir) in Asgard, home of the gods. The Aesir, wanting to appease her anger, offered her the choice of one of their number for a husband (Britannica).
Thus, it seems clear that Skadi was a grown “woman” at the time.
There is also the aforementioned incident when Thor asks Freyja to marry a certain giant. As noted, her objection is hypocritical. As Mackinnell writes, “this is the goddess who is said in Lokasenna 30 (N-K 102) to have slept with every male god and elf in Óðinn’s hall” (Mackinnell 2014: 203). This also suggests maturity, albeit of a different variant than Skadi’s. For contrast, we may consider Brahmanical Hinduism. According to Major (2011),
It is no coincidence that areas of high child marriage were those where Brahmanical Hinduism predominated[, ]and while child-marriage was far from universal, for those who practiced it, it was underpinned by both religious belief and socio-economic imperatives (168).
As for the aforementioned appreciation of monogamy, this can be contrasted even with a monotheistic religion like Islam. Aside from any allowance made in Islam for polygamy, Muhammad “is usually said to have had 14 wives or concubines during his lifetime” (Watt and Sinai). In fact,
medieval Christian polemicists […] condemned Muhammad as a deliberate imposter and a downright diabolical figure. Stock motifs in such polemics were Muhammad’s recourse to violence[ and] the number of his wives (ibid., emphasis added).
It can thus be concluded that Old Norse religion and mythology, perhaps surprisingly, contains some of the vital bricks of which modernity was built, and which have been quite rare in human history.
It can thus be concluded that Old Norse religion and mythology, perhaps surprisingly, contains some of the vital bricks of which modernity was built, and which have been quite rare in human history.
Another element to consider is what economist Joseph Schumpeter famously called “creative destruction” (see Reinert and Reinert 2006: 55f.). Dr. Schumpeter borrowed the term from fellow economist Werner Sombart, who had absorbed it from the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, who had likely got the idea to use it from its importance in Hinduism, which had influenced Arthur Schopenhauer (ibid.: 56). The concept of creative destruction also occurs elsewhere, for instance, in the Egyptian and later Greek image of the Phoenix, and in Christianity with Jesus Christ’s rise from the dead (ibid.:58). However,
[n]owhere is the concept of creative destruction more clearly outlined than in Hinduism: here we find one of the most complex and certainly one of the richest cosmological illustrations of the dynamics of creation and destruction. At its heart are the three supreme godheads of the pantheon: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer (ibid.).
If this is true, Norse mythology may well be a close runner-up. Consider, for example, the aforementioned story wherein Odin sacrifices himself to himself, and emerges the wiser for it. There is also Valhalla (Valhöll), where fallen warriors undergo training which involves repeated death and regeneration, and presumably the warriors become better fighters in the process (see, e.g., New World Encyclopedia). Even Ragnarok may serve as an example. According to John Mackinnell, several texts indicate that there will “be one or more who will come after” (Mackinnell 2014: 197) the event. It also seems that most of the current gods in some sense deserve to be destroyed. Thus, Mackinnell points out that they partly bring Ragnarok on themselves: initially,
the gods have it in their power to delay Ragnarǫk indefinitely; after they
have driven Loki out and subsequently bound him, the initiative passes out of
their hands. The taunts which finally push Þórr into committing the irredeemable act on their behalf are successful only because they are true, and the faults of the gods are therefore in a real if indirect sense the cause of their own fall (ibid.: 194f.).
True, the theme of renewal after destruction is also present in Christianity, in the rebirth of Christ. Still, the Norse examples explored show something new and better arising from the destruction of something old, whereas Jesus, being a manifestation of God, could hardly have improved through his death and revival. All in all, there seems to be in the Norse-Germanic imagination greater daring and impetuousness than in the Judeo-Christian one lauded by David Landes. Maybe this contrast can even partially explain the phenomenon, described by critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, that Germany’s Jews seem to have been much more prone to pioneering genius across many disciplines than those in other countries (Koelbl 1998: 270). Could it be that the Judaic and Germanic spirits complement each other? One example Reich-Ranicki leaves out is Heinrich Heine, and his case may support such a conjecture. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica,
The most consistent characteristic of Heine’s thought and writing throughout his career is a taut and ambiguous tension between “poesy,” as he called the artistic sensibility, and reality. His love poems, though they employ Romantic materials, are at the same time suspicious of them and of the feelings they purportedly represent. They are bittersweet and self-ironic […] (Sammons).
This can be seen as reflective of a tension between a more impassioned and a more reserved side of his work. Holub (2002) also notes, in a letter by Heine, a [possible] rare moment of “Jewish” modesty in contrast to [his] versified “German” boasting” (238). A similar impression may be gleaned from a “published remark in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung” (ibid.: 244), in which Heine states that he is “no longer the “freest German after Goethe”[and] no longer the great Heathen Nr. 2[, but rather] a poor deathly sick Jew” (quoted ibid., translation mine). Holub takes this as an expression of a new “openness toward his former Judaism” (ibid.). This quote appears as further indication that the German/Germanic element in Heine was associated with passionate art, whereas the Jewish one was calmer, and may have counterbalanced it.¹
To conclude, the first impression that Norse mythology and religion are unsuited to the modern world and were unsuitable for its creation due to their primitive content is partly justified. Yet closer examination reveals an array of features in it which may still command respect, and may even, if one looks back through history, have helped to usher in modernity.
Footnotes
- Appealing as it is, this conjecture of the causes of extraordinary German-Jewish accomplishment must necessarily be tentative, and several caveats apply. Reich-Ranicki himself, also very cautiosly, suggests an explanation based on the greater opportunities afforded to Jews in German lands (Koelbl 1998: 270), which seems credible since the German-Jewish genius also seems not to have come about in other Germanic countries, e.g. Scandinavia. He also denies the existence of any distinct Jewish style, though he sees Jews’ biographies as significant for their work (ibid.). Finally, the commonalities between Jews and Germans have been highlighted. Reich-Ranicki mentions Kafka’s remark that the two peoples were similar in that they were both hardworking and hated by others (ibid.: 271). Oft-quoted is also Heine’s statement that
Striking, indeed, is the deep affinity which prevails between these two ethical nations, Jews and Germans. […] Fundamentally, the two peoples are alike — so much alike, that one may regard the Palestine of the past as an oriental Germany, just as one may regard the Germany of today as the home of the Holy Word, the mother-soil of prophecy, the citadel of pure spirituality (quoted in Roemer 1999: 304).
Incidentally, such interpretations lend credence to our observation that the Norse religion contained some of the traits that created modernity.
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