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.

The elf makes many appearances in ballads of English and Scottish origin, as well as folk tales, many involving trips to Elphame or Elfland ( the Álfheim of Norse mythology ), a mystical realm which is sometimes an eerie and unpleasant place.

The Norse discovery was documented in the 13th century Icelandic Sagas and was corroborated by recent L ' Anse aux Meadows archeological evidence.

This would have been a burial fitting a king who was famous for his wealth in Old Norse sources.

The first known use of the word ball in English in the sense of a globular body that is played with was in 1205 in in the phrase, "" The word came from the Middle English bal ( inflected as ball-e ,-es, in turn from Old Norse böllr ( pronounced ; compare Old Swedish baller, and Swedish boll ) from Proto-Germanic ballu-z, ( whence probably Middle High German bal, ball-es, Middle Dutch bal ), a cognate with Old High German ballo, pallo, Middle High German balle from Proto-Germanic * ballon ( weak masculine ), and Old High German ballâ, pallâ, Middle High German balle, Proto-Germanic * ballôn ( weak feminine ).

Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas ( having been preceded by the Norse expedition led by Leif Ericson in the 11th century ), Columbus's voyages led to the first lasting European contact with America, inaugurating a period of European exploration and colonization of foreign lands that lasted for several centuries.

Saint Columba ( 7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD )— also known as Colum Cille, or Chille ( Old Irish, meaning " dove of the church "), Colm Cille ( Irish ), Calum Cille ( Scottish Gaelic ), Colum Keeilley ( Manx Gaelic ) and Kolban or Kolbjørn ( Old Norse )— was a Gaelic Irish missionary monk who propagated Christianity among the Picts during the Early Medieval Period.

* Old Norse: The definite article was the enclitic-inn ,-in ,-itt ( masculine, feminine and neuter nominative singular ), as in álfrinn " the elf ", gjǫfin " the gift ", and tréit " the tree ", an abbreviated form of the independent pronoun hinn, cognate of the German pronoun jener.

Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in east Denmark Runic Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was roughly the same in the two countries.

Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters.

A change that separated Old East Norse ( Runic Swedish / Danish ) from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi ( Old West Norse ei ) to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten.

Old East Norse was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England.

The haugbui ( from the Old Norse word haugr meaning " howe " or " barrow ") was a mound-dweller, the dead body living on within its tomb.

The haugbui was rarely found far from its burial place and is a type of undead commonly found in Norse saga material.

Crossbreeding was possible between elves and humans in the Old Norse belief.

Titled, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, the book was composed in an English language recreation of Old Norse alliterative verse.

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.

The Norse name for the planet Venus was Friggjarstjarna ' Frigg's star '.

The first element in the name Forsetlund ( Old Norse Forsetalundr ), a farm in the parish of Onsøy (' Odins island '), in eastern Norway, seems to be the genitive case of Forseti, offering evidence he was worshipped there.

In the Norse creation account preserved in Gylfaginning ( VIII ) it is stated that during the creation of the earth, an impassable sea was placed around the earth like a ring:

In Norse mythology, Ginnungagap (" mighty gap ") was the vast, primordial void that existed prior to the creation of the manifest universe.

In medieval Norse, the garment was known as vapntreyiu, lit.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Asgard is derived from Old Norse āss, god + garðr, enclosure ; from Indo-European roots ansu-spirit, demon ( see cognate ahura ) + gher-grasp, enclose ( see cognates garden and yard ).< ref >; See also ansu-and gher -< sup > 1 </ sup > in " Appendix I: Indo-European Roots " in the same work .</ ref >

It focuses on historical Norse paganism of the Viking Age as described in the Eddas, but proponents also take a more inclusive approach, defining it as " Northern European Heathenry " not limited to a specific historical period.

The word black comes from Old English blæc (" black, dark ", also, " ink "), from Proto-Germanic * blakkaz (" burned "), from Proto-Indo-European * bhleg-(" to burn, gleam, shine, flash "), from base * bhel-(" to shine "), related to Old Saxon blak (" ink "), Old High German blah (" black "), Old Norse blakkr (" dark "), Dutch blaken (" to burn "), and Swedish bläck (" ink ").

Similar creatures are also found in Welsh, Norse and American folklore, such as aos sí (" tumulus folk ").

Several other English words also derive from Old East Norse, for example, " knife " ( kniv ), " husband " ( husbond ), " cold " ( kalde ) and " egg " ( æg ).

A draugr, draug or ( Icelandic ) draugur ( original Old Norse plural draugar, as used here, not " draugrs "), or draugen ( Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, meaning " the draug "), also known as aptrganga (" afturgöngur " in modern Icelandic ) ( literally " after-walker ", or " one who walks after death ") is an undead creature from Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology.

The Old English word is derived from the Proto-Germanic * albiz, which also resulted in Old Norse álfr and Middle High German elbe.

The notion of elves thus appears similar to the animistic belief in spirits of nature and of the deceased, common to nearly all human religions ; this is also true for the Old Norse belief in dísir, fylgjur and vörðar (" follower " and " warden " spirits, respectively ).

The Poetic Edda, also known as Sæmundar Edda or the Elder Edda, is a collection of Old Norse poems from the Icelandic medieval manuscript Codex Regius (" Royal Book ").

Cognates are found in old Norse, Slavic and also Greek and Sanskrit.

Often depicted in carvings c. 800 AD, the Norse hero Gunther ( also known as Gunnar ), played a lute with his toes as he lay dying in a snake-pit, in the legend of Siegfried.

The generic * þiuda-" people " occurs in many personal names such as Thiud-reks and also in the ethnonym of the Swedes from a cognate of Old English Sweo-ðēod and Old Norse: Sui-þióð ( see e. g. Sö Fv1948 ; 289 ).

Each question made to High, Just-As-High, and Third is about an aspect of the Norse mythology or its gods, and also about the creation and destruction of the world ( Ragnarök ).

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 ).

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.

Goddesses or demi-goddesses appear in sets of three in a number of ancient European pagan mythologies ; these include the Greek Erinyes ( Furies ) and Moirai ( Fates ); the Norse Norns ; Brighid and her two sisters, also called Brighid, from Irish or Keltoi mythology.

It is also noted to have been a place of dwelling for Balder, Forseti's father in Norse and Germanic mythologies.

" High details that in this realm Hel has " great Mansions " with extremely high walls and immense gates, a hall called Éljúðnir, a dish called " Hunger ," a knife called " Famine ," the servant Ganglati ( Old Norse " lazy walker "), the serving-maid Ganglöt ( also " lazy walker "), the entrance threshold " Stumbling-block ," the bed " Sick-bed ," and the curtains " Gleaming-bale.

By the end of the 10th century, the Norse minority had merged with the Slavic population, which also absorbed Greek Christian influences in the course of the multiple campaigns to loot Tsargrad, or Constantinople.

This edition also included the first printing of the text in Old Norse.

* Lindisfarne is referred to as The Holy Isle in Nancy Farmer's book " The Sea of Trolls ," which also references the Norse invasion of Lindisfarne.