The conception that diseases and death come from invisible shots sent by supernatural beings, or magicians is common in Germanic and Norse mythology.

Category: Locations in Norse mythology

Alfheim (, " elf home ") is one of the Nine Worlds and home of the Light Elves in Norse mythology and appears also in Anglo-Scottish ballads under the form Elfhame ( Elphame, Elfame ) as a fairyland, sometimes modernized as Elfland ( Elfinland, Elvenland ).

Category: Locations in Norse mythology

In Norse mythology, Ask and Embla ( from Old Norse Askr ok Embla )— male and female respectively — were the first two humans, created by the gods.

Ægir ( Old Norse " sea ") is a sea giant, god of the ocean and king of the sea creatures in Norse mythology.

* Norse mythology

The word aegis is identified with protection by a strong force with its roots in Greek mythology and adopted by the Romans ; there are parallels in Norse mythology and in Egyptian mythology as well, where the Greek word aegis is applied by extension.

In Norse mythology, the dragon Fafnir ( best known in the form of a dragon slain by Sigurðr ) bears on his forehead the Ægis-helm ( ON ægishjálmr ), or Ægir's helmet, or more specifically the " Helm of Terror ".

In Norse mythology, Bifröst ( or sometimes Bilröst ) is a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard ( the world ) and Asgard, the realm of the gods.

Scholars have proposed that the bridge may have originally represented the Milky Way and have noted parallels between the bridge and another bridge in Norse mythology, Gjallarbrú.

Baldr ( also Balder, Baldur ) is a god in Norse mythology.

In Norse mythology, Breiðablik ( Broad-gleaming ) is the home of Baldr.

Category: Locations in Norse mythology

Bilskirnir ( Old Norse " lightning-crack ") is the hall of the god Thor in Norse mythology.

Category: Locations in Norse mythology

In Norse mythology, Brísingamen ( from Old Norse brisinga " flaming, glowing " and men " jewellery, ornament ") is the necklace of the goddess Freyja.

Category: Artifacts in Norse mythology

Bragi is the skaldic god of poetry in Norse mythology.

In Norse mythology, Draupnir ( Old Norse " the dripper ") is a gold ring possessed by the god Odin with the ability to multiply itself: Every ninth night eight new rings ' drip ' from Draupnir, each one of the same size and weight as the original.

The story of the Sword in the Stone has an analogue in some versions of the story of Sigurd ( the Norse proto-Siegfried ), whose father, Sigmund, draws the sword Gram out of the tree Barnstokkr where it is embedded by the Norse god Odin.

The problem is that in Old Norse mær means both " daughter " and " wife ," so it is not fully clear if Fjörgynn is Frigg's father or another name for her husband Odin, but Snorri Sturluson interprets the line as meaning Frigg is Fjörgynn's daughter ( Skáldskaparmál 27 ), and most modern translators of the Poetic Edda follow Snorri.

In Norse mythology, Geri and Freki ( Old Norse, both meaning " the ravenous " or " greedy one ") are two wolves which are said to accompany the god Odin.

Examples of goddesses attested in Norse mythology include Frigg ( wife of Odin, and the Anglo-Saxon version of whom is namesake of the modern English weekday Friday ), Skaði ( one time wife of Njörðr ), Njerda ( Scandinavian name of Nerthus ), that also was married to Njörðr during Bronze Age, Freyja ( wife of Óðr ), Sif ( wife of Thor ), Gerðr ( wife of Freyr ), and personifications such as Jörð ( earth ), Sól ( the sun ), and Nótt ( night ).

In Norse mythology, Huginn ( from Old Norse " thought ") and Muninn ( Old Norse " memory " or " mind ") are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring the god Odin information.

Regarding the inscription reading, John Hines of Cardiff University comments that there is " quite an essay to be written over the uncertainties of translation and identification here ; what are clear, and very important, are the names of two of the Norse gods on the side, Odin and Heimdallr, while Þjalfi ( masculine, not the feminine in-a ) is the recorded name of a servant of the god Thor.

In Prologue, a euhemerized account of the origins of Norse mythology is provided, including that while Odin was in Saxony, Odin put three of his sons in charge of the area.

Consider the ruler of lightning: the supreme god Zeus, Perun, Jupiter controlled lightning himself ; while in Norse mythology Odin delegated the power of lighting to his son Thor.

In Gylfaginning by Snorri Sturluson, Gylfi, the king of ancient Scandinavia, receives an education in Norse mythology from Odin in the guise of three men.

In Norse mythology, Odin took the severed head of the mythical god Mimir to Asgard for consultation as an oracle.

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök (, or ), typically spelled Ragnarǫk in the handwritten scripts, is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures ( including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr, and Loki ), the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water.

In Norse mythology, the gods Odin and Tyr both have attributes of a sky father, and they are doomed to be devoured by wolves ( Fenrir and Garm, respectively ) at Ragnarok.

The Norse god Odin, carrying the spear Gungnir on his ride to Hel ( location ) | Hel

* Gungnir, spear of Odin, a god in Norse mythology

In Norse mythology, Valhalla ( from Old Norse Valhöll " hall of the slain ") is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin.

The poem begins with comments by Odin ( as Old Norse Óðinn ):

Ulfhednar and berserkers are closely associated with the Norse god Odin.

Norse berserkers and the Zulu battle trance are two other examples of the tendency of certain groups to work themselves up into a killing frenzy.

By the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse.

Moreover, the øy ( Old West Norse ey ) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for " island ".

The elves of Norse mythology have survived into folklore mainly as females, living in hills and mounds of stones.

One could appease the elves by offering them a treat ( preferably butter ) placed into an elven mill – perhaps a custom with roots in the Old Norse álfablót.

The term Edda ( Old Norse Edda, plural Eddur ) applies to the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, both of which were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age.

When the gods knew that Fenrir was fully bound, they took a cord called Gelgja ( Old Norse " fetter ") hanging from Gleipnir, inserted the cord through a large stone slab called Gjöll ( Old Norse " scream "), and the gods fastened the stone slab deep into the ground.

After, the gods took a great rock called Thviti ( Old Norse " hitter, batterer "), and thrust it even further into the ground as an anchoring peg.

Female deities also play heavily into the Norse concept of death, where half of those slain in battle enter Freyja's field Fólkvangr, Hel receives the dead in her realm of the same name, and Rán receives those who die at sea.

The sixteen books, in prose with an occasional excursion into poetry, can be categorized into two parts: Books 1-9, which deal with Norse mythology, and Books 10-16, which deal with medieval history.

The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase Ragnarök, which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war of the gods that brings about the end of the world.

Originally the word “ handfast ” came into English from Norse languages, and meant the act of sealing any bargain by taking hands.

invoke the hill-men ( Icelandic haugmenn, cf Anglo-Saxon hoghmen ) or " elves " and banishes the trolls into the sea ( Norse á læ " into the sea ").

The word was adopted into English in the nineteenth century from medieval Icelandic treatises on poetics, in particular the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, and derives ultimately from the Old Norse verb kenna “ know, recognise ; perceive, feel ; show ; teach ; etc .”, as used in the expression kenna við “ to name after ; to express thing in terms of ”, “ name after ; refer to in terms of ”, and kenna til “ qualify by, make into a kenning by adding ”.

In place of using feet, alliterative verse of old Germanic languages such as Old English and Old Norse divided each line into two half-lines.

However, the decline of Norse speech in Orkney probably began in 1379 when the earldom passed into the hands of the Sinclairs, and Scots had superseded Norse as the language of prestige on the island by the early 15th century.

Proto-Norse developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse.