Medieval Christian historiographers were at best condescending and at worst hostile to the idea of pagan religion. Thus, while people have knowledge of the myths surrounding the Norse gods, the theology that underpinned those stories is far less known. Without theology, the beliefs of the Norse, as well as other pagan groups, come to be seen as irrational beliefs in fantastical stories. It also clouds the stories of Thor themselves. After all, how could tales like Jonah and the Whale or Job wrestling God be understood without knowledge of the Christian religion itself?
What is evident is that the Norse gods had serious worshipers and followers, and their priests and followers were just as rational, just as clever and just as interested in deep theological questions as their Christian contemporaries. How did the worship of these gods serve the social, psychological and spiritual needs of their followers?[24]
The surviving Norse myths and other sources provide a rich picture of the tales that were told about Odin, but just as the Bible is not a step-by-step guide to a Catholic Mass or a Pentecostal prayer-meeting, these myths do not necessarily give readers an understanding of how the worship of Odin actually played out in the everyday life of the Norse. For this, other sources are necessary, particularly the observations of rituals by outsiders and the archaeological remains of ancient sites of worship.
The primary source for information on German religion is the Roman Tacitus who wrote Germania. Tacitus was a Senator and a historian who lived from AD 56-117. Germania is actually one of his minor works, as his great masterpieces focused upon the reigns of various Emperors. However, in Germania he turns his eyes northward and gives readers a basic description of the German style of worship:
“Mercury [Odin] is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims. Hercules [Thor] and Mars [Tyr] they appease with more lawful offerings. [...] The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which they see only in spiritual worship.”
Tacitus then goes on to describe their use of runic divination (though he does not use the word "rune"):
“A little bough is lopped off a fruit-bearing tree, and cut into small pieces; these are distinguished by certain marks, and thrown carelessly and at random over a white garment. In public questions the priest of the particular state, in private the father of the family, invokes the gods, and, with his eyes toward heaven, takes up each piece three times, and finds in them a meaning according to the mark previously impressed on them. [...] they are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and flight of birds. It is peculiar to this people to seek omens and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these same woods and groves, are white horses, pure from the taint of earthly labor [and used for divination]”[25]
It is also worth noting that, due to his ownership of Sleipnir, Odin was himself associated with horses and may have had a connection to this divinatory practice.
The primary ceremony to Odin and the other Norse gods was the "Blót." Tacitus refers to human sacrifices, which may have occurred, but the Roman and Christian sources also had reasons to invent or exaggerate such events to present their military or cultural conquest of these peoples in a better light. Archaeological remains of the blót ceremonies are sparse, but recently some have argued that "blót houses" built by farmers in Iceland for their families' use have been found.[26] In more formal circumstances, blóts were performed at large temples of the gods.
During these rituals, the practitioners sacrificed an animal of some form (or human if the Christian and Roman accounts were accurate), and they then blessed the precincts with the blood of the sacrificial offerings. The animal would then be cooked and consumed. The animal was seen as an embodiment of the deity, and therefore the blót had elements of a communion ceremony. Early Christian translators in the Norse regions used terms and concepts from these ceremonies to describe Christian Eucharist, so the two rituals may have been somewhat similar.[27]
19th century depiction of a blót
Blóts were such a central part of life that early Anglo-Saxons named the month of November “blótmónað”, and as one Old English writer noted, “The month is named in Latin November, and in our speech Bloodmonth, because our forefathers, when they were heathens, always bled in this month, that is, that they took and devoted to their idols the cattle which they wished to offer.” Snorri even wrote of one anecdote about the people insisting on holding blots over the objection of their Christian ruler, and even making the Christian king participate:
“It was an old custom, that when there was to be sacrifice all the bondis [freeholders] should come to the spot where the temple stood and bring with them all that they required while the festival of the sacrifice lasted. To this festival all the men brought ale with them; and all kinds of cattle, as well as horses, were slaughtered, and all the blood that came from them was called "hlaut", and the vessels in which it was collected were called hlaut-vessels. Hlaut-staves were made, like sprinkling brushes, with which the whole of the altars and the temple walls, both outside and inside, were sprinkled over, and also the people were sprinkled with the blood; but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those present. The fire was in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles, and the full goblets were handed across the fire; and he who made the feast, and was a chief, blessed the full goblets, and all the meat of the sacrifice. And first Odin's goblet was emptied for victory and power to his king; thereafter, Niord's and Freyja's goblets for peace and a good season. Then it was the custom of many to empty the brage-goblet; and then the guests emptied a goblet to the memory of departed friends, called the remembrance goblet.”
Another saga that relayed the history of the Baltic island of Gotland discussed a blót held there:
“Before this time, and a long time thereafter, they believed in groves and barrows, sanctuaries, and sacred enclosures and in the pagan gods. They sacrificed their sons, daughters and cattle, and practiced blót with food and drink. This they did due to their superstition. The whole country (the althing) had the largest blót with sacrifice of people, otherwise every trithing had its blót and smaller things had smaller blót with cattle, food and drinks. They were called food-, or cooking-brethren, because they prepared the meals together.”
The act of sacrifice was seen as a form of gift to the gods, and anthropological theory has shown that in societies that emphasize gift-giving, the act of giving a gift creates and reinforces social bonds of reciprocity.[28] Gift-giving amongst the Norse was the foundation of the relationship between patron and subject and between members of families. Gift-giving was central to the relationship between kings and subjects; for instance in the Saxon poem Beowulf, the King Hroðgar is described as the "giver of rings" and the "giver of gold", and in the poem numerous gifts are given and described in elaborate detail. This was not solely the province of humans either, as there are numerous examples from the Norse myths of the gods giving and receiving gifts, including Thor receiving Mjölnir and Odin receiving the spear Gungnir.[29]
Thus, readers should not look at the gift-giving of the blót ceremonies as a form of "bribery" or "payment" for services but instead as a divine version of a society-wide tradition of gift-giving which was seen as being of utmost social importance. This was about creating a relationship between god and human, and of the human providing sustenance to the god. In Norse myths, the gods, especially Odin, frequently participated in the grandest feasts.
It appears that there were numerous places where blóts could take place, as there are accounts of grand temples (such as the ones at the holy city of Uppsala), intimate family events in blót houses on Iceland, and examples of sacred groves, such as the one dedicated to Donar (Thor) that was destroyed by Saint Boniface in Hesse in the 720s. This variation should demonstrate that Norse religion was not a monolithic institution but had many variations. In the central, powerful kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, worship and blóts took place in grand temples under royal patronage and often close to royal burial grounds. In stark contrast, in egalitarian, republican Iceland, the blót took place in a humble structure serving isolated farm families.
One of the major differences between Germanic paganism and Christianity is its relationship to the organs of government. The Christian tradition emerged within the context of the Roman Empire, an area of the world known for its divinely chosen rulers. Besides the divine Caesars, this list also included the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Jewish kings chosen by divine anointment, and the Mesopotamian kings. While Rome had originally been a republic, the rise of the Caesars led to the development of the figure of the all-powerful, despotic emperor, so when the empire converted from polytheistic paganism to monotheistic Christianity, the legal theory linking one God to the Empire and to one Emperor (in the model of the anointed kings of ancient Israel) came to the fore. This replaced the previous inclination of treating the Roman Emperor as a god himself; the authoritarian model of the Christian monarch developed by the late Roman emperors was an admired (if often not achievable) goal of their successors for centuries afterwards.[30]
Conversely, the Germanic tribes, including not only the Norse but also the continental Germans, the Goths and the Anglo-Saxons, had a different model of rulership, one which also made sense within their understanding of the sacred. Their rulers, initially called "kings" and "dukes" by Romans who had no other words to describe them, were military rulers whose power was understood as entirely secular. These rulers governed with the consent of the governed, and misrule typically led to losing power to a rival. A successful ruler was, above all, a military leader able to bring glory and plunder to his followers and protect them from the depredations of others. However, even a successful leader was limited by the power of the Thing, the political gathering of the freemen of the kingdom.[31] The Roman historian Tacitus described just such a gathering:
“About minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency, on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon [...] Their freedom has this disadvantage, that they do not meet simultaneously or as they are bidden, but two or three days are wasted in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper, they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the king or the chief, according to age, birth, distinction in war, or eloquence, is heard, more because he has influence to persuade than because he has power to command. If his sentiments displease them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satisfied, they brandish their spears. [...][32]
This system of government was echoed, influenced and reflected by the religious beliefs of these people. Their gods were not all-knowing or all-powerful beings that laid out rules and dealt swift punishments but warriors whose primary purpose was the defense of the realm from monstrous foes. They did not create the world, nor do they rule it entirely, but instead they carved out a section of it by defeating or imprisoning their enemies. Moreover, they are governed by its laws, including most importantly the law of Fate, which even they cannot escape.
Worship of these gods thus took on a different character than Christian worship of an all-powerful God. These gods were protectors and intercessors in a dangerous world. In a context of a harsh landscape, constant feuding, and the dangers of eking subsistence from a fickle sea, perhaps it should come as no surprise that the concept of a loving and omnipotent deity was not a local development among these Germanic peoples.
The Norse man or woman making a gift to the greatest king of all - Odin - was doing so in hopes of Odin accepting him or her as part of his following. It was an opening ritual done in hopes that Odin's protection would come to the family, and it was an act that was seen as properly respectful to a king (whether human or divine). There were great variations in this basic ritual, much as the rite of Communion varies considerably Christian communities.