Iceland to build first temple to Norse gods since Viking age

tay

Hall of Fame Member
May 20, 2012
11,548
0
36
Icelanders will soon be able to publicly worship at a shrine to Thor, Odin and Frigg with construction starting this month on the island’s first major temple to the Norse gods since the Viking age.


Worship of the gods in Scandinavia gave way to Christianity around 1,000 years ago but a modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in Iceland.





“I don’t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding about on a horse with eight feet,” said Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson, high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, an association that promotes faith in the Norse gods.


“We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.”


Membership in Asatruarfelagid has tripled in Iceland in the last decade to 2,400 members last year, out of a total population of 330,000, data from Statistics Iceland showed.


The temple will be circular and will be dug 4 metres (13ft) down into a hill overlooking the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, with a dome on top to let in the sunlight.

The temple will host ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. The group will also confer names to children and initiate teenagers, similar to other religious communities.


Iceland’s neo-pagans still celebrate the ancient sacrificial ritual of Blot with music, reading, eating and drinking, but nowadays leave out the slaughter of animals.




Iceland to build first temple to Norse gods since Viking age | World news | The Guardian
 

Spade

Ace Poster
Nov 18, 2008
12,822
49
48
9
Aether Island
“We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.”

Golly Bill, that there could describe any ole religion!
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
201
63
RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
Nearly all of what the RCC and the Protestant lunnies called Pagan was the true religion and it was damn near universal on earth at one time. There is nothing in the Christian bible that was not stolen and bastardized by the RCC our Pagan ancestors were not the blood drinking barbarians the Christians were taught to hate and fear. Only a christian is ignorant enough to believe in the resurrection of putrified flesh.
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
41,035
201
63
RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia
A Norse myth tells of the division of a single primal world into two halves, or the separation of the two waters of the firmament, as in Genesis. The one was a world of water, the other of air, and the beings in the lower water ascend by night to breathe the pure air of the upper half; and it is said the sun consumes them like vapor. This would restate the Assumption of the Virgin, the festival of the old astronomical phenomenon of August and early September, when the sun absorbs the constellation of the Virgin, emblematic of the dissolution of all physical worlds in the bosom of the Absolute. http://pc93.tripod.com/lostlght.htm

He drew me out of great waters," sings the Psalmist. Moses is water-born. Josephus explains the name as signifying "one who was taken out of the water." Moffatt translates it as "removed" (from the water). Pharaoh’s daughter called the name of the child Mosheh, and said "because I drew him out of the water." (Exod. II:10). Maui, of New Zealand legend, like Moses and Sargon, was drawn out of the
290​
water at birth. And the floating ark was the coffin. The Speaker says: "I am coffined in an ark like Horus, to whom his cradle is brought." This cradle is often represented as a nest of papyrus reeds, equated thus with the ark of bulrushes. Thor in the Norse mythos had to wade through the waters, there being no bridge for him, as he fares to the Doomstead under the Ygdrasil. The root of this great Norse tree of life was beneath the water, its stem and branches above, like the lotus. The Ygdrasil ash stands in the well of the Urdar fountain. The Egyptian Pool of Persea nourished the roots of "the two divine sycamore trees of earth and heaven." In Revelation the tree of life is planted on both sides of the river of waters.
It was in the storm on the sea that the distressed sailors in the gray light of dawn saw Jesus walking upon the troubled waters, drawing nigh to them. In quieting the storm he played the part of Horus in the Ritual, of whom it is written: "He hath destroyed the water-flood of his mother"--nature. In another form this stands:
 

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
48,340
1,650
113
Odin, Thor and Frigg gave English speakers the names of three days of the week: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The Norse gods were popular throughout the Germanic world, and the Anglo-Saxons called Odin "Woden", and the Germans called him "Wotan". "Wednesday" comes from "Woden's day".

The Anglo-Saxons called Thor "Þunor" (the letter Þ, which is still found in Icelandic but, sadly, has disappeared from English, is pronounced like the "Th" in Thursday") and the Germans called him Doner, hence the English word "Thursday" (Thor's day) and the German name for it, "Donnerstag" (Doner's day).

Frigg was also a popular god throughout the Germanic world. She was known as Frigg to the Norse, Frija to the Germans and Frige to the Anglo-Saxons. "Friday" comes from "Frige's day".