Old Norse Myths as Political Ideologies

ACTA SCANDINAVICA
CAMBRIDGE STuDIES IN ThE EARly SCANDINAVIAN WoRlD

Volume 9

A series devoted to early Scandinavian culture, history, language,

and literature, between the fall of Rome and the emergence of the
modern states (seventeenth century) — that is, the Middle Ages,
the Renaissance, and the Early Modern period (c. 400–1600).

General Editor
Stefan Brink, University of Cambridge/Uppsala universitet

Editorial Advisory Board, under the auspices of the Department of

Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, University of Cambridge
Maria Agren (History), Uppsala universitet
Pernille Hermann (Literature), Aarhus Universitet
Terry Gunnell (Folklore), Haskoli Islands
Judith Jesch (Old Norse/Runology), University of Nottingham
Judy Quinn (Old Norse Literature), University of Cambridge
Jens Peter Schjodt (History of Religions), Aarhus Universitet
Dagfinn Skre (Archaeology), Universitet i Oslo
Jorn Oyrehagen Sunde (Law), Universitet i Bergen

Previously published volumes in this series

are listed at the back of the book.

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Old Norse Myths as Political
Ideologies

Critical Studies in the Appropriation of Medieval Narratives

Edited by
Nicolas Meylan
and Lukas Rösli

F
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ISBN 978-2-503-58821-6
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DOI 10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.119410
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Table of Contents

Introduction
Nicolas Meylan and Lukas Rösli 9

I
Medieval Uses

Æsirism: The Impossibility of Ideological Neutrality in

Snorra Edda
Richard Cole 27

II
Scholarly Uses

‘Reconciling’ Ancient Paganism and Modern Protestantism:

On the Scholarly Reception of Old Norse Mythology in the
German Romantic Period
Margot Damiens 49

Desirable Plainness? Friedrich von der Leyen’s Writings on

Education and Mythology between Johann Gottfried Herder
and Nationalist Ideology
Lea Baumgarten 67

Otto Höfler’s Männerbünde and Völkisch Ideology

Courtney Marie Burrell 91

Archaeology and Textuality in the Study of Pre-Christian

Scandinavian Religion
Margaret Clunies Ross 117
 III
Old Norse Myths in Popular Culture

The Revival of Archaic Traditions in Modern Times:

Völkisch Imaginations in the Context of European Nordicism
Horst Junginger 131

Feminist Vikings, Ecological Gods, and National Warriors:

The Reception of Old Norse Religion and Culture in Sweden
Fredrik Gregorius 155

Stereotypes of the North in a Massively Multi-Player

Role-Playing Game
Laurent Di Filippo 175

Reception of the Past, Projection of the Present: Creating

Viking Masculinities
Barbora Davidek 189

‘Re-Wild Yourself’: Old Norse Myth and Radical White

Nationalist Groups in Trump’s America
Verena Höfig 209

The State of Vinland

Merrill Kaplan 233

Index 251

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 FR EDRIK GREGO RIUS

Feminist Vikings, Ecological Gods, and

National Warriors: The Reception of Old
Norse Religion and Culture in Sweden

Introduction

The Viking Age lasted only a few hundred years, roughly from 800 to around
1100, and saw the transformation of Scandinavia from a pagan region separated
from the rest of Christian Europe into an integrated part of Christendom.
While the period was comparatively short, the Vikings have become a recurring
trope since the eighteenth century in Scandinavian countries both as a symbol
of national identification and as a representation of a violent past left behind.
Politically, the Vikings have often been connected to Nationalistic and even
fascistic political trends, but as this chapter aims to show, the use of the
Vikings and references to Old Norse religion in late Scandinavian modernity
is more complex. While the topics discussed in the chapter are not exclusive
to Scandinavia, I will take Sweden as a case study, with occasional references
to other Scandinavian material in order to understand the broader historical
context. It should be noted that similar developments can be found in other
countries and the use of the Vikings was also common outside of Scandinavia,
for instance in Germany and Great Britain. The chapter does not deal with
the Viking Age as such but with its reception, primarily looking at examples
outside of academia such as the emerging neo-pagan scene in Sweden and
its use of Old Norse religion.
Using history as a reference point for contemporary issues is nothing new
in Sweden. As early as the fifteenth century, Sweden embraced the notion of
being the heir and home of the Gothic tribes that later developed into a form
of imperialistic ideology called ‘Gothicism’. Gothicism argued that Sweden
had been chosen by Divine providence to rule the world. It was sponsored
by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632) who also supported the
mystic Johannes Bureus (1568–1652), a proponent of the study of runes and

Fredrik Gregorius, Senior Lecturer, History of Religions, Linköping University,

Sweden

Old Norse Myths as Political Ideologies: Critical Studies in the Appropriation of Medieval Narratives,
ed. by Nicolas Meylan and Lukas Rösli, AS 9, pp. 155–173
© FHG 10.1484/M.AS-EB.5.120091
1 56 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

Old Norse culture, to which he added esoteric and apocalyptic speculations.1

When the National Heritage Board was founded in 1630, Bureus became its
head as National Antiquarian despite the increasing eccentricity of his ideas.
The rise of Gothicism was an early example of how a political ideology was
founded on images and cultural memories from the past to give weight to values
and ideals that reflected contemporary concerns, in this case to demonstrate
Sweden’s historical destiny as leader and defender of Protestantism against
Catholicism. Over the decades, the Gothic came to be replaced by the Viking
as the reference of choice, primarily in the nineteenth century.
The Viking became an archetype of masculine valour and national pride,
stoically standing against overwhelming odds. As such, the symbol was also
political and after 1945, due to the imagined connection between National
Socialism and the use of Vikings as a symbol for Nordic identity, academics
and journalists attempted to show that the Viking Age was a nationalistic
construct with little historical bearing, a period about which nothing can
be known for certain, a construction devised to create a glorified past. One
influential voice from outside of academia arguing for this thesis was the famous
Swedish author and journalist Jan Guillou who published several opinion
pieces in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet arguing that the Viking Age
was nothing more than a National Romantic construct.2 A similar argument
has also been put forward by the Swedish journalist Maja Hagerman in her
2006 book Det rena landet: Om konsten att uppfinna sina förfäder (The Pure
Land: The Art of Inventing One’s Ancestors).3 The need to deconstruct the
Viking Age can in itself be used as an argument for the period’s continued
cultural importance and while some have tried to downplay its significance
and connection to modern Sweden, other scholars and journalists embraced
the period’s role but claimed that it was far more multi-cultural or diverse
than the nationalistic narrative claimed.4 One example of this is the attempts
in recent years to show that the relationship between the Vikings and Islam
was closer than previously claimed. While some of the claims have been
rather speculative, national media have been quick to report findings that
would prove a connection, even if the claims later turned out to be wrong.5
All of this points to the continued role that the Viking Age has for Swedish
identity and how our reception of the past is believed to affect the way the
current political climate will develop. I write ‘believed’ to point out that we
need to ask ourselves whether the image of the Viking Age has any actual
political impact, or if it is rather the case that the Viking can be transformed
and used by any political agenda, left or right, but with little political weight

1 Håkansson, Vid tidens ände.

2 For examples see Guillou, ‘Vikingatiden’, and Guillou ‘Skulle vi svenskar’.
3 Hagerman, Det rena landet.
4 Gregorius, ‘Modern Heathenism in Sweden’, p. 67.
5 Elfström, ‘Kontroversiell vikingautställning’.

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 F EM I N I S T VI KI N G S, ECO LOGI CAL GO DS, AND NAT I ON AL WAR RI O RS 157

of its own. The Viking continues to haunt Sweden and even if the use of the
Viking as a political image is dead, the idea of it as a cultural foundation myth
lingers. For that reason, the conflict over who the Viking is becomes a loaded
political question that, at its core, hinges on the issue whether or not there is
such a thing as a historical essence of Sweden. Accordingly, the narrative of
the Viking as cultural explorer, open to new ideas and people, who followed
a religion based upon ecology and diversity, proves just as compelling and
serviceable as role model for the modern Swede, as tales of the masculine
Viking who goes over the ocean to find riches or those of gods fighting against
the forces of Chaos. This counter-narrative could easily be shown to be based
on a similarly essentialist notion of cultural continuity as the nationalistic
narrative, insofar as it is based on the idea that to counter the arguments
from the other side only requires reversing the image. In this chapter, I will
show that such alternative narratives predated late twentieth-century politics
and that the roles constructed for Viking culture and Old Norse mythology
are more complex than a mere nationalistic dream of long-lost days of glory.

Heathenism beyond Ethnicity

Let us leave the large-scale cultural use of Old Norse symbols and follow a
much smaller phenomenon, the heterodox new religious movements found
under the various umbrella terms Asatru, Heathenism, and Forn Sed. All
these terms refer to modern religious groups and individuals who try to
reconstruct Old Norse religion as a living religion. While no term is perfect
for these movements, I will use the term Heathenism. It is the most neutral
term in English and is preferred by followers of modern reconstructions of
Old Norse religion.6 The term Asatru has become increasingly contested over
the years as has the Icelandic forn siðr, or forn sed in Swedish.7 Heathenism did
not appear in a cultural and historical vacuum and its members’ reading of
Old Norse mythology are coloured by pre-existing ideological structures. In
my own 2008 study of Heathenism, I concluded that most Swedish followers
of Heathenism based their understanding of Old Norse religion on widely
held values such as gender equality, individualism, and ecological concerns.
Politically, it was more centre-left than right and, with some exceptions, often
more libertarian than nationalistic.8 Those who turned to the Old Norse
world were generally liberal people who saw in the material the foundation
for a more liberal form of spirituality than Christianity. Nevertheless, Old
Norse religion has been used historically as a rallying point for ideas about
nationalism and ethnic exclusivism. Stefanie von Schnurbein concludes her

6 Gregorius, ‘Modern Heathenism in Sweden’, p. 65.

7 Gregorius, ‘Modern Heathenism in Sweden’, p. 65.
8 Gregorius, Modern Asatro , pp. 297–98.
158 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

study of modern attempts to revive pre-Christian Germanic religion, Norse

Revival: Transformation of Germanic Neopaganism, on a somewhat ambivalent
note when asking whether there is a way to revive the Old Norse faith without
the baggage of nationalism, racism, and ethnic essentialism.9
Von Schnurbein argues that the construction of the idea of a lost Old
Norse pagan world is so immersed in notions of nationalism, race, and
ethnicity that even the most devoted a-racist Heathen (her term for those
Heathens who do not include race or ethnicity as a part of their beliefs) will
still somehow be trapped in this paradigm. Ultimately, the shadow of racism
never completely disappears.10 I have likewise dealt with these questions and
reflections in my research even if I draw somewhat different conclusions, which
may perhaps be due to our differing fields (I worked primarily in Sweden and
von Schnurbein in Germany). Regardless of where one begins, to encounter
the world of modern Heathens is to be struck by the complex relationship it
has with issues of nationalism and ethnicity. For most Swedes, the Viking is
a fun cultural symbol, perhaps a source of pride at times but little more. For
modern Heathens, however, it is of primary importance, and members of
the Heathen and pagan communities have had to deal with the question of
ethnic essentialism and heritage since their modern inception in the twentieth
century.11 Historically, the majority of Heathens in Sweden have been strongly
opposed to the use of Old Norse symbols by far-right groups and see it as
form of cultural theft. As mentioned above, my previous conclusion was that
the majority seemed to be centre-left, but in recent years, there has been a
surge in more nationalistic interpretations of Heathenism as exemplified by
the growth of what is now Sweden’s largest Heathen organization, Nordiska
Asa-Samfundet (The Nordic Asa-Assembly) or NAS. Founded in 2014, the
organization has gone from a few people to over a thousand members if NAS’s
own numbers are to be believed.12 The growth of the Nordic Asa-Assembly
seems to support von Schnurbein’s conclusion that attempts to return to an Old
Norse worldview will always be based on an idea of ethnic essentialism that
easily turns into ethnic exclusiveness and that the non-ethnic interpretation
is at its core weaker. By contrast, the a-racist, or anti-racist, Samfundet Forn
Sed or SFS has at the time of writing only around 300 to 400 members.13
While the nationalistic camp is larger at the present time, this can change
quickly. Moreover, the conflict between different narratives about the Viking
Age and Old Norse religion can be found wherever there is a Heathen

9 ‘I wonder if there is a way to pass the gods around the table all the same — albeit never
an unambiguous one? I somehow still doubt it. Yet, I don’t know’ (von Schnurbein, Norse
Revival, p. 358).
10 Von Schnurbein, Norse Revival, pp. 6–7.
11 Gregorius, Modern Asatro, p. 283; von Schnurbein, Norse Revival, pp. 123–45.
12 Nyren, ‘Asatroende samlas’.
13 Tersmeden, ‘Nytt asa-samfund vill växa’.

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 F EM I N I S T VI KI N G S, ECO LOGI CAL GO DS, AND NAT I ON AL WAR RI O RS 1 59

community, devolving at times into serious clashes.14 Does this mean that
there are alternative understandings or are both sides drawing on similar
ideologies but with different degrees of exclusiveness? Is it possible to look
at the Viking Age tales in a manner that is free from dreams of nationalistic
primordialism or are the tales of the Æsir and the Vanir and their fights against
the forces of chaos, represented as giants and monsters, forever tainted by a
nationalistic dream of Scandinavian greatness? Is a so-called progressive take
on the Viking Age little more than the nationalistic one with different good
guys? Is the focus on fighting the forces of chaos maintained, or is it possible
to build alternative interpretations on a different narrative with a different
history? If many followers of Heathenism are demonstrably opposed to
nationalistic interpretations, why then do they choose to engage with these
symbols despite the role they have played for far-right nationalistic groups?
These were some of the questions that sparked my interest for socialist,
feminist, and progressive interpretations of Old Norse religion in Sweden. As
the Viking Age is associated by many with far-right ideologies, the question
also has a political and legal dimension. In some European countries such
as Germany, certain runes such as the Odal- and Sig-runes are banned and
in Sweden there has recently been a debate as to whether the so-called Tyr-
rune should be banned as it is used by the militant neo-Nazi organization,
the Nordic Resistance Movement. In this debate, Heathens from both sides
made their voices heard in the media and their reaction to the debate showed
clear ideological differences indicating that the question is far from simple.
My argument in this article is, on the one hand, that there was an alternative
interpretation of Old Norse mythology in the nineteenth century, and on
the other that there is a narrative, originating mainly in American alternative
spirituality and ecology, which has been adopted into an Old Norse framework
rather than being a development of it (in part to deal with the issue of cultural
appropriation).15

National Beginnings

To find the genesis of this alternative narrative we must return to the early years
of the nineteenth century, at the time when the Viking became a symbol of
Sweden. There is, however, no doubt that it is the nationalistic interpretation
that is first encountered. While the focus on race belongs to the twentieth
century, the connection between the reception and popularization of the
Viking and nationalism emerges from the pages of National Romantic poets
of the nineteenth century.

14 Von Schnurbein, Norse Revival, pp. 128–31.

15 Gregorius, Modern Asatro, pp. 94–96.
160 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

Of primary importance was the Swedish poet Erik Gustaf Geijer (1783–1847).
Geijer wrote two poems that would be central to the construction of the
image of Old Nordic mentality. One was the poem ‘Odalbonden’ (The Odal
Farmer) from 1811 that presented the image of the free solitary farmer watching
over his land. The poem disregards the communal aspects of farming life
and sees in the farmer a stoic, heroic solitary figure. In the same year, Geijer
also wrote the poem ‘Vikingen’ (the Viking), that deals with a young man
seeking adventure on the sea as he feels the homestead is becoming too
small. Both poems would cement the image of Nordic mentality as solitary,
stoic, adventurous, and would lead to the popularization of the Viking as an
archetypical image of youthful lust for adventure.16 But Geijer’s poems were
not only the product of a narrow form of nationalism that lamented the loss
of an empire. Politically, Geijer was a liberal who worked for the abolishment
of slavery in the Swedish colony of St Bartholomew and was accused of
denying the truth of the evangelical Christian faith. He was at the same time
a member of the nationalistic group Götiska Förbundet, a group that mixed
nationalism and liberalism; he was moreover involved in their more secretive
order Manhemsförbundet.17
It should be noted that the nationalism of this period was also linked to
attempts at democratizing society and several nineteenth-century poems that
had a romantic view of the Viking focused on the Ting (Assembly) and spoke
of all men being equal, bound as they were by the blood of a single nation. The
ideal of national brotherhood was clearly present in Götiska Förbundet and they
developed the practice of greeting each other with the word ‘Hej’ they believed
to be the Old Norse way of greeting each other as equals. Nationalism was in
fact a requirement for the development of democracy and was instrumental
in the growth of ideas about Scandinavianism, which saw all Scandinavians as
part of the same family. Likewise, in the later part of the nineteenth century, the
Viking Ting was appealed to in the debate on the general right to vote for all
men. One example was the Swedish poet Werner von Heidenstam (1859–1940)
who, in 1899, wrote the poem ‘Medborgarsång’ (Song of the citizens). While
Heidenstam later moved to a more conservative position, his nationalism was
originally based on a more liberal point of view. Medborgarsång features lines
such as: ‘och därför vilja vi rösta fritt / som förr bland sköldar och bågar / men
icke vägas i / köpmäns mitt, / likt penningepåsar på vågar’ (and so we want
to freely vote / like before among shields and bows / but not to be weighted
in the midst by merchants / like moneybags on scales).18
While these ideas could be progressive at the time of their inception, their
focus on the nation as a primordial entity and primary link between men

16 Geijer, Dikter, pp. 8, 12, Gregorius, Modern Asatro, pp. 53–54, Hagerman, Det rena landet,
p. 145.
17 Hedin, Manhemsförbundet.
18 Heidenstam, ‘Medborgarsång’.

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 F EM I N I S T VI KI N G S, ECO LOGI CAL GO DS, AND NAT I ON AL WAR RI O RS 1 61

could easily become reactionary and exclude those considered as ‘others’.19

Heidenstam later became more conservative and preferred the stability of
the nation to the rise of Socialism, which led him to a famous conflict with
the Swedish author August Strindberg. Others of his poems celebrated ideals
of Swedish dominance rather than democracy and social equality, and even
if liberalism was a part of Götiska Förbundet, their ideas about the Swedish
nation were easily used by the monarchy and found support from the new
royal dynasty, the Bernadotte. The Swedish King Karl XIV Johan (1763–1844)
and his successors took to promoting National Romantic ideals, which
were incorporated into the educational system while the ideals of Götiska
Förbundet became more clearly conservative. But apart from liberalism
and conservatism, there was also a growing socialist movement and it is in
the more radical parts of this movement that we find the foundations of the
alternative interpretations of the Viking Age.

Socialist Interpretations of the Viking Age

Within the growing socialist movement of the late nineteenth century, the
Viking played a less central role than in the National Romantic Movement,
but that is not to say that it was not a part of it. Early socialist poetry was
often more radical, anarchistic, and anti-establishment than what would
later be the case when the Social Democrats became the governing party in
the twentieth century. In these poems and pamphlets, mythological figures
feature prominently. The two main mythical characters in the more radical
parts are Lucifer and Prometheus. It was particularly the more anarchistic and
revolutionary parts of the socialist movement that praised Lucifer, at times
even using the name Satan.20 Likely influences were the anarchist thinkers
Michael Bakunin and Pierre Proudhon who both had printed works that
celebrated Satan or Lucifer as the first rebel and revolutionary.21
Many of these texts were written in a parodic manner, making fun of the
establishment and Christianity, but they also reflected a more serious ideology
of enlightenment and freedom, with Lucifer representing the spirit of freedom
within humanity. Lucifer is identified with Prometheus to such a degree that
it is hard to tell them apart in socialist poems from this period. One famous
pamphlet from 1886 actually presents ten new commandments called ‘The
commandments of Lucifer’ that calls for women’s rights, the abolishment
of private property, a rejection of monogamy, and the abolishment of the
rule of the priesthood.22 While there are some indications that there was a

19 Hagerman, Det rena landet, p. 145.

20 Hatets sånger, p. 107.
21 Faxneld, ‘The Devil Is Red’.
22 Hatets sånger, pp. 20–21.
1 62 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

Theosophical inspiration for this, for example both used Lucifer as the name
of their magazines, Lucifer as a symbol of resistance was already established
before 1875, the year of the foundation of the Theosophical Society. There
was, however, a strong overlap between the early Socialist Movement and
Theosophy in parts of Sweden that needs further research.
It is no surprise that characters from mythologies other than Christian
and Greek would find their place in this discourse. Among the Nordic Gods,
it is Loke that is most referenced. It is in identification with Lucifer that Loke
becomes a representative of a socialist revolution. In the poem ‘Lokesång’
(Song of Loke), reminiscent of the ending of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold,
Loke proclaims:
Kunde jag blifva en hatets tolk skulle jag tända hämndens fackla Flammorna
skulle mot höjden slå, bländande hycklande krämarfolk — trälar, som
böjda af oket vackla, skulle till frihet i ljuset gå.
(If I could be an interpreter of hatred, would I light the flame of vengeance.
The flames would reach upon high, blighting the exploiters. Thralls,
bent and wavering from the yoke, would to freedom in light go.23)

Loke is seen as one of the many names of the spirit of freedom, and there
were pamphlets called Loke. However, Loke is generally separated from his
mythological role as the opponent and trickster as we find him in the Eddas.
Here he is indistinguishable from Lucifer, even more so than Prometheus as
Loke is a far more aggressive and angry force in relation to the capitalist system.
At times, Viking names were used as pseudonyms in Swedish socialist
literature, like Håkan the Red, being an obvious joke referring more to the
red socialist flag than a beard. In a long poem titled ‘Efter Högmessan’ (After
the High Mass) by Sigvald Götsson from 1888, the memory of the pagan
time is contrasted with the current Christian era. Odin is here portrayed as
a divine traveller with a big heart who is hunted by a serpent, representing
Christianity, killing the pagan competition. The poem is mainly concerned with
how fear of Hell and damnation has quenched the people and religion is used
to oppress the population. The stale spirituality of the Church is contrasted
to the pagan veneration of nature and the sun. In the poem, there is also a
curious reference to how for a thousand years the priest has dealt with sheep
but now a large rugged goat is threatening the peace and disturbing the land.
The goat represents socialism, destined to wage a righteous revolution against
corrupt priests. The poem describes Odin as a more generous and warmer
god, but he is lost in the past. The reign of the priests will, however, come to
an end and people will leave the stale stench of the temples and churches.24

23 Hatets sånger, p. 79.

24 Hatets sånger, pp. 48–50.

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While the Old Norse gods are less prominent than Lucifer and Prometheus,
they are nevertheless present and generally given a more favourable treatment
than Christianity. The pagan gods are closer to the workers and when the
Social Democrats had become a more established part of Swedish politics,
they published references to Hávamál in order to encourage reading. Stefan
Arvidsson has shown that during the nineteenth and early twentieth century
the left used Viking imagery, inspired by Richard Wagner and William Morris,
but it never gained a prominent position like classical mythology.25 In the end,
the Viking became too closely associated with nationalism and conservative
visions so that the socialist narrative became less prominent. As the Social
Democrats became a part of the establishment, and later the largest party in
Sweden, maintaining control over the government from 1931 to 1976, the radical
parts of the movement separated from the party. In 1917, a split occurred leading
to the creation of the Swedish Communist Party. But already in 1910, after a
large strike in 1909, disappointment with the way the established unions had
handled it led to the founding of the Swedish Workers Central Organization
(SAC). Being more radical than the larger national union, SAC became the
primary prompter for libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism in Sweden.
It was primarily within this more radical part of the Socialist Movement that
later ideas about Heathenism were to find fertile soil, often with references to
ecology and egalitarian values.26 There are several reasons for this, one was
that the anarchist movement was less rigid in its interpretation of socialism
than the communist party, another was that it was more revolutionary and
attracted people interested in opposing the establishment, including people
who were attracted to alternative forms of spirituality.

After the Second World War

During the Second World War Sweden remained neutral but was nevertheless
affected by the rise of National Socialism and its use of Germanic symbols.
The National Socialist movement was the main user of Viking Age symbols,
using runes and portraying members of the SS as modern-day Vikings. This
association made subsequent interest in Viking symbols suspect. After the
war, both Vikings and Old Norse religion were tainted and the established
academia made efforts to downplay sites that had been central to the
pre-Christian religion. Most prominent was Old Uppsala, which had been
used for National Socialist meetings in Sweden before and during the war
leading to large-scale riots around Easter in 1943.27 As such, there seemed to
be little place for Viking Age material in the post-war socialist movement. In

25 Arvidsson, Morgonrodnad, pp. 52–54.

26 Lindquist, Shamanic Performance.
27 Alkarp, Fyra dagar i april.
1 64 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

the 60s and 70s, socialist literature focused on the slaves of Viking society,
as for instance the young adult series Trälarna (The Thralls), a history of the
Swedish working class written by Sven Wernström, published in eight parts
between 1973 and 1981. Here the focus is on class struggle and Viking society is
portrayed as barbaric and brutal, adopting a Marxist view of history. Religion
is primitive, and the focus is on economic conditions.28
In the 1970s, it was primarily within the Green Movement, a political
movement that had more in common with the anarchist part of the Socialist
Movement, that an opening for a re-evaluation of the use of Viking Age
myths took place. Building on a narrative that blamed the ecological crisis
on Christianity, guilty of separating man from nature, pre-Christian religion
was imagined as being more in harmony with nature. Lynn White Jr.’s article
‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’ from 1967 provided a strong
inspiration.29 It is also during the 70s that the idea of shamanism as the source
of all religions gained popularity through the works of Carlos Castaneda.
Presented as a non-dogmatic spirituality based on experience, often found in
indigenous religions, it was based on a reenchanted nature and earth.30 This was
the opposite of Christianity and a Romantic view of Native Americans and other
indigenous people developed in this alternative spiritual scene. People started
to practise Native American spirituality, identifying with different tribes and
using their spiritual techniques. This, however, posed the problem of cultural
appropriation. Many Native Americans felt that the use of the symbols of their
tribes by white people amounted to cultural theft. These efforts against what
was perceived as cultural appropriation were supported in America by more
ethnicnocentric or racial groups like the Asatru Folk Assembly who argued
that people of Nordic descent should embrace their ‘Nordic heritage’ rather
than use Native American symbols. There is, however, no evidence of similar
arguments being made in Sweden where the discussion focused on the role of
nature rather than ethnicity.31 In Sweden, as in other countries, elements within
this new shamanistic movement agreed that using Native American symbols
was problematic, leading to an interest in finding a native Swedish form of
shamanism that did not infringe on other people’s symbols.32 In Sweden an old
book from the 1930s was used, the historian of religion Dag Strömbäck’s Sejd.
Strömbäck argued for an interpretation of the magical technique ‘sejd’ as a type
of Nordic shamanism that was comparable to Sami and Native American forms.33
While the book has come under criticism by later scholars of sejd, it remains
influential in the neo-shamanistic scene. Later the combination of Strömbäck
with Michael Harner’s 1980s work on so-called core-shamanism found in his

28 Wennerström, Trälarna.
29 White Jr., ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis’.
30 Lindquist, Shamanic Performance.
31 Gardell, Gods of the Blood, p. 281.
32 Lindquist, Shamanic Performance, p. 27.
33 Strömbäck, Sejd.

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Way of the Shaman (1980) opened the way for the construction of a Nordic
shamanism based on Old Norse rather than Native American mythology. One
of the most important actors was a circle of people in Stockholm who called
themselves Yggdrasil. The group was critical of capitalism and colonialism and
focused on ecology and cultural rights for indigenous people with a strong
overlap with anarchism and the Green Movement.34 This led to a milieu where
Heathenism was used without primary reference to Vikings or nationalistic
narratives, although it did contain a hint of cultural essentialism. However, the
argument was that this was based on ecology rather than genetics, that spirituality
had to be based on the surrounding nature. It would be better for an African
in Sweden to follow the Old Norse gods than African ones, and one presumes
a European in Nigeria would do better to follow the Orishas rather than the
Æsir.35 For all that, they argued that everything was part of a universal spiritual
tradition. The focus on ecology easily situated this interpretation within the
more libertarian left and it could be adopted into a narrative of a lost egalitarian
and ecological paradise. In the so-called Sejd-scene, Odin became a shaman
rather than a warrior god and the focus was on the ecological harmony of the
pagan times rather than Valhalla.36 It was ordinary people and their magic that
was of interest. While always a small movement, the ecological paradigm made
Viking symbols less contested as the 1980s and 90s saw the emergence of a
large ecological movement, leading to the entrance of the Green Party into
the Swedish parliament in 1989.
While not directly dealing with Old Norse mythology, Astrid Lindgren’s
Ronia; The Robber’s Daughter from 1981, and the 1984 movie based on the book,
created a mystical early medieval Scandinavian world with a central female
protagonist that embraces the idea of an enchanted, magical nature which went
on to have a large cultural impact. In the section in the book where Ronia and
her friend Birk Borkason are living in the forest, they interact and encounter
several supernatural beings mainly derived from Scandinavian folklore. The
book, followed by a film, became one of the most influential children’s books
during the 1980s in Sweden. It was the precursor of later interpretations in
which female leads are prominent and individualism and rebellion against
authorities are important themes, as is the need for people to find their own
path in life even if that means breaking with one’s own family.

The 1990s

In the late 80s and early 90s immigration started to become a political issue in
Sweden. With the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and instability

34 Erikson, Shamanism, Eriksson, ‘Oden som revolutionär’.

35 Gregorius, Modern asatro, pp. 96–97.
36 Grimson, Runmagi och Shamanism.
1 66 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

leading to civil war in the Balkans, Sweden saw a new influx of immigrants and
a concomitant rise in xenophobia.37 This was also a period of economic crisis
and privatization in Sweden. Once again, the nationalistic narrative gained
ground and Viking images were prominently used by far-right groups. These
often recycled old images from the 1930s. Due to its liberal laws regarding
freedom of speech, Sweden became one of the world’s leading producers of
so-called White Power music. Legally it was far easier to produce and distribute
this form of music in Sweden than in countries like Germany or the UK.38
Some bands like the Swedish Viking-rock band Ultima Thule even gained
mainstream recognition and have over the years become closely associated
with the Swedish Democrats and their current party leader Jimmie Åkesson.
Yet, comparison of those that used Viking images with people who practised
spiritual traditions inspired by Old Norse mythology shows that it was still
mainly the ecological discourse that dominated Asatru or Heathenism and
the left-wing narrative remained important. Interviews were made in socialist
magazines like Röd Press (Red Press) and Motstånd (Resistance) where socialist
Heathens explained their view and scholars agreed that the Swedish scene
was mainly centre-left compared to countries like Germany. In the 1990s,
there was also a wave of interest in folk music, and bands like Hedningarna
and Garmarna gained popularity. There was also a revival of Viking markets
that has spread over Sweden and continues to this day.39 In musical genres
like metal, Vikings became a popular theme. The influential early black metal
band Bathory abandoned its focus on Satanism in favour of Old Norse gods
like Odin and his Valkyries. In the metal genre, the focus was on martial
values with few if any references to politics. Still it was hard to find any clear
socialist music that was inspired by Old Norse religion; political music using
Old Norse symbols still tended to be right-wing like Ultima Thule. Despite
all the efforts to create an alternative image of the Viking Age, interest in it
as an ideal for contemporary society remained suspect.

The Formation of Organized Heathenism

It was during the 1990s that Sweden started to see the growth of a more
organized form of Heathenism. Smaller, often local, groups had existed since
the 1970s but there had been no larger attempts to organize a broader national
organization for Heathens. In 1994, Sveriges Asatrosamfund (Sweden’s Asatru
Congregation) was founded. The organization was strongly opposed to racial
interpretations of Asatru and Heathenism and followed lines of reference like
Yggdrasil’s (see above) but with less emphasis on sejd. Sveriges Asatrosamfund

37 Lööw, ‘I gränslandet’, pp. 34–39.

38 Lööw, Nazismen i Sverige 1980–1997.
39 Peterson, Föreställningar om det förflutna.

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became the dominant actor on the Heathen scene even if they never grew to
more than a few hundred members.40 As members were often interviewed in
the national media, they helped create an alternative image of Heathenism as
a religion not based on race and nationalism. Due to the association between
Asatru and National Romanticism, the name of the organization changed in
2010 to Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige (Swedish Forn Sed Assembly), SFSS; it
is today the second largest organization for Heathens.41 Its ideology is based
on ideals of democracy, multicultural values, gender equality, and ecology.
As I have argued in previous publications, their ideals are in many ways a
spiritualization of secular modern Swedish values. Heathenism nevertheless
was a small movement even if the use of runes and Old Norse references
spread outside of the Heathen movement.
While the consensus was that the Swedish Heathen scene was centre-left,
this has somewhat changed in recent years. Around 2014, the more nationalistic
organization Nordiska Asa-Samfundet (NAS) was founded and has in a short
time expanded to over a thousand members, if their claim is to be believed.
NAS has a more ambiguous stance on race and ethnicity and has over the years
had problems with people expressing sympathies for racial interpretations
of Heathenism. One notable example was when one of their then members
talked about preserving the white race in a television interview.42 The person
was later expelled but questions about national identity have continued to
haunt NAS. Looking at the historical narratives, it is clear that NAS has
built on the Romantic image of the Viking, even arguing that Asatru was the
religion that formed the world-view of the Vikings and emphasizing this to
a much larger degree than Forn Sed, which rarely makes reference to Viking
tropes. We are still dealing with small movements, and even if NAS has a
thousand members, this figure can be compared to the 10,000 Yazidis living
in Sweden.43 But as argued above, Heathenism is of interest not because of its
size but how it expresses values found in the larger cultural framework. The
backdrop of the development of NAS is a rise in nationalism and xenophobia
in Sweden that has led, in the last years, to a situation where an originally
neo-Nazi party, the Swedish Democrats, has become the second or third
largest party in Sweden supported by around 15–20 per cent of voters.44 The
increased normalization of the Swedish Democrats has led them to focus
on Christianity as the foundation of Swedish culture, they thus have little
sympathy for Asatru and Viking symbolism is rarely found nowadays among
the Swedish Democrats. Among the more radical forms of neo-Nazis, however,
the use of runes is still common.

40 Gregorius, Modern asatro.

41 Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige, ‘Vårt nya namn’.
42 Tersmeden, ‘Överstepräst utesluts för rasism’.
43 Larson, Sorgenfrei, and Stockman, Religiösa minoriteter, p. 155.
44 As this chapter was written before the election of 2018, the actual results were not available.
1 68 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

In September 2017, during the annual national book fair in Gothenburg,

there arose a large discussion in Sweden concerning the decision of the militant
Nordic Resistance Movement to have a formal gathering outside the fair.
The NRM are an openly neo-Nazi organization that has been connected to
threatening and intimidating people who are opposed to them and there has
been a recurring discussion whether the organization should be banned. As
Swedish law makes banning an organization very difficult, discussion arose
concerning the possibility of banning their symbol, a Tyr-rune. This led to
reactions from both SFSS and NAS that revealed their different priorities.
While both organizations were opposed to banning the rune, the way they
did so was significantly different. SFSS posted an image of a necklace of the
rune placed above a background of the rainbow-flag symbolizing support
for LGBTQ-people. The text was primarily oriented against the use of the
rune by neo-Nazis and encouraged Heathens to take back the symbol from
the forces of evil. In their response, they further argued that Tyr stood for
justice and the rune was for that reason the antithesis to neo-Nazis but
rather represented justice and equality for all. In an interview in Metro the
spokesperson for SFSS Brusse Person emphasized that SFSS was an open
and democratic organization. While they protested the imposition of a ban,
their focus was to oppose its use by far-right movements.45 The response from
NAS was significantly different; they focused only on the proposed ban and
claimed they were submitted to religious persecution. Not a single word was
uttered in rejection of racism or Nazi use of Old Norse symbols. Instead, the
narrative was that Asatru was persecuted by the establishment.46

Fantasy and Vikings

With the rise of nationalism and with NAS being the largest Heathen organ-
ization are we to conclude that the alternative narrative’s impact is declining?
The answer is that there is never any one reception but always a multitude. It
is possible to argue that the Viking Age is a floating signifier that can be used
and adopted for a variety of purposes and those can be diametrically opposed
to each other. Old Norse religion has been mobilized to justify xenophobia,
islamophobia, and homophobia but it has also been used in the opposite way,
to further ideas about equality, justice, queer identities, and individualism.
In the first decades of the twenty-first century, there is evidence of growing
interest in Old Norse mythology inspired by fantasy and adult comics and it is
here that we see the most radical interpretations of Viking Age mythology. In
contrast to the more violent TV show Vikings (see Davidek, in this volume),
the focus is less on masculinity and many have central female protagonists.

45 Johansson, ‘Religiöst samfund’.

46 Nordiska Asa-Samfundet, ‘Tyr-runan’.

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An interesting re-interpretation of Old Norse religion is the comic book

series Vei written by Sara Bergmark Elfgren and illustrated by Karl Johnsson.
Elfgren was one of the authors of the successful book series The Circle, a tale
about young girls fighting demonic forces in a small Swedish city. Inspired by
pop culture phenomena like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the book series sought
to empower young women and to present different gender roles. The same is
true of the series Vei. Vei tells the tale of a young woman, Vei, who is lost at sea
but rescued by a group of Vikings. The Vikings are on their way to fight the
Giants whom they see as the enemy of the gods. Vei, however, is the adopted
child of a Giant and in an alternative take on the Viking myth, the Æsir and
Vanir are portrayed more as exploiters that have gained power over Midgard
through treachery. Their reign over Midgard is based on a contest between
the gods and the Giants fought by proxy, in a sort of gladiatorial game.47
Vei does not only focus on a female protagonist, often reducing the blond
male Viking to a sidekick, the story also reverses the whole Eddic mythology
and makes the gods appear less sympathetic and more fraudulent and dishonest.
The Giants are portrayed as more likable and the reason Vei is lost at sea is that
one of the Giants who cares for her does not want her to become a gladiator
and fight against the champions of the gods. As only the first book has been
published at the time of writing it is difficult to know what turns it will take but
for the time being, one of the few gods that seems to be helpful is Loke. Vei has
a clearly feminist approach to the Old Norse myths focusing on female sexuality
but also on oppressed people revolting against their oppressors. The gods
arrive in extravagant caravans, reminiscent of socialist posters of the decadent
nobility. Vei and the people who are allied to the Giants are portrayed as being
darker skinned and thus going against the focus on whiteness. Vei is part of an
older tradition going back to Ronia by Astrid Lindgren but also represents a
contemporary trend in books, comics, and TV shows using references from
Old Norse mythology or Scandinavian folklore for stories about female
protagonists. One example from Swedish television is the series Jordskott,
a story about a policewoman who has lost her daughter under mysterious
circumstances. The series includes folkloric beings and an underlying critique of
ecological exploitation and unrestrained capitalism. The Norwegian author Siri
Pettersen’s book series Korpringarna (The Rings of Ravens) also has a young girl
as its protagonist and has become a bestseller in Sweden as well as in Norway.
In the book, Hirka is a Child of Odin, that is a human living in an alternative
world where trolls are the norm. In later books, she travels to our world and
must deal with loneliness, being a refugee but also with living in a disenchanted
world.48 Thus, looking at pop culture there is no indication that the nationalistic
narrative is particularly strong, and it is often the case that pop culture is the
foundation for future interpretations of the Old Norse gods.

47 Bergmark Elfgren, Vei.

48 Pettersen, Rötta.
170 FR ED R I K G R EG O R I U S

Do the Vikings Matter?

The question remains as to what type of impact, political or otherwise, the

cultural construction of the Viking Age has for Sweden. There is no doubt
that it remains one of the most visible components in the construction of
Swedish cultural identity, but how significant is it? When walking around
the tourist shops in the Gamla Stan (The Old City) in Stockholm, there are
several shops selling jewelry and statues of Vikings and Viking era gods such
as Thor, Odin and Frey. This, however, is mainly marketed to tourists and even
if most Swedes probably know the basic plotlines of the Eddic mythology
few see it as a central part of their life or as having spiritual value. The largest
organization for Asatru in Sweden, Nordiska Asa-Samfundet, claims to have
over a thousand members, although one might note that this is in a nation of
over nine million citizens, and their public celebrations seem to draw only at
most a hundred attendees.
In this sense, it is difficult to compare the Swedish interest in Viking gods
to the role of Orishas for Yoruba identity. In terms of impact, it might well
be that what the future holds for the reception of Old Norse religion will be
very different from what it has been before. There is a growing movement that
focuses on Norse Animism, inspired by African diaspora religions. It looks to
Heathenism to combat ecological threats by embracing new ideals of holism
and plurality, like the neo-shamanism of the 70s and 80s but now drawing
greater inspiration from West Africa.49 A less political and more animistic
approach to Old Norse religion can also be found in the musical work of
the Norwegian band Wardruna who have gained international popularity,
partially due to their music being used in the TV show Vikings.
In the end, theories and speculations notwithstanding, social reality must
be considered. While there is no real quantitative data for countries like
Sweden, all previous studies on the Heathen scene nevertheless indicate that
before the emergence of Nordiska Asa-Samfundet, the majority of Heathens
in Sweden were centre-left or part of the Green movement. Moreover, Sweden
has until recently been largely free from larger nationalist movements despite
having streets named after Odin and children bearing Old Norse names. In
fact, established parties hardly ever refer to the Vikings in a political context.
As mentioned above the Swedish Democrats focus more on the Lutheran
and Christian heritage of Sweden, and it could just as well be argued that
references to Western Christian heritage can never be free from the stigma
of nationalism, race, and ethnicity, just as it has been argued in connection to
the Viking Age. In fact, interest in Old Norse religion does not seem to have
had any sensible impact on the rise of Nationalism in Sweden, rather the more
popular the far-right has become the less we see references to the Vikings. So
Asatru remains a fringe movement, and while the existence of a nationalistic

49 Nordvig, Pedersen, Rasmusen, and Herbener, ‘Guder og ånder’.

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Heathen movement should not in any way be disregarded, its impact should
not be exaggerated. The question regarding the non-racist Heathens remains:
does their faith contain within itself a seed that will eventually grow into a
nationalistic narrative, is it forever tainted by it? I would argue that it is not,
there are several contested narratives that intermingle but often exist separately,
and that the values expressed by both nationalists and anti-nationalists are
reflections of contemporary values and have modern origins that are more
complex than the sole nineteenth-century nationalism. As such, there is no
indication that an interest in Viking Age mythology has any political impact
either to the right or to the left but that political and social trends affect our
reception and construction of the image of the Old Norse gods and their
cosmos. Thus, the reception of the Viking Age teaches us about social and
political trends, but it is not likely that by itself it can have a social and political
impact on any larger scale.

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