Today if one thinks of either elves or dwarves, the first thing to come to mind is likely to be the works of J.R.R Tolkien. Thanks to him, fantasy fiction goes hand in hand with elves and dwarves...
Archaeologists in Sweden have unearthed what they are calling a “one of its kind” Thor’s Hammer amulet. Loki's lies, Odin’s staff and Thor’s hammer (Mjölnir) are well known archetypes of Norse...
The Viking universe was a complicated one. It was made up of nine different realms. Different realms were home to different races, and each had different themes. Of all the races, humans were the...
In Norse mythology, the cosmos consisted of nine realms. Some realms we know a lot about, others remain largely a mystery. Jotunheim, the land of the frost giants, is one of the better-recorded...
Jörmungandr, the world serpent, was an integral part of Norse mythology. Throughout history, he has been portrayed as a key villain in Norse mythology and arch nemesis of Thor, the god of thunder...
Did you know that many words we use today such as “husband,” “happy,” and “egg” are of Old Norse origin? No? Well, this isn’t surprising, as in the minds of many people the Vikings were nothing but a...
The Viking era (800 -1066 AD) is arguably one of the most fascinating in history. Runriket, or the Rune Kingdom, is a unique archaeological area in Sweden, containing more than a hundred runestones...
A team of excavators at an archaeological dig in Chur, Switzerland have unearthed a 1000-year-old double-sided mold that was used to forge Christian jewellery . Or was it? The unusual double-sided...
In 2014, archaeologists solved a long-running mystery through the discovery of a 10th century Viking artifact resembling Thor’s Hammer. Before then, they were only working with a hunch about the 1,...
The Vikings used many symbols in accordance to Norse mythology. Such symbols were widely used in Viking society and they represented elements of their beliefs and myths. There are even some Viking...
In archaeology, anything from the past can be of great importance, including artifacts that may seem rather small and unremarkable at first glance. For example, archaeologists have just announced the...
About 1000 years ago, paganism was practically stamped out in Iceland, while Christianity was ushered in. But Nordic neopaganism, under the name of Ásatrúarfélagið (sometimes called Asatru), has now...
The winged helmet is a type of helmet that is found in mythology as well as history. In the realm of mythology, such helmets are associated with the Greek god Hermes (known also as Mercury by the...
Thor is one of the most important gods in the Norse pantheon. He’s normally depicted as a middle-aged man with a red-beard wielding his famous weapon, a magical hammer known as Mjollnir...
The Roman weekday ‘dies Veneris’ was named after the planet Venus, which in turn took its name from Venus, goddess of love. The origins of our days of the week lie with the Romans. The Romans named...
BY THORNEWS In the beginning there were only native forests and wasteland. The Aesirs, one main group of Norse gods, cleared places to stay, both for themselves and the humans. They named the human’s...