ABSTRACT
The identity of gods and goddesses and various supernatural beings remains one of the outstanding problems in the study of archaeological or iconographical evidence. Many names of divine beings from the old religion were remembered in Christian times in both Scandinavian and Irish sources, but it is difficult to establish how many of these names are ancient ones unless we find them in early inscriptions or recognize them in place-names. We may be helped by iconographical sources, such as the memorial stones of Gotland discussed in the last chapter, which provide evidence for the cult of Odin in the Viking Age in eastern Scandinavia, and support imagery from skaldic poetry concerned with the deaths of kings and heroes. Odin himself, however, remains an elusive figure, as he proved himself to be in tales of his visits to the mortal world, and even if his eight-legged horse appears on the stones, we cannot be sure that the rider is Odin himself (p. 33). The same is true of various riding warriors from the Migration Period, depicted in stone or metalwork, which have been identified with the god (Kuhn 1938) (Figure 8). The rider shown on one of the helmets from a grave at Vendel in Sweden, dating from the period before the Viking Age, with an eagle and raven flying above him, and a spear in his hand, seems likely to be a representation of Odin (Davidson 1965:24) (Figure 9), but even here the position is complicated by possible influences from pictures of warrior saints from southern Europe. There is no simple road to establish the identity of supernatural figures in early art, but it may be helpful to consider some of the attempts that have been made.
