The Evolution of Norse Paganism
Before what we know as the 'viking' era and the birth of the Norse paganism we follow today, was a time when various proto Germanic tribes stretched far and wide across Europe during the freight reign of the Romans.
These Germanic tribes are the forfarthers of what we know of Norse paganism today.
But did you know our old Gods stretched even further back then just the 'viking' era?
You have to keep an open mind here as what im about to delve into will leave you with more questions then answers.
But to simplify it I will go backwards..
Norse paganism
~ 500-800CE - 1100-1300CE
Norse Paganism also known as the Old Norse religion, Heathenry, or Ásatrú in its modern revival was the pre-Christian belief system of the Norse and other Germanic peoples of Scandinavia. It was a polytheistic, animistic, and ancestor-venerating tradition that flourished during the Viking Age, roughly between 500 and 1300 CE. Unlike later organized religions, Norse Paganism did not have sacred scriptures. Instead, it was preserved through oral traditions, ritual practices, and a shared cultural worldview that shaped all aspects of daily life, from warfare and farming to law and kinship.
At the heart of Norse cosmology stood Yggdrasil, the World Tree, which connected the Nine Realms of existence.
These included -
Ásgarðr, the realm of the gods
Miðgarðr, the human world
Jǫtunheimr, the land of the giants
Helheimr, the underworld, among others.
The Norse saw the universe as interconnected and cyclical. They believed it would one day come to a cataclysmic end in Ragnarök..a final battle between gods, giants, and monsters - followed by the renewal and rebirth of the world.
The gods of Norse Paganism were divided into two main tribes: the Æsir and the Vanir. The Æsir, such as Odin, Thor, and Tyr, were associated with war, power, and order, while the Vanir, including Freyr, Freyja, and Njǫrðr, were linked to fertility, prosperity, and the natural world. Odin, the Allfather, was revered as a god of wisdom, war, and poetry, often sacrificing parts of himself in pursuit of knowledge. Thor, the thunder god, was seen as a protector of humanity against the forces of chaos, while Freyja embodied fertility, love, and magic. Alongside these deities, the Norse also honored ancestors, land spirits (landvættir), and elves (álfar), all of whom played roles in ensuring prosperity and balance.
Rituals and practices were central to Norse Paganism. The blót, or sacrificial rite, was performed to honor gods, ancestors, and spirits through offerings of food, animals, and on rare occasions, humans. Magic also played an important role: seiðr was a form of shamanic sorcery often practiced by women seeresses (völva) to divine fate or influence events, while galdr referred to chanting spells and runic magic. Ceremonial feasting, known as symbel, reinforced social bonds through oath-making and boasting. Death rites reflected belief in an afterlife, with warriors often buried with weapons, ships, or slaves to accompany them beyond this world.
A strong sense of fate, known as wyrd, shaped the Norse worldview. Fate was believed to be woven by the Norns, powerful beings who determined the destiny of gods and men alike. Although one’s fate could not be avoided, honour and reputation were crucial. To live bravely, generously, and with integrity ensured that one’s memory lived on after death, which was the closest form of immortality for most people outside of Valhalla or Fólkvangr, the afterlife halls of Odin and Freyja.
Worship took place in both public and private settings. While some regions built hofs, or temples, in honor of the gods, rituals were often carried out in sacred groves, near ancient trees, or around stones imbued with spiritual meaning. Many households also kept small shrines for daily offerings. This connection to nature and the land was a vital part of Norse spirituality, reflecting their animistic view of the world.
The afterlife in Norse Paganism was complex and varied. Warriors who died bravely in battle were believed to go to Valhalla, where they trained for Ragnarök, or to Fólkvangr, where Freyja welcomed half of the slain. Others went to Helheim, a shadowy underworld ruled by Hel, the daughter of Loki. Unlike the Christian Hell, this was not necessarily a place of punishment but rather a resting place for those who died ordinary deaths. Some souls were thought to linger as spirits or join the elves.
With the spread of Christianity between 800 and 1200 CE, Norse Paganism gradually declined. Temples were destroyed or repurposed, and seeresses and practitioners of magic were persecuted. However, much of Norse mythology survived because Christian scribes, such as Snorri Sturluson, recorded the stories, albeit with Christian influences woven in. Despite this decline, Norse Paganism left a profound legacy. Its myths of Odin, Thor, and Loki still influence modern literature, film, and popular culture.
Proto Germanic Paganism
~ 500BCE - 200CE
The Proto-Germanic peoples were the ancestors of the later Norse, Anglo-Saxons, Goths, and other Germanic tribes who spread across much of Northern, Western, and Eastern Europe. Rather than a single unified kingdom, they existed as a patchwork of semi-nomadic tribes, tied together by kinship, shifting alliances, trade networks, and, importantly, their shared opposition or interaction with the Roman Empire. These tribes were highly mobile, often migrating or raiding, but they also established enduring cultural bonds with one another through intermarriage, hospitality, and military companionship.
One of the most remarkable legacies of the Proto-Germanic world was their writing system, the Elder Futhark runes. Emerging around the 2nd century CE, the runes were not just a means of communication but also carried mystical and ritual significance. They were carved into weapons, jewelry, stones, and ritual objects, believed to hold magical power, guidance, or blessings from the gods. These same runes form the backbone of the script later adopted in Norse Paganism, showing continuity in sacred symbols across centuries.
Religion and Pantheon
Proto-Germanic Paganism was not a formalized or uniform religion. Like Hinduism today, it was tribal and localized, with families or clans sometimes revering their own specific deities alongside a broader pantheon recognized across Germanic tribes. The gods and goddesses varied in name depending on region, but the Proto-Germanic pantheon already contained the early forms of the deities who would later dominate Norse mythology.
Key deities included:
Wōđanaz – The precursor of Odin, associated with wisdom, poetry, war, and ecstatic practices.
Þunraz – Later Thor, god of thunder, storms, and protection.
Tīwaz – Later Tyr, linked with law, justice, and the binding force of oaths.
Ingwaz – Connected to fertility, prosperity, and kinship, later seen in Freyr.
Balðraz – The forerunner of Baldr, embodying purity, light, and youthful vitality.
Nerþuz – A powerful earth and fertility goddess, worshipped in communal rituals described by Tacitus.
Frijjō – Later Frigg, goddess of the home, marriage, and prophecy.
Sowilō – A solar deity connected with vitality and the life force.
Mannaz – A divine figure representing humanity, ancestry, and kinship bonds.
Albiz – Possibly connected to the elves or ancestral spirits.
When we compare these names with later Norse gods, the continuity is striking.. Wōđanaz became Odin, Þunraz became Thor, Tīwaz became Tyr, and Balðraz became Baldr. This demonstrates how Proto-Germanic Paganism provided the spiritual blueprint for the more developed Norse Religion.
Rituals and Sacred Practices
Unlike the Norse or Anglo-Saxons, who eventually built temples and established semi-formalized rituals, the Proto-Germanic peoples worshipped primarily in natural settings. Sacred groves, rivers, lakes, and especially ancient monuments such as stone circles were revered as dwelling places of divine power. The landscape itself was sacred, embodying the gods, ancestors, and spirits.
Blóts (sacrificial feasts) were already practiced, involving offerings of food, drink, or animals to the gods and spirits to ensure fertility, victory, or prosperity. Evidence suggests that some sacrifices may have been communal, strengthening social bonds and alliances within and between tribes.
Other aspects of spiritual life that persisted into Norse Paganism included:
Dísir – Female ancestral or protective spirits, honored in rituals.
Völva (seeress) – Women who practiced forms of prophecy and magic, serving as intermediaries with the divine.
Idisi (valkyrie-like spirits) – Female supernatural beings who influenced battle and fate, precursors to the later Norse Valkyries.
Magic and divination were also key elements, tied closely to runes and oral incantations. This tradition would later evolve into the Norse practices of seiðr and galdr.
Cultural Worldview
At its heart, Proto-Germanic Paganism was rooted in tribal identity, ancestor worship, and the sanctity of the natural world. Religion was not separate from daily life but deeply embedded in kinship, warfare, and survival. Fate and honor were already central values, foreshadowing the Norse concepts of wyrd and the pursuit of lasting reputation.
The gods reflected the values of these people.. strength in battle, fertility of the land, the wisdom of leaders, and the protective force of kinship bonds. Much like the later Norse, the Proto-Germanics did not envision a single afterlife but multiple possibilities, including the continued presence of ancestral spirits in the world of the living.
Continuity into Norse Paganism
When Norse Paganism emerged, it retained much of the religious framework of the Proto-Germanics while adapting it to the settled, maritime societies of Scandinavia. Blóts, the veneration of dísir, the role of völvas, and even the identities of the gods themselves transitioned almost seamlessly into the later Norse religion. What changed was the scale and sophistication of worship, with Norse society building temples, myths, and intertwining religion with kingship and law.
Proto indo European
~ 4500-2500BCE
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a prehistoric people who lived on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe (modern-day southern Russia and Ukraine) between roughly 4500–2500 BCE. They are not remembered as a single empire or state, but as a collection of semi-nomadic tribes whose innovations in language, religion, and culture spread across vast distances through migrations. These movements were part of the great hunter-gatherer and pastoralist migrations of Eurasia. During which they travelled on horseback and with early wagons, carrying with them traditions that would influence nearly every later Indo-European culture…. from Norse and Celtic to Greek, Roman, Slavic, Persian, and even Vedic India.
The Proto-Indo-Europeans spoke the ancestral language from which all Indo-European tongues descended. Alongside their linguistic heritage, they also carried with them a shared mythological and spiritual system that expressed itself in recurring motifs and deities.
Gods and Divine Beings
Unlike later Norse or Greek religions, the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was less fractured into individual gods and more fluid, with deities representing broad forces of nature, the cosmos, and human life. Some scholars believe that what later became Odin, Zeus, or Indra were once different aspects of the same divine archetypes, later split and developed into distinct personalities by individual cultures.
Reconstructed deities include:
Dyḗus Ph₂tḗr – The “Sky Father,” a chief deity of the bright daytime sky.
Perkwunos – A storm or thunder god, later reflected in Þunraz (Thor).
H₂éwsōs – A dawn goddess, later known as Eos (Greek), Aurora (Latin), and Ushas (Vedic).
Seh₂ul / Sowel – The sun goddess, linked to the Norse Sól, Slavic Solntse, and Sanskrit Surya.
Manus and Yemos – Mythic twins in a creation story, where one dies and is sacrificed to form the world, echoing later myths of Ymir in Norse myth or Romulus and Remus in Roman legend.
Nerthuz-like Earth Mother – A goddess of fertility, land, and abundance, mothering life in partnership with the Sky Father.
These figures show that later Norse gods were not absent in Proto-Indo-European belief, but rather existed in more unified, archetypal forms. Over time, these deities were split, specialized, and reimagined by descendant cultures like the Proto-Germanics and the Norse.
Axis Mundi and Yggdrasil
One of the most profound spiritual concepts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans was the Axis Mundi, the cosmic world axis that held the universe together. This universal pillar or tree was seen as connecting the heavens, earth, and underworld a structure linking all planes of existence.
This same concept later evolved into the Norse Yggdrasil, the World Tree, but the Axis Mundi predates Norse Paganism by millennia. For the Proto-Indo-Europeans, this cosmic axis may have been symbolized as:
A sacred tree, representing life and fertility.
A cosmic pillar or mountain, upholding the heavens.
The threefold division of the cosmos: heaven above, the mortal world in the middle, and the underworld below.
Thus, Yggdrasil is not a uniquely Norse invention but the direct descendant of this ancient Indo-European cosmological idea, reshaped over thousands of years while retaining its role as the soul-figure of belief.
Rituals and Practices
While evidence is fragmentary, archaeological and linguistic studies suggest that Proto-Indo-European religion involved:
Sacrificial Rituals (possibly horse or cattle sacrifices): The horse was a sacred animal, symbolizing both solar power and divine nobility.
Sacred Feasts: Communal gatherings where tribes honoured deities, ancestors, and spirits with food and drink.
Fire Worship: Fire, seen as both a destroyer and purifier, was central to ritual, connecting the earthly and divine realms.
Priestly Roles: Early shamans or priests likely acted as mediators between humans and gods, performing rituals that ensured fertility, victory, or cosmic balance.
The natural world itself was sacred. Rivers, mountains, and open skies were believed to embody divine forces, and rituals were often held in these liminal, awe-inspiring places rather than in permanent temples.
Cultural Worldview
The Proto-Indo-European worldview emphasized cycles of life, death, and renewal, both in the seasons and in the cosmos. The myth of the slain twin reflects the idea that creation arises from sacrifice and death… a theme that resurfaces in Norse myth when Ymir’s body is used to form the world.
Kinship, ancestry, and tribe were sacred. The gods themselves were often envisioned as extensions of natural and social order. The Sky Father for instance represented law and sovereignty, the Storm God represented martial force, and the Earth Mother embodied fertility.
Legacy
Proto-Indo-European Paganism cannot be understood as a fully systematized religion but rather as the mythic seed from which countless later traditions grew. The Sky Father became Odin, Zeus, and Jupiter. The Storm God became Thor, Indra, and Perun. The Dawn Goddess became Eos, Aurora, and Ushas. And the Axis Mundi, that great pillar of the cosmos, became Yggdrasil, the immortal World Tree of Norse Paganism. In this way, even though the Proto-Indo-Europeans left no temples or written texts, their ideas echo through millennia of spiritual history.
As you can see, the history of these traditions often leaves us scratching our heads more than it provides clear answers…
Especially if we rely solely on the Eddas, sagas, or poetic stanzas as our primary sources. These texts, valuable though they are, are fragments of something much older, rewritten through lenses of time, culture, and even politics.
This raises questions that many seekers struggle with.
Why do we use the Elder Futhark runes, when the historical Norse in the Viking Age used the Younger Futhark?
Why are Indo-European, Proto-Germanic, and Norse beliefs so entangled, almost as if they bleed into each other across the centuries?
What is going on here?
The truth is this: if we set aside scripture and later literary compilations, the spiritual reality becomes clearer. No matter what names our gods and goddesses have carried across time whether its Indo-European archetypes, Proto-Germanic deities, or the more familiar Norse gods .. they have always existed. Their essence is timeless, even if human languages and cultures have reshaped the way we describe and honour them.
To truly understand, we must open our minds to a broader spectrum of knowledge, weaving together archaeology, comparative mythology, oral traditions, and lived spirituality. When we do this, we see that what truly matters is not whether something is “historically correct” but the living relationship we cultivate with our gods and ancestors.
The old names may change, myths may adapt, and rituals may shift in form, but the divine presence remains constant..