Cool way to study regional variation in Old Norse #paganism across Sweden, where the written sources are weak: we have lots of place names that mean "Shrine / Altar / Field / Hill / Grove of [god]".
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Cool way to study regional variation in Old Norse #paganism across Sweden, where the written sources are weak: we have lots of place names that mean "Shrine / Altar / Field / Hill / Grove of [god]". And the various deities named are not evenly spread across the country.
For instance, Ullr was super important around Lake Mälaren, although in the West Scandy written sources this god is barely mentioned.
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Cool way to study regional variation in Old Norse #paganism across Sweden, where the written sources are weak: we have lots of place names that mean "Shrine / Altar / Field / Hill / Grove of [god]". And the various deities named are not evenly spread across the country.
For instance, Ullr was super important around Lake Mälaren, although in the West Scandy written sources this god is barely mentioned.
This can be done thanks to the great age of Swedish place names. The oldest stratum of hamlet and farmstead names is 2000 years old or more, that is, way older than Norse Paganism in its Viking Period form.
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This can be done thanks to the great age of Swedish place names. The oldest stratum of hamlet and farmstead names is 2000 years old or more, that is, way older than Norse Paganism in its Viking Period form.
Importantly, place names that referred to pagan cult were not apparently seen as problematic after Christian conversion around AD 1000. For instance, there is a parish in Småland named "Shrine of Odinn" to this very day!
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Importantly, place names that referred to pagan cult were not apparently seen as problematic after Christian conversion around AD 1000. For instance, there is a parish in Småland named "Shrine of Odinn" to this very day!
@mrundkvist Odense (*Odanswe) *here in Denmark is a variation of the same name.
