Search Results: Sif

A Valkyrie is a figure in Norse mythology depicted as a warrior woman on horseback, a wolf or boar, and armed with a spear, who decides the fate of warriors in battle and carries the dead to Odin’s Valhalla. Valkyrie means "chooser of the...

The Temple at Uppsala was a religious center dedicated to the Norse gods Thor, Odin, and Freyr located in what is now Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. It is described by the 11th-century historian Adam of Bremen as the most significant pagan site...

Loki and Idunn, by the Swedish artist and illustrator John Bauer, published in Our Fathers' Godsaga by Viktor Rydberg, 1911, most likely depicting Loki luring Idunn into following him to the forest where she would be abducted.

Although the Vikings are routinely depicted as rough, grimy, and violent, they were actually quite refined, took personal hygiene seriously, and wore fine clothes ornamented by jewelry. Some Christian chroniclers who condemned the Vikings...

Pets were as important to the Norse of the Viking Age (c. 790-1100 CE) as they were to any other culture, past or present. The Vikings kept dogs and cats as pets and both feature in Norse religious iconography and literature. The Norse also...

In this interview, World History Encyclopedia is joined by American author Nancy Marie Brown, who is talking to us about her new book The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women. You can find the entire interview on our...

Tessa Thompson as a Valkyrie in a modern interpretation of Norse mythology as portrayed in the movie Thor Ragnarok (2017). Valkyries were key figures in various Norse sagas such as Prose Edda, the Heimskringla and the Njáls Saga. They were...

Myths are a part of every culture in the world and are used to explain natural phenomena, where a people came from and how their civilization developed, and why things happen as they do. At their most basic level, myths comfort by giving...

The Norse people in their mythology divided their universe into nine realms with the world tree, Yggdrasil, in the centre. From Yggdrasil the nine realms of their cosmology either spread out from it or they stretched from the roots below...

Painting by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg from 1810 CE depicting a scene from Norse mythology in which Loki is punished by the gods for his hand in the death of Baldr. A serpent is suspended above his head, dripping poison onto him, but...