04/09/2026
A most important fact to understand when looking at heathenry, is worded by Neil Price (Professor of archeology at the university of Uppsala) in his outstanding work “The Viking Way”
Quoting from page 27; Gods and Monsters, worship and superstition
“By formulating our ideas on early Norse religion by reference to that which it was not -Christianity- we are missing an essential point.
It is problematic to apply what is effectively a monotheistic framework of interpretation to a whole pantheon of gods, and this also ignores the whole host of other supernatural entities that were at least as important as the Æsir and Vanir.
Viking ‘paganism’ was probably never a consistent orthodoxy such as writers like Snorri tried to present, and may never have been systematically understood by those who practiced it.
…
The religion of the Æsir and Vanir demanded only a recognition that they existed as an integral and immutable part of human nature and society, and of the natural world, and that as such they possessed an inherent rightness - perhaps even a beauty. If one wished to avoid disaster, it was necessary to come to terms with the gods, and the terms would be theirs, not those of their followers.
…
A refusal to acknowledge the gods in this way could have dire consequences. It would also involve a contradiction, as such an act would be a denial of the undeniable. The question of ‘believing’ in the gods was probably irrelevant.”
End of quote
Some people endlessly seek to make labels, to categorize and to create baunderies in heathenry. There were certainly do’s and don’t’s but while Christianity can be looked at as a more static religion with a book and rules, heathenry should be considered an ever living, shifting, evolving spiritual belief, with elements that change depending on time and location and people. Like the flames from a bonfire, extending, dancing, ever changing, impossible to grab hold of or to just contain in a set of precise descriptions and rule.
This why many of us have chosen a traditionalist approach.
