How Did Norse Pagans See The World? | UiO Student Conference November 2023

Tom Kaye of the University of Oslo presents "towards a pagan ontology" at the Pre-Christian Religions of the North Conference, hosted in Oslo on the 10th of November 2023.
Follow the UiO Student Conference on Pre-Christian Beliefs Facebook Page for updates, more clips and videos, and updates for when and where the next student conference will be:
profile.php?...
Sacred versus Profane. A clear and well entrenched dualism which rests at the heart of the study of past religions, inhabiting both the archaeological and historical approaches. The whole discipline is replete with dualistic modes of thought. Such a model pervades the majority of theory, from concept of “liminal space” to that of the Other-World model set out by stalwarts in the study in pre-Christian religion such as Jens Peter Schjødt, John Lindow and Simon Nygaard. This has certainly achieved much, but the issue arises as to how relevant these dualist modes of thought are to a polytheistic religion that actively defies such dogmatic and easy categorisations.
Indeed, many of these theories and models which one encounters within the field arise from a fundamental assumption at the heart of the field, a certain equivocation of religion with culture. That is religion is a subset of culture, a human creation, which exists separate from “nature” in what is typically labelled as the Nature - Culture divide. Or put simply, religion is separate from the material world that is “out there” and shared by all, as a product of a specific subset of humanity and their shared imagination. As such all manner of social constructivist and essentialist models can be applied onto religions of the past as they all fundamentally share an identical material world that exists “out there” and is objectively measurable. However, this divide is fundamentally a production of a modern Cartesian and Christian inspired system of thought which I seek to present as having no grounds to be applied to the pre-Christian past. In this presentation I will question the validity of studying and understanding Norsemen according to our own fundamental assumptions about the world and reality that are present not only the individual scholar but in the wider discipline as through its dualist approaches. That is, I present that a fundamental obstacle to understanding pre-Christian religion is of an ontological nature - the fundamental assumptions and classifications we make about the world.
I argue that a solution can be found in the recent Ontological Turn seen in anthropology espoused by key theorists such as Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Martin Holbraad. Drawing off the non-dualism of Phillipe Descola, these approaches give primacy to their respective objects of study as a news means of theorising key assumptions or categories about the world. That is, one turns their object of study to supply an ontology for them as opposed to the typical assumptions of the scholar and their subject. As such I seek to present a turn towards a pagan ontology formulated off the source base that allows for new understandings and perspectives that differ on a fundamental level. Such would allow us to reconceptualise key elements and components such as sacrifice.
This to see different things within the pre-Christian past on its own terms, rather than the seeing things differently of reflexive approaches within the field.
See other videos from this year's Student Conference on Pre-Christian Religion here:
COMING SOON
See videos from the previous Student Conference on Pre-Christian Religion here:
The frenzied warbands of Odin - Tom Kaye:
• The Cult of Odin: Ecst...
An Introduction to Pre-Christian Frisian Religion - Hilbert Vinkenoog:
• Pre-Christian Paganism...
An Analysis of the Viking's Paganism - Jonathan Fischler:
• Pagan Themes in The Vi...
Music Used:
Impact Allegratto - Kevin MacLeod
The Pyre - Kevin MacLeod
Raid the Merch Market:
teespring.com/en-GB/stores/hi...
Go Fund My Windmills (Patreon):
/ historywithhilbert
Join in the Banter on Twitter:
/ historywhilbert
Enter the Fray on Facebook:
/ historywhilbert
Indulge in some Instagram..?(the alliteration needs to stop):
/ historywithhilbert
Send me an email if you'd be interested in doing a collaboration! [e-mail]
#asatru #pagan #vikings

[@Jobe-13]

Their mythology about how the world is structured is surprisingly detailed lol

[@1Orderchaos]

Still misguided

[@xiuhcoatl4830]

@@1Orderchaos No

[@thog8385]

@@1Orderchaoshow so

[@Nabium]

No there are huge problems with these detailed world structures. The biggest one is Snorre. A lot of what we know we know from Snorre, who wrote hundreds of years after they had turned Christian, which was an ordained monk, and which was Icelandic. Being Icelandic is problematic because it's very local and it's a locality which were very different from the rest of Scandinavia. For example when we look at place names of ancient places of worship and archeological findings we see that the most worshipped gods were Frey/Freya, throughout most of Scandinavia, with exception of parts of Denmark, Western Norway and Iceland where Odin and Thor were more prominent. Still to this day most universities do teach that Odin was the highest God, yet, the name Frey means "highest" or "outermost". So why is it that when all these place names and all these religious items dedicated to Frey/Freya hints at this pair is the center of Norse religious practice we still teach that Odin was the highest one? Because of Snorre, because in Iceland it was different. One reason for this could be that the vikings of the Norse were more akin to Odin, and they settles Iceland by going to Ireland to fetch women. This cause a syncretic version of Norse mythology, with influence from Irish Christianity. And we can also assume that Frey/Freya were more popular among women, and thus when so few women from Norway ended up in Iceland we can wonder if that did not change the religion. So there we have it. This amazingly detailed world structure, as you say, is largely derived from the most fringe version of Norse relgion. A version of Norse religion where the two most important Gods are renegated, a version which was influenced from Irish Christianity, a version which _hadn't been practiced for hundreds of years._ That's what we're supposed to base our understanding of Norse world view on? That's very problematic.

[@thog8385]

@@Nabium a lot of the stories that the faith is based on generally comes from two sources. Word of mouth, and the Christian authors writing about it hundreds of years later. Yes there are alot of misconceptions and misunderstandings which undoubtedly lead to people having problems with it. With that though, doing some digging and you can find a good bit of the “in between the lines” kind of information. When it comes to Odin and Frey/freya. Frey, in extremely simple terms, god of crops and good weather. Freya, simple terms, god of fertility. In areas where farming was the most important aspect of their life, why not more heavily worship the gods that help them eat! When it comes to places that worshipped Odin/Thor/Tyr more heavily, it’s likely because of what you said. They had a lot of fighters and a much more warpath lifestyle. Following the faith is different for everyone. People that are in it seriously (“Playgans” are a real thing) know that there are bits and pieces in the stories that are not likely true. Or even made up. Ocean Keltoi has tons of videos discussing the stories and the true bits in everything, along with the history behind it to make either sense of the stories, or debunk them.

[@rutgerw.]

From my post-christian, truely modern point of view it seems very silly to try and take christianity as a reference in the first place. The christian views are just as 'strange' as the Germanic ones.

[@tristin1916]

100%!

[@christopherellis2663]

Exactly

[@danielkrcmar5395]

They really aren't.

[@matthewmelson1780]

Christianity is stranger, that's how you know it's true.

[@talpark8796]

TYVM for another upload ☃🇨🇦😁

[@liquidoxygen819]

We still have this understanding in our modern day. It's not lost to us at all - this concept persists in the belief in ghosts, angels, and the like, which are believed to not really be of this world in the same way that humans & animals are, but, nevertheless, dwell in certain places or are able to interact in some way or other with the physical world. Think about how houses are said to be haunted, or how an angel is said to have intervened and prevented a car from crashing when the driver was sure it would.

[@jacobandrews2663]

The long hair mustache combo looks very Frankish

[@andrewmbaker]

So... In a very weird side tangent this actually triggered a lot of interesting marketing questions. Not in the "do Vikings prefer shrink wrapped cheese" sense but more in the "what makes people select resources" aspect. Fascinating! Thanks!

[@kilgen28]

So help us out a little here, Hilbert. How did the idea/practice of blood sacrifice get into the runic old Norse culture? What’s the history of that? Where did it come from? Gothic runic background? Do I have any more questions?

[@alansmithee8831]

Hello Hilbert. I watched again, as I was busy the day of the livestream, but it seemed like revision this time, especially with the setting.

[@DevoteeofThunor]

What?

[@alansmithee8831]

@@DevoteeofThunor This was first shown as part of a livestream, the day of recording. Hilbert answered a question I asked at one point, so he would know I saw it before. Seeing it again reminded me of a university tutorial from my youth.

[@darthvader-xm8me]

Great video! Wondering would you be able to do a video about slavic mythology?

[@kilgen28]

What was the pre-Christian concept of sacrifice in the example you gave?

[@Ardemi]

Very interesting insight, Thank you :). Some of the ideas of trying to aknowladge the research bias that comes with living and looking at past concepts from our Present and culturally diferent perspective, reminded me of how ancient history researchers work especially for the archaic period, where there simply is not christian context because its so far in the BC. Maybe there are some interesting methodes to be salvedged there (like example you present with archeology).

[@christopherellis2663]

Beowulf is set in Denmark and Sweden, so it gives a good account.

[@christopherellis2663]

6:53 if ' judeo- Christian concepts' .then what of Islam? They respected Buddhists more than the Hindu.

[@danielkrcmar5395]

What does "Judeo-Christian" even mean? They've entirely different value systems and moral teachings.

[@evanhadkins5532]

@@danielkrcmar5395 I think it was an attempt to get away from Nazi racism. Emphasising that Christianity grew from Judaism and took over some of its ideas - eg the resurrection of the body wasn't Greco-Roman, and the sense of a more inner ethic supplementary to the public ceremonies - Greco-Roman religion tended to focus on public ceremonies by higher status individuals. The role of the prophets was somewhat different too.

[@danielkrcmar5395]

@@evanhadkins5532 Nazism had nothing to do with Christianity, the leadership was expressly against any religion which didn't tie loyalty to the state. The resurrection wasn't Judaic either. The combining of Judaism with Christianity is a modern phenomenon which no historical basis. Judaism expressly had higher status people doing religious ceremony, they had an expressly and specifically defined priestly class.

[@nmwinrich89]

​@danielkrcmar5395 this isn't true about nazism being anti religious. The German soldiers had "gott mit uns" (God with us) on their belt buckles, hitler specifically states this his momement is a Christian movement and several branches of the rat lines to Argentina were organized and protected by Vatican representitives.

[@calvinyahn2840]

The lack of division between the worldly and otherworldly is common in Christianity in Jesus who is both God and man(though there was the whole Council of Chalcedon that was held to delineate how the divine and human natures worked and I assume there isn't a Norse Pagan counterpart of that council).

[@rutgerw.]

I am sure the Pegan chiefs and kings also claimed their ancestors were closer to the devine and thus more powerful... Also medival Christianity / Catholicism is also quite different from 'modern' Protestantism, with lots of saints you can turn to and holy places to go to for healing etc. but that's also because they integrated lots op Pegan elements into the new religion.

[@JOSEPHDANCE75]

The christians of that time were evil

[@dutchman7623]

@@rutgerw. Correct! Early 'Christianity' mixed with Greek and Roman culture, and this happened so fast that we do not even know what the original looked like. It mixed with Celtic and Germanic cultures, and of course Slavic cultures, so within a few centuries there were hundreds of 'Christian' religions, all different, all integrated into local traditions and beliefs. Same happened in Islam and Judaism. And though every few centuries all those religions had a big 'clean up' to bring them somewhat together again, the local differences are so enormous that it is nonsense to speak about any 'one' religion for any of them.

[@Demane69]

It continues to baffle me why we still call any non-Roman, non-Christian religion as "Pagan". Find the name of the religion and use it. This standard has to end, if only to stop the neo-pagan"anything" blasphemers from ruining real studies and reconstruction of ancestral religions.

[@evanhadkins5532]

That can be a problem. The Greeks, Romans and others often had a pantheon that could overlap with others - when the Romans beseiged a city part of the negotiation could be including the gods of the beseiged in the Roman pantheon. So giving a name to the religion gets tricky.

[@RevAnakin]

What baffles me is someone getting a masters degree saying that the Iron Age Norse and Germanic religions are "not religions" by definition and word splitting because there are examples of their religion being tied into the real world. Surely other defined "religions" like Christianity don't have ANY basis in real places or have divine figures walking among Earthlings. If we cannot call these religions religions then there are NO religions other than 100% fantasy writing. Literally half of this video is wordsmithing rather than actually presenting any valuable research or findings.

[@jacoblamb3535]

Save the apologia its cringy.