ABSTRACT
Evidence that needs to be kept separate from the recorded myths concerning the gods is that which has to do with the religious practices of the pre-Christian northern world, concerning the worship of the gods and cult rituals in which the rulers, individual worshippers or the people in general took part. Various written sources tell us something of such religious practices in the Viking Age, with occasional glimpses further back in time, and such evidence must be joined with that obtained from archaeology, artefacts and iconography to fill some of the gaps in our knowledge of the past. Since much of the literary evidence was recorded in Christian monasteries, we face the usual difficulties of possible misunderstandings and prejudice; we have to remember also that those genuinely interested in the religion of the old gods could have been influenced by what they had read of heathen deities in the Old Testament or in writers like Virgil. For instance, there is little archaeological evidence for elaborate temples in preChristian Scandinavia, and some literary descriptions may have, therefore, to be discounted as unlikely to be based on genuine tradition. What are we to make of Adam of Bremen’s description of the temple at Uppsala, written in the eleventh century? (O.Olsen 1966:116 ff.). His account of the figures of the gods there is of great interest, but a note added to the text (scholium 139) tells us:
A golden chain goes round the temple. It hangs over the gable of the building and sends its glitter far off to those who approach it, because the shrine stands on level ground with mountains all about it like an amphitheatre.
