All of this, plus the many indications of certain similarities between the Norse Sagas and Christian myths and morality, indicates that the stories Snorre wrote down were modified, either by Snorre or his sources, to better fit in with the prevailing religious edicts of 13'th century Iceland, as the Roman priests wanted it told.

 One of the sagas Snorre wrote down, the Ynglinge Saga, is quite different from the others. Although still living in Asgard, the abode of the gods in the other sagas, Snorre and his companions are now mortal men. Asgard is located to the vicinity of Tanais, a well known tradepost on the Don river near present day Rostov, close to the Sea of Azov on the mainland of Asia Minor. It is also hinted at that Odin and his tribe originally came from Troy, a walled city which by then had been a forgotten ruin for nearly two and a half millennium, when Snorre transcribed this saga from various verbal sources. He mainly got his material for the Ynglinge Saga from the bard Tjodolf of Kvine, who wrote it down in verses for his king, Harald the Fair-haired, son of Halvdan the Black, in ca. 920 CE. Harald was the first known king in Norse history to seriously attempt to unify all of the Norwegian earldoms and minor kingdoms into one single kingdom. His pedigree, which the Ynglinge Saga records in some detail, was immaculate: He was the direct descendant of Niord and Frey, and was to become the last ruling king of the direct Ynglinga bloodline.

 Tjodolfs Ynglingatal was later also polished and expanded upon by another one of this bloodline, the young priest Are Frode Torgilsson (1067-1148). In his genealogy he records the Ynglinga family line of kings, starting with Yngve 'the Turc', father of Niord, and proceed for 40 generations, ending with himself. Counting back, using the then common average lifespan of 30 years, we arrive at the year 100 BCE, plus-minus a generation, as the likely beginning of the Ynglinge Saga, and the reign of the legendars king Yngve �the Turc� (�the Turc� was a common title for kings in Asia Minor and southern Russia, two millennia ago).

   This is the starting point of a new book, based on many years of source material studies withing archaeology, history and pagan religions. A book that reveals the origins of the Norse people, the location of the fabled Vanaheim, the possible origin of the Runic alphabet and much, much more. Have a look at the short version of the chapters:

< Chapter 1: From the body of Ymir and the milk of Audhumbla

Chapter 2: The Trojan connection

Chapter 3: Amason warriors and Greek traders

Chapter 4: A visit to Asgard and Vanaheim

Chapter 5: Mother Earth and Father Sun

Chapter 6: Odin, Prince of Troy

Chapter 7: Freya, Volvewitch and Valkyrje

Chapter 8: Odin's travels to the north

Chapter 9: Gefjon's plowland

Chapter 10: Black Sea/Baltic Sea Connections


 
 

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Chapter one of this, my book on the prehistoric history, culture and religions of Scandinavia, presents an outline of the various contemporary sources and historical clues which  corroborate the first parts of the Ynglinge Saga, mainly viewed as mythology by most historians. Some believe that this part of the saga was just a mythologial �fairy tale�, added to the later, verifiable, genealogy of the royal succession in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. My own sources, in my investigation about the veracity of these stories, have mainly been Tacitus' Germania (98 CE), Strabon's Geografika (25 BCE), Jordanes history History of the Goths (ca. 6th century), and descriptions of the paganism in Sweden by sources like the Turkish envoy Ibn Fadlan and later Christian clergy visiting Christianized Denmark in the time between 800 and 1100 CE. I have also found some supportive material in the map from the Arab traveler al-Idrisi, and in material from local historians in Georgia and Ukraina. In all of this material have I found clues which substantiate or even confirm the story told in the first verses of the Ynglinge saga. Thus it can rightly be said to be legends, and not myths.

 One curious tale, not expounded upon, was that Odin and his tribe of Aes originally came from Troy, and settled near Tanais, a way up the Don river, in today's Russia. Various other sources collaborate this, saying that a tribe of warriors called the Aes came into the Mare Moetis, later renamed the Sea of Aes, the Iron Sea, or the Sea of the Iron People, about 3000 years ago.
 The stories, other than Homer's Iliad, about the final days of Troy also describes how, after the Greek kings sacked Troy, the remaining Trojans emigrated. A half of them, led by their legendary king Aieneas, went up the Danube river and crossed overland into Italy, there to establish the Etruscan culture and the city of Rome, after establishing their kingdom along the Tiber river. The remaining Trojans, mainly warriors, 12.000 people in all, went north to Tanais, and established a kingdom the Romans called Sicambria («The history of the Franks», 720 CE). Here they built their famous fortified city, the 'Walled city of the Aes', known as Asgard, also described in the sagas as 'Troy in the north'. (See Europe 2500 BCE for details)

 To fully substantiate the early parts of the Ynglinge Saga, another people also had to be located, called the Vanir, who were supposed to be a neighboring people in the land between the Caucasus mountains and the Don river. They fought many battles with the Aes, and they were victorious often enough so that a final truce were made, in which the Aes and the Vanir exchanged peace hostages of high-ranking members of their tribes. The Vanir hostages sent to the Aes were Njord, and his two children Frey and Freya, probably accompanied by a contingent of Amazon warriors.

 The name Vani was easily found, both the name of a lake in north-eastern Anatolia and of a well known ruin village in Georgia, in the area known as Colchis in 1100 BCE, at the time when these events were supposed to take place. But neither the Hettite�s, the Frygian�s nor the Colchidian�s were likely candidates for the Vanir, since they all lived south of the Caucasus range, and also seemed to have incompatible cultures.
 On the northern slopes of the mountains, however, there lived a well known and powerful people, called Suannies by the Greek and the Svani by the Colchidians. Their land, Svaneti, also bordered the land of the Amazons, in the north-east Caucasus, and that of the Aes people in the north.
 The Svani had become rich and powerful partly because they were well protected from marauders by nature, living in a fertile land surrounded by immense forests, wide rivers and high mountains, easily defended against intruders. But also because they had discovered, in their mountains, easily mined deposit of the only known naturally alloyed copper. Alloyed with antimony and arsen, this copper was nearly as strong as bronze, and for more than a millennium, the Svani bronze was the dominating metal of the Caucasus region, used as weapons, tools and ornaments.
 The Svani also had a culture of matrilineal inheritance, were land and houses passed from mother to daughter, and it was a religion in which the worship of a Mother Goddess, a water goddess and a love goddess was prominent. And in their culture, fertility symbols like the horns of oxen and bucks, strange-looking axes and certain figurines were also prominent. All of these cultural and religious clues could be matched to archaeological finds in Denmark and Sweden, dating back 2000 years, when a new culture became prominent in Scandinavia.
 I found no other local people or culture more suitable than the Svani to fit the role of the Vanir, as much from their religious and cultural traits, as for their power to fight the Aes on equal terms. And it seems feasible that the word Svani could change into �Vani in another dialect.

In chapter two, I explore the history of Troy, to see what clues could be found there to collaborate the legends that Odin and his Aes warriors had their cultural roots here. Nothing much was found, other than the possibility that the Aes were of Thracian descendance, that Troy had been a 'pirate' stronghold, and the fact that a 'temple' or meeting hall of the Trojan priesthood had 3 rows of stone seats, 12 in all, facing the 13th, meant for the king or high priest. But it also established the fact that the Trojans were early users of iron weapons, rode horses and were undoubtedly of Indo-European stock. It also revealed the curious fact that, after the Trojans were sacked by the Greeks in around 1260 BCE, many of them remained, living in the ruins for nearly 70 years, before they peacefully packed up everything moveable and left, and a large contingent of Thracians, later known as the Phrygians, moved in. Of at least 30.000 people, hardly a trace was left. Unless we accept that they all moved, to settle, half by the Tiber estuary, the other half by the Don river estuary, as a likely explanation. Because this is the story we are told by various sources, Etruscan, Merovingian, Roman - and by the Scandinavians.

 In this chapter I also compare the various tales about Troy, and the interpretation of Trojan history, as told by Homer, Schliemann and, most recently, the American Prof. C.W. Blegen.

In chapter three I take the readers through the geography and ancient history of the Caucasus region and the cultures of the peoples living along the shores of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, as well as on the Pontian plains, stretching north-east, bracketed by the Don, the Volga, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus mountain range. These plains were horserider country, populated by peoples known as the Pontians, the Thraco-Cimmerians and the Alans in those far distant times. The Thraco-Cimmerians were supposedly Thracians, who had moved here from the Thracian domains along the Danube. They were also the mortal enemies of the Schytians, who dominated the western shores of the Don and the plains beyond, known as Ukraine today.
 On the isolated peninsula of Crimea, also in this area, lived a strong and independent people, believed by some to be the Cimmerians, who seemed to be the origins of a warrior tribe, later to be feared all over north eastern Europe, and by the Romans, known as the Heruls, Eruls or Erilar. They are often described as berserkers, who went into battle stark naked, often without shields, not turning back and not fearing death. Jordanes and other sources tell us that the Heruls used to live on Selund, the Danish island of Sjaelland, in the last century BCE.  This island is the same that has housed the royal family of Denmark for 2 millennia.  He also writes that a tall, blond people, called the Daner, chased the Heruls out of Selund and, eventually, Denmark. The Heruls then, gradually, returned to their ancestral land Crimea, and in the 2nd century they built a fleet of 500 sailing ships and terrorized all of the lands and peoples of the Black Sea and parts of the Mediterranean, even the Romans. (See map of Vanaland)

 These lands, on the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea, I generally call �the Caucasus region. In the south, this region bordered to Colchis and Anatolia, in the east to Iran and the Assyrians, in the north to Russia, and in the west to the domain of the Schytians. The whole of this region was a kind of a �cross-road� in ancient times, vital for the trade to the north and to the east, by the rivers Don and Volga, across the Caspian Sea or across the plains of the Saramatians in the north-east, the Taiga. Thus both the Greeks, and later the Romans, dominated this region and established many trading outposts and military garrisons on these coasts.
 The Assyrian Ashshurisua relates, in a letter to his king Sargon II (722-705 BCE) that it was the Cimmerians who ruled the land of north-west Caucasus, and he is supported in this by Herodotus, Strabo and Aeschylus. Homer calls these lands Kimbrian, including Crimea, but the Kimber arrived her much later. (Se map for details)

 The historian Chirovsky describes how the Thraco-Cimmerians arrived in this region, at around 1100 BCE, and how they soon must have dominated the Taman plains, the lands along the eastern shores of the river Don and the woods and marshes south, to the Kuban river. These people were called �Aes� locally, according to Chirovsky.
 In another part of history, the Roman emperor Valentiniaus (364-375 CE) was fighting the local Alans, and sought the help of local �Trojans� to pursue them into the marshes of the eastern shores of the Black Sea. So even then, the locals still remembered their ancient heritage.

In chapter four I attempt to align these stories and facts with the sagas of Snorre and others, in an attempt to substantiate that Asgard and Vanaheim could indeed have been located in this region, from 1100 years BCE to at least as long as 70 BCE. As part of the substantiation for the factual nature of Snorre�s descriptions, I include a map by the Arab geographer al-Idrisi, drawn around 1100 CE, where a place called Truija is clearly indicated, not far from a lake, east of Tanais.
 This is what Snorre wrote (Strophe 1): «On the north side of the Black Sea lies Greater Svitjod, also called The Clod Svitjod (Russia) ... From the mountains in the north, beyond all habituated land, a river borders Svitjod; by its right name it is called Tanais (Don), earlier it was called Tanakvisl or Vanakvisl, it falls into the sea inside of the Black Sea (Sea of Azov). The lands around Vanakvisl was then called Vanaland (Land of the Vanir) or Vanaheim (Home of the Vanir). This river divides the continents; the land to the east is called Asia (Asia Minor), and the land to the west Europe. The land to the east of Tanakvisl in Asia was called Asaland (Land of the Aesir) or Asaheim (Home of the Aesir), and the main castle in this land was called Aesgard.»
 In Strophe 2 he says: «One they called Odin was the Lord in this castle, and it was a place where great sacrifices to the gods took place. It was their custom that twelve hovgoder (priests) should be the highest in authority, they should take care of the blots (offerings) and they should judge between people; they were called Diar (gods) or Drotner (warlords); these twelve the people should serve and show obedience.»

 The stories written down by Snorre are great tales of heroes and glory, of an aggressive and very masculine culture where kings, earls and local warlords fight for land and glory. And even if it is clear that this Odin was never omnipotent or even immortal, he is depicted as a mighty ruler who used magic and wisdom to win over his adversaries. Apart from Freya, however, the Ynglinge Saga has few powerful feminine counterpart to this Odin and the other male leaders.
 But from stories told by other historians, some of them contemporaries of the time Snorre�s saga describes, we know that the early Scandinavians also worshipped Goddesses. This is also corroborated by archaeological finds of recent times. And the early parts of the Ynglinge Saga describes two very powerful women, the other one the Valkyrje Gevjon, who won Sweden and Denmark for Odin, by peaceful means, not battle.
 Also from Snorre�s saga, we know that the culture of the Vanir was quite different from that of the Aesir. And it is a striking revelation that the three Vanir hostages became part of the Aesir Diar, and that Njord and Frey later inherited the royal title after Odin, not one of the sons of Odin, like Thorr.

In chapter five, I am comparing some of the details of what we know about the religions of Scandinavia, 100 BCE to ca. 550 CE, of the goddesses Freya and Nerthus (the latter one only mentioned once by Tacitus, and found in no other source), and the culture of these centuries, with the knowledge I have been able to unearth about the religions, goddesses and cultures from the centuries prior to that, in the Caucasus region.
 The three known goddesses venerated by the Svani of Caucasus were called Itrujani, Danana and Ainina. They also venerated a goddess/god couple called Ga and Gatsi, assumed to be their old Mother Goddess and son the God, similar in function to Gaea and Uranous, Cybele and Dionysos or Maia and Hermes.
 The three goddesses seem to be local variations of some well known goddesses in Asia Minor; like Ishtar, Anahit and Diana, covering the divine aspects of fertility, love/sex and war respectively.

 Danana was also known as Danae or Dana, daughter of the Sumerian goddess Belili, and probably an early form of Diana, mother of Persevs by Zeus himself. Aspects of all three can actually be found in the stories about Freya. And since 'Freya' means 'Lady', I suggest that the Caucasian Svani who came to Denmark over 2000 years ago were called 'Daner', as they worshipped the goddess Dana in particular, and that 'Freya' was their name, either publicly used for The Lady, or a title used for the High Priestess in their religion, a priestess who continued the ancient practice of 'temple prostitution' so common in the ancient goddess religions of Asia Minor. And that they practiced, as well, a form of dynastic and ritual marriage to their brothers, quite natural in a culture of matrilineal inheritance, as Snorre tells us was the normal practice among the Vanir.

 I also bring up again the fact that, as the three Vanir Njord, Freya and Frey are always described as divine in all other written material, the Ynglinge Saga claim that they, as well as Odin and the Asar, were mere mortals. This, too, has an obvious explanation, as there is a lot of precedents for the fact that many cultures of those times practiced ancestor worship. The Schytian worship of king Skolo as their god is just one such example.
 There is, however, another possible explanation too: It is commonly known that Frey and Freya can mean Lord and Lady, and thus could have been titles, not mere names. Njord and Nerthus, too, can be translated as 'fertility' or 'power of growth'. It is less known that 'Odin' could be read as 'O Don', meaning 'The Great Father' in the local dialect of Caucasus at the time. Thus �Odin� may have been an hereditary title for the king of the Asar peoples, similar to Caesar and Rex in function.

 I further discuss the description of a spring fertility ritual, given by Tacitus, where he writes that Nerthus, the Earth Goddess, entered a wagon each year, located on an island, that she was covered by a veil, and then driven around to the villages by her priest, the wagon pulled by oxen or cows. This same type of ritual can be found, with some variations, around the goddess Minakshi in the ancient Dravidian religion, around Bona Dea among the Phrygians and with the goddess Maia among the Greek. The time of year she was venerated in this way was at the very beginning of spring, called Bel-taine among the Celts.

 Freya is the only Norse goddess who is the equal of the other gods in Valhall, and her wild, promiscuous lust is often commented upon, both in awe and to spite her. Seen in the perspective of the fertility religion(s) of Asia Minor, her sexuality would, however, be one of the most important of her various functions. The High Priestesses of those religions were, quite literally, the altars of fertility, and copulation with the priest, or king, or priest-king, was the very focus of their spring fertility rituals.
 Descriptions, in a poetic form, of such ritual copulation has been found in the Sumerian city-state of Erech, on clay tablets over 5000 years old, describing how Inanna and her half-god consort Dumuzi made the land fertile by ritual copulation. Similar verses have been found on Crete, dated back more than 3500 years. Such copulation between a divinity and a mortal, or indeed two mortals who have taken the gods within them, is commonly called 'Hieros Gamos', or the Holy Marriage.

 One form of the sacred marriage was routinely practised in prehistoric times, in many European cultures, where the king was not only a warlord, but also a High Priest of the sacred rites. To be rightfully consecrated as a priest-king, he would have to perform the ritual of sacred marriage with a High Priestess of the land, and preferably make her pregnant, to assure the prosperity and fertility of the land. Only then would he be ready to be salved as a priest and rightfully pronounced as king.
 In the beginning of the reign of the Asar and Vanir, later known as the Svear and the Daner, in Scandinavia, it was the women of the Sami people, also known as the Finns or the Jotnir, who had this role. In the Ynglinge Saga, we can read that one generation of Ynglinge kings after the other had sons with Sami women, the most famous of them all being Snefrid, who became the wife of the legendary Harald the Fair-haired, the first king in historical times to gather all of the Norwegian earl- and kingdoms under one leadership, for a while.
 It can be speculated if the Sami people, who were the aboriginal people of Scandinavia, through this interbreeding with the Ynglinga royal bloodline, would not have a greater claim to the Norwegian and Swedish throne than those presently on it!

 The chapter ends with a presentation of the Schytians and their culture, which was the dominant brand of Indo-European cultures in Europe, 2000 years ago. The Schytians were ancestor-worshipping, patriarchal warriors. Their chief god-king ancestor was their ancient king Skolo, who had received their four holy relics from the gods: the yoke, the plow, the sword and the cup, each a symbol of a class within their society. The yoke was the symbol of the slaves, man or animal. The plow was the symbol of the farmer. The sword was the symbol of the warrior, and the cup was the symbol of the priesthood and the royalty, who were all of the same bloodline.

 As the Aesir people belonged to a similar culture as the Scythians, probably the Thracian, and it is still a bit of a mystery why it was not the bloodline of Odin who became the rulers of Scandinavia after him, but that of the Vanir. Whether myth or legend, it is told that Odin had many sons, most of who he placed as rulers of their occupied land in Saxony, and these cultures were usually fanatic about their male succession to kingship. But when he came to Scandinavia, he gave Zealand (and Denmark) to a female, the Valkyrje Gevjon, as well as his son Skiold in marriage. And when he died, it was the Vanir hostage Njord, and not his son Thor, who became the ruler of the Svear, and his son Frey after that, descendants of legendary Yngve, father of Njord, from which the name 'Ynglingane' is derived. The male succession of this Vanir bloodline then ruled Scandinavia for over 900 years

In chapter six I take a closer look at Odin, acclaimed prince of Troy, ruler of the Asir people, king of the Svear and supreme god of the mythical Asgard; feared magician, able poet and warrior, legendary chieftain and supreme conqueror of northern Europe. King and High Priest in the Asatru belief, who had elected Freya, of the Vanir, to be his High Priestess (and no doubt his mistress).

 The only extant source of material treating Odin as a historical person, rather than just a mythic figure, is the Ynglinge Saga, describing to us the bloodline of the Ynglinga kings. Why would it be their story, and none other, which should tell the heroic history of Great Odin, the mortal but fabled king of the Aesir, prince of Troy and ruler of Aesgard?
 The sagas, collected by Snorre and others, were heroic verbal myths and legends, told around the campfires and probably enacted during the rites of the Scandinavian people for over a thousand years. For one thing, they probably contain (or contained!) more historical information than what is usually considered. But myths and legends often become highly stylized as the years go by, and gets injected with current moral, religious and political material, either injected by the bards to please their kings, or by the kings to instruct their people. To give but one example: If we accept that the Jotnir people, the mortal enemies of the Aesir gods (even though their daughters were highly coveted), were actually the Sami people, then the incessant struggle between the Aesir and the Jotnir could actually be a semi-historical account of a territorial struggle for the north-western parts of Scandinavia.
 Sadly, the sagas we know were mostly penned down long after the verbal tradition had lost much of its significance, as the religious tradition the bards had belonged to had been a capital crime for five generations at least, at the time of their writing. The Christian Vikings, never known to prefer words before the sword, reputedly killed all people they found who still practiced the ancient rites, with fanatical enthusiasm.
 Also, most of the saga chroniclers themselves were devout Christians, some of them clergy, trained and educated by Roman priests. So, if analyzed with a critical eye, the sagas are full of Christian moralism and symbolism. So it is necessary to be very critical about what one accepts as genuinely Aesir or Vanir traditions and beliefs.
 Was Odin 'the Allfather' really the sacred leader of 12 'disciples'? Or is this a more resent Christian construction, to make it easier for those of the old beliefs to embrace the new religion? Another possibility is, of course, that both the Asatru and Christianity were inspired from the same source. In the Indo-Iranian religious traditions, the supreme Allfather king, son of the Sun God, nearly (but not fully) immortal, omnipotent, omniscient, virile and invincible, were the religious ideal of the Indo-Europeans: Horned, horny, blood-sacrificing warrior-god, bringing the iron sword and the cross into Europe on his horse or in his ship: The Supreme Male Conqueror.

 Yet it would be unfair to class the Aesir religion totally with such a stereotype, and wrong to see their religious practice to be only feasting in Valhalla, fighting on Idavollen, horses heads on stakes, swords, runes and Ragnarok.
 The Asatru religion had, and have, both a creational myth and a life philosophy, as well as a magical-religious description of reality. From what we know, and what we can derive, it is clear that the Asatru has developed from a religious tradition much older than Christianity. Some historians claim that Asatru may have developed from the same roots as Hinduism, from sources developed by the ancient Dravidian Vedas of India. I personally find some of this speculation a bit far fetched, but not totally incredible.
 Elements like the Tree of Life, Yggdrasil, and the snake Nidhogg which guards it, is a theme found in other ancient religions, as symbols for goddesses! One of the oldest stories we have of Lilith, the Sumerian variant of Kali, inscribed over 4000 years ago, can tell us that Lilith was the helper of Inanna. She lived in a large tree, with a huge snake coiled around its base, and a large eagle nesting in its crown, just like the Yggdrasil of the Aesir.
 Also, the myths about how Odin found the runes, and how he lost his one eye to gain wisdom, and his relationship to the old Norner, are also stories which can be traced to similar stories in ancient goddess religions. And some researchers of the Sami religion have found several similarities between the three Norner, and stories and traditions among the Sami.

 It is not my intention, and certainly not within my present skill, to provide a fair and comprehensive description of the Asatru belief. But it is necessary for the scope of my book to look at and present my own views on the old Asatru religious practices, such as we can find them described.
 One surviving description, from when the Asatru was still the religious focus of the Svear, has been left us by bishop Adam of Bremen, in the year 1075, where he gives a detailed account of the main temple in Uppsala, Sweden, near the Svear capitol of Sigtuna. His is a second hand account, and was probably interpreted in the light of his Christian beliefs.
 In this temple, he says, are three statues of their supreme deities: In the middle sits Thor, god of the air, the weather and thunderstorms. On his one side sits Wodan, god of war and courage, and on the other Fricco, god of peace and prosperity, endowed with a huge phallus.
 This is somewhat in contrast with the accounts of Tacitus, also recording second or third hand accounts, but predating Adam by a thousand years. He claims that the Daner worshipped Merkur (Odin), Hercules (Thor) and Mars (Tyr), while the Svear also sacrificed to Isis (Freya or Nerthus).

 Seen from the perspective of our current knowledge of Pagan religions, it seems that Odin would be representative of the element Air, Thor of Fire, Njord of Water and Nerthus of Earth. And it would hardly be correct to rank the old Norse pantheon of gods, like the Christians and the Romans were wont to do. From what we know of old Norse religious practice, different tribes and classes of people worshipped one god as their chief benefactor, but gave offerings to the other gods as their needs arose. The remnants of such practices can still be found, and some are still in use, across Scandinavia, like the Vanir standing stone at Vere in southern Norway, believed to bring luck to fishermen, and phallic symbols representing a link to Frey, believed to bestow fertility upon women and virility upon men.

 It is another curious fact that while it is a general practice, in the sagas, to claim the existence of 12 Asgard gods, besides Odin, the Ynglinge Saga names only seven. Neither Loki, Brage, Idun, Tyr nor Heimdal are named, nor even hinted at.
 Of all the Asatru godnames, only Tyr can be verified as a genuine Indo-European name, and he seemed to be of particular importance among the Goths and Visigoths. Being a god of war and justice, his name became synonymous with courage.
 Frey, who became very popular in Sweden in particular, was the supreme symbol of male virility and the power to make the land (and the women) fertile. He is clearly derived from the same tradition as the Sumerian and Babylonian Tammus and Dumuzi, the Greek Pan Priapus and the Roman Faunus. He is also strongly connected to peace and prosperity.

 Njord is known as the Elder of the Vanir, and as Odin's successor as priest-king ruler of the Svear. He is also said to have been wed to his own sister, presumably Nerthus, with whom he fathered Freya and Frey. Among the Aesir he accepted their incest taboo, and tried to marry a Jotnir woman, Skade, believed by some to be a witch (presumably a female Sami shaman). In his divine aspect, Njord was a god of the seas, navigation and wealth, and he is clearly connected in spirit to the Roman Neptune  and the Etruscan Nethuns.

 Odin is a curious symbol for a supreme god, in that he was not omnipotent, nor even truly immortal, with a character full of flaws, and it is a safe bet that his position as the 'Jesus' of the Asatru is something that have been heavily bolstered by the Christian saga chroniclers. In the Ynglinge Saga, as well as in some other sagas, he is described as somewhat of a trickster, and as an accomplished magician and shape-shifter. He was also a man of the letters, and knew how to wield the letters in Galdrer, the magical use of poetry. He was feared and respected for his powers, but some of his men viewed the use of magic and deception as unmanly, not worthy of a warrior.
 In this context, the Ynglinge Saga brings in another, rather surprising element: Namely that Odin trained his priestesses in these arts, and that they were second only to him in their wisdom and magical abilities. My assumption is that this is an historical record of the birth of the Volve tradition of Scandinavia.

 The ancient Asatru religion, as derived from these sources, appear to have had a priesthood of 12 diar, considered to be divine, led by a magician and warlock who was also a king of mortals. And, as described, this priest-king was assisted by a High Priestess, a Freya, in his rites, who was in charge of the sacrifices (if not actually the altar, as in the ancient tradition of Asia Minor).

 A main focus of their religion was their Dis-ting, held every 9th year in the early spring, at the full Moon or March, were the high point was sacrifices made to the gods. Interestingly enough, the Diser were divine female spirits.
 The Disting were held at �Hov's�, the homes of greater earls and kings, called 'hov-dinger', and chief among these Hov�s were Sigtuna and Falun in Sweden, Lejre (Roskilde) in Denmark and Moere and Lade in Norway, all of them well known cultic centers in Scandinavia.
 Such a 'Ting' had several functions, not only religious. It was the occasion when laws were made and agreed upon by all, when complaints were lodged and lawbreakers judged - and often summarily punished, some by hanging or forced exile, all their wealth forfeit. It was also the time and place for the earl, the �herse� (local kings) or regional kings to be appointed, judged or deposed by their people - or given a vote of confidence. It is told that kings even have been sacrificed at Dis-tings, in order to save the land and the peace.
 The sacrifices they used are described by some sources, and is claimed to have been 9 male specimen of animal. We know that horses were sacrificed in later times, the blood filled into bowls and then sprinkled onto all participants and the walls of the Hov. The meat was then cooked and eaten, and none believe that they just drank milk. Honey-mead was reportedly their favorite drink.

 In some of the sagas, like in Gylvaginning, it is told that there was a particular hill, a 'Horg' in Asgard, a holy hill, where the �Gydjer�, the priestesses, did their particular rites. This was also a tradition in the �real' world, where holy hills where named after goddesses and used for religious rites. This was so widespread in Scandinavia that the early Christian rulers wrote specific laws to prohibit the worship of pagan gods on hilltops.
 Foreign observers, as well as Christian lawmakers, also describe the use, in the Viking times, of carved wooden totempoles and figurines, called 'stav og stalle'. According to the sources, like the Turkish envoy Ibn Fadlân (who was kidnapped by the Rus and brought to Sweden in 922), these carvings could be a large totempole with human faces carved into it, or small figurines they called the gods children. To keep such figurines about the house was also forbidden by law, when the Christians took over power.

 Yet another interesting fact, where the saga stories coincide with the archaeological finds, are the changes in the Nordic burial practices. Both Odin and Njord were burnt, as were all the other high-ranking Aesir nobles, according to the Ynglinge Saga, while Frey was buried in an elaborately built stone chamber, covered by a mound. The question is if this was indicative of a religious change of beliefs, or if burning was the norm among the Aesir, while the Vanir practiced burials? Archaeological evidence from all over Europe and Asia Minor, as well as from eastern Russia, indicates that 'Kurgan' graves were used by the nobles in the most advanced cultures, while burning, and the deposit of the remains in urn�s, called 'Urnefeldt graves', were the more common practice among farm cultures, which indeed is not very helpful.

 Frey's reign in Sigtuna as the king of the Svear is recalled as a time of peace and prosperity. He has been remembered as 'Folkvaldi', 'the peoples choice', and his reign as 'Frode fred', the 'peace of Frode'. Where he was buried, if indeed there was ever a human king called Frey, is unknown, but the most spectacular of Swedish Kurgan graves, the Kivik burial in Skone, is worthy of a king as he. The grave was robbed, so nothing much remained inside it, but it is the largest, most impressive grave in all of Scandinavia, its mound nearly 80 meters in diameter. Inside, a stone 'coffin' is beautifully crafted and decorated, made of stone slabs, ten of them around the 4 by 1 meter box and 3 as its lid. Seven of the ten are carved on the inside with a skill not found elsewhere, depicting Odins-wheels, ships, robed men, Grusian axes, horse-drawn carriages and religious ceremonies.

 Freya continued to be in charge of the blots after her brother died, and was then still the religious leader of the Svear, but no account is given about how she was buried. Frey's son Fjolne became the new king, but even if the peace and prosperity continued after his fathers death, Fjolne is best remembered as the king who drowned in his brother Frode's beer vat, on a visit to Zealand.
 Fjolne's son Sveigde was unremarkable, except for the story that he returned to the land of �Odin the Old�, then went to Vanaheim, where he married the woman Vana, who bore him the son Vanlande. Vanlande then proceeded to make Driva, the daughter of a Finn (or Sami) woman called Snow the Old, pregnant, then abandoning her. He was cursed by a 'Sejdwoman', a witch, and died horribly. Since then, the 'Frode peace' ended for a long while, and the Ynglinga descendants engaged in both fratricide and patricide to satisfy their greed. And then we have only reached the second century CE.

 What may have been the last reigning king of direct bloodline decent from Yngve and Njord was Harald the Fair-haired, whose bard it was who first wrote the genealogy of the Ynglingar, Ynglingatal. His grandmother Aasa, mother of Halvdan the Black, may have been one of the last
practicing High Priestesses of the old Vanir faith. She was known and feared as a witch and practitioner of magic, and also feared for her willpower and decisiveness. She is reputed to have been buried in the Aasa Mound, now known as �Ose-berg�, in the famous Oseberg ship, the most spectacular burial ship found in Scandinavia. Inside this was found two women, one of them obviously a queen, and with her was found the Oseberg wagon, second only in splendor to the Dejbjerg wagon from Denmark. As that one, the two front wheels could not turn, so the four-wheel wagon could only go in a straight line - at a time with hardly any roads fir for wagons. Again, the rites Tacitus described springs to mind.

 700 years after the death of Vanlande, Christianity had reached northern Germany, and its followers were fiercely competing with those of the pagan faiths, backed by the power, wealth and army of Rome.
 The Roman attempts to Christianize Scandinavia started with the Vatican warlord and butcher Charlemagne, but he never got as far as Denmark. The Danes had watched this Vatican champion with growing concern, as his army cut and burnt their way through Saxony, and the stream of refugees increased. In one day alone, in northern Saxony, Charlemagne and his army forcibly baptized and beheaded over 4000 Saxons, so the Danes knew well what was in store for them. They answered by fortifying all access roads into Denmark from Saxony, and then answered the violence of the Vatican army by attacking the high command outposts of the Roman Church in northern Europe. Best known among these are the Lindisfarne monastery, a vital link between the French and the British throne (and their armies), which was raided by the Scandinavian Vikings in 793 CE.

 The first missionaries to reach the Svear arrived in 829, but it would take another 150-170 years before most of Scandinavia were under the Vatican yoke, and the Asatru and Vanatru religions had been made illegal. The last Asatru king to ever hold a blot in Sweden was Blote-Sven, in 1084, before he was murdered, and the great hall of Sigtuna burnt down by Christian forces, led by close kin to the Swedish king, in the year 1087. Thus ended the religious traditions which had prevailed for 1100 year in Scandinavia, with brothers setting sword and torch against brothers; Cain and Abel reenacted.
 Norway had suffered the same fate nearly a hundred years earlier, by the swords of the �Olav kings�, Olav Trygvasson and Olav Haraldsson, supported by the Danish king. The first Norwegian Christian law, The Gulatings Codices (by Haakon 'the good', ca. 955) forbade, under dire threats, all religious activities which were not permitted by the pope explicitly. In short succession, women lost their right to speak and vote at the Ting assemblies, lost their role as priestesses, lost most of their basic human rights, and was henceforth given a status just a little bit better than farm animals and slaves.

 Thus also ended the Scandinavian religious sovereignty, but certainly not the practice of Scandinavian Paganism. Brave women and men kept the old beliefs active, in one form or another, even through those dreadful centuries when the Church sacrificed thousands upon thousands of women and men to their vengeful and bloodthirsty Jehovah, whom they considered the only �true God�, condemning all other gods - and goddesses - as devils.
 As it was stated in the old law-books of the first Norwegian Christians, ca. 1200: «If a man makes offerings to the heathen gods, or do divinations, or let such activities take place in his house, then he is to be considered outside of the Law.» (Eldre Bjarkoyrett, Chapter 69). Meaning he had forfeited all his property and his citizenship. And in another: «No man shall keep in his house any form of the carved likeness of heathen gods, hold ritual offerings of any kind or indeed practice any form of heathen ritual or divination.» (Eidsivating Christian Law). The punishment was death, or exile, which could easily amount to the same.

In Chapter 7  I focus on the essence of the female power in Scandinavian paganism, mainly represented by Freya, the Valkyrjer and the Volver. As Freya was clearly the leader of the Valkyrjer and the teacher of the Volver, it all basically comes down to her, as the basic symbol of the feminine power in Scandinavian paganism. She is remembered most often as a love goddess, and her promiscuity was indeed the talk of Asgard in the old sagas. Loki claimed, and rightly so, that she fornicated with Jotner and dwarfs, as well as with her own brother. But Freya was clearly much more than a horny goddess, she was also a warrior and a High Priestess at the rites of the Aesar, in the true tradition of goddesses like Inanna, Ishtar and possibly Diana.
 One of my most important points is that 'Freya' was probably not the name of a person (any more than Frey, Njord, Nerthus, or Odin for that matter). Kings and religious leaders, even in our days, have a tendency to change their given name when they enter Office, taking the name of a famous predecessor instead, like the Norwegian king Haakon the Seventh, or Pope John Paul the Second. This was the norm in some religions, even 2000 years ago, and I believe it is much more correct to say 'The Freya', as a given title to the religious High Priestess of the Vanir. This is the simplest explanation for the fact that the sagas describe her, and the others, as both mortals and divine beings, and there is ample precedence for such a practice in ancient history - or even contemporary.

 Whether because of the general and noticeable male influence in the sagas, or because those who wrote down the sagas were Christians, Freya is often derided, and obviously feared, because of her lusty behavior and unfettered sexuality. Had she been just another bimbo, aiming to please all powerful men in her way, she wouldn't even have been mentioned. But this woman clearly has a great deal of power and influence. She is nearly Odin's equal, it seems, when it comes to wielding magic. And she's is understood to be the leader of the Valkyrjer.
 Now, the Valkyrjer are described, in sagas, other than the Ynglinge Saga, as young women with a double role; as their name implies ('val' means battlefield), they clearly had an important role on the battlefield, and in later pictures of them (the Oseberg tapestry), they were dressed for battle, in armor and with spears. But at Valhalla, it is said it was they who served the heroes, and were there mainly there to please the men.
 The Ynglinge Saga, however, tell another tale: The chief Valkyrje Gevjon (who some historians claim is just another name for Freya), was the chieftain chosen by Odin to lead the spearhead of his forces into Sweden. There she met with great success, and even managed to secure the island of Zealand, as well as southern Sweden for the Asar and the Vanir. In gratitude, she was given Odin's son Skiold to marry, and Zealand as a new homeland for her people, the Daner, by Odin himself. No mere barmaid, that women. Thus started a royal Daner bloodline, the Skioldungar (children of Skiold).

 Since I had discovered that the highly reputed women warriors known as the Amazons lived just east of the Vanir in the Caucasus mountains, and since the Amazons are reported to have taken part in battles far from their homeland, my theory is that the Valkyrjer may have been an Amazon honour guard - and a bodyguard - for the priesthood of the Vanir. As there are usually 9 Valkyrjer mentioned by name, I also assume that there were at least nine Amazon 'commanders' among the group of people who came to the Baltic from the Black Sea region. The Valkyrjer could thus have been a sort of selected elite Amazone guards, posted to the Vanir temple, similar in kind to the Vatican Swiss guard.

 As for the Volver, my theory here is that this class of women, sibyls and healers carrying a staff as their symbol (�volve� means �staff-bearer�, and reports of their activities describe such staffs), were powerful female magicians, greatly feared by the Christians, and later known as witches.
 The priests of the Roman State religion always feared strong and wise women greatly, suppressing them by any means they had, preferring to murder women as burning sacrifices to their God Jehovah, rather than accept and acknowledge true feminine power. The Volver were the vanguard of such women, high priestesses in some of the pagan religions of northern Europe until around 1100 CE, when the sword and fire had finally secured Scandinavia for the Roman Church.

 One of the last legends of the volver describes Thorbjorg, who came to Torkel the Farmer in Iceland around 1200, to foretell his fate. She came dressed like royalty, in furs and a blue robe, and carried a great staff, adorned with bronze and crystals.
 And in many graves in Denmark, women have been found with pouches and ornaments indicating that they may have been healers and sibyls.

 In this chapter I also take a closer look at the Maypole, one of the central religious symbols of the Scandinavian pagan religions which has survived through a thousand years of Christian domination. The maypole was made of a birch sapling, 4 to 5 meters tall, with all the branches removed, except few at the very top. It was traditionally cut by a group of young men, accompanied by a virgin. Meanwhile, a group of women made a circular wraith of bent and bound branches, decorated with flowers and colorful ribbons. Prior to the celebration, the two groups met, and the sapling was inserted into the circular wraith, and secured two thirds of the way up, before the sapling was raised and planted in a hole, in the middle of their ritual grounds.
 Some people believe that the may-pole was raised in the month of May, to celebrate the coming of spring, but this is a misunderstanding. The original Scandinavian word was not 'may-' but 'maj-', and 'to maje' means to sweep, or to make beautiful. And the tradition, which today is mostly observed in Sweden (but also by neo-pagans all over Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe), belongs to the celebration of Midsummer Eve.
 Midsummer, or quite often the 24. of June (St. John's Day), is widely celebrated all over Scandinavia, and is the most favored date for getting married. During the celebrations, men and women often dance around the maypole, singing songs, each holding a strand of ribbon, and by dancing in an intricate pattern, they weave the ribbons around the sapling, binding the female circle to the male pole.

 The ancient Scandinavian pagans celebrated several occasions during the course of a year, mostly defined by the changes of seasons. As their calendar, until the 9.th century CE, was based on the Lunar rather than the Solar year, solstices were not a main focus, except for the Yule and Summer Solstices. In the autumn and early winter, dates were aligned for harvesting, for slaughtering, for the curing of meat and for the making of ale or mead, and the finally for consuming it in great quantities. In the spring, they celebrated the return of the power of the sun and the beginning of the sowing and planting season. The dates of some of these celebrations, called �Blot�, could vary by weeks from southern Denmark to northern Norway and Sweden.

 In the words of the Ynglinge Saga (Strophe 8): "Towards the winter there should be a Blot for a good year; midwinter, a thanksgiving for the harvest; the third Blot should take place during the summer, it was a celebration of victory. In all of Svitjod (Sweden) they all thited to Odin, one penny per nose, for he should protect their land against unrest, and make sacrifices for them to secure a good year...".
 This list, made over two centuries after these Blot's had been declared illegal by the Christians, have omitted the important spring celebration and fertility ritual described by Tacitus, over 1100 years earlier.  And also the pre-harvest ritual, where bread was eaten, made of the last of the grains from the previous harvest. This celebrations was known as 'loaf-mass', and in Brittain as Lammas.

 A greater gathering and Blot was held every nine years, during the full Moon of March, called the Disting. As the name implies, it was also a time for their 'Ting', their greater legal assembly, where even kings could be elected or deposed. At the Ting, all had the right to speak their minds and put fort their complaints, and the decisions of the Ting were binding, also for kings. Women had equal rights with men at the Ting, both to speak and to vote.
 After the Ting had ended, there was always a 'Blot', a sacrificial ritual, usually held in front of the 'Hov', the great hall of their 'Hovding', the Chieftain, Earl or Hersje (local king) who owned the gathering place. Many variations of this Blot has been reported, but one of the best documented one describes the offering of a horse. The blood from the horse was sprinkled over the walls of the Hov, and the patterns were then interpreted by shamans. The horses meat was then grilled, and everyone feasted. At least one king was deposed, when he refused to participate in the Blot, because he had become a Christian. The most famous of those women officiating at the Blots as a 'Blotgydje', a high priestess of the offerings, was Freya, at the Disting in Sigtuna.

 The numerous finds of ritual equipment from Danish bogs and lakes, and from a few well preserved Norwegian royal burials, bear witness of the great importance these religious celebrations held for the Scandinavians, and how vital the worship of fertility was for the Scandinavian pagans.
 Imagine a rough and densely wooded countryside, were narrow paths were the only 'roads' and all major transport was by boat. Then take a look at the two principal wagon finds from the late pagan period, the Danish Dejbjerg wagon and the Norwegian Oseberg Wagon. The craftsmanship is superb and the decorations astonishing in their elaborate beauty - yet neither of the two four-wheel wagons had front wheels that could turn, making them useless for ought but travel in a straight line on an even surface, like in a short ritual procession.
 And the Gundestrup cauldron, a large vessel made of the purest silver, weighing 9 kilograms, decorated with hammered relief�s of gods, goddesses, processions and strange animals, a ritual artifact of inestimable value. Yet it was never meant to hold any form of liquid. It was made of 13 panels, ingeniously fitted together. And it had been left on top of a bog, carefully laid out, probably as an offering to the gods.

 All this, and more, bear witness of peoples who worshipped the nature gods, the Moon, the Mother Goddess and the planets, for over a thousand years, in Scandinavia.

In Chapter 8, I take a closer look at the story, as related by Snorre, of Odin and the Aesar's travels from the Black Sea to settle in Scandinavia, and how this tally with the archaeological evidence and modern historical research into Scandinavian pre-history, ca. 100 BCE to 600 CE. (Map of Scandinavia, ca. 100 BCE)
 The strong influence of a south-east European (or, actually, north-west Asian Minor) culture or cultures, with certain emphasis of the Kuban river area of the northern Caucasus region, have been pointed out by several independent sources. Finds of bronze, silver and gold ornaments, bronze implements and iron weapons, certain kinds of pottery, all confirms the scenario of an invasion from the south-east as a possible, or even a most likely, answer.  At around 100 BCE, there also was a change radical change in burial practices, and a sudden but geographically gradual change in Denmark from poverty to affluence (judged by the grave offerings). Prior to this time, for at least a century, the few graves found contained ashes, and little more. Then suddenly, first on the Danish islands, new graves had burial offerings like Roman-inspired swords and costly jewelry, unknown in Denmark previously. Also, closer to the change of the millennium, large burial mounds started to appear, with stone chambers inside, sometimes richly decorated.

 Two experts on Scandinavian ancient history, the Swedish professor Bernhard Salin and the Norwegian Haakon Melberg, have both published evidence to prove this scenario, but the work of both have been mostly disregarded by their colleagues, and they have had to publish their findings privately. The accepted 'truth', depending on which country you come from, is that Denmark was invaded by Swedes, or Sweden by Danes, and Norway by either or both. It is clear that the interpretation of history has been influenced, to some degree, by national pride and professional jealousy. But Salin and Melberg both lived in a time prior to many of the more recent archaeological finds and new information that is presently changing our understanding of Scandinavian history.

 That was nearly it. One looming mystery remained; the Heruls. They were a people nearly unknown in Scandinavia, yet the official history have them down as the original inhabitants of Zealand, the inventor of the runes and as fearless warriors. When they were forced out of Zealand (or so the official version goes), they first settled down in southern Jutland, parts of Saxony and on Fyn. They then nearly mass emigrated to Crimea, where they built an armada of 500 ships, in 267 CE, and controlled all of the Roman-occupied Black Sea and parts of the eastern Mediterranean for several years. After centuries of fierce battles and many setbacks, most of the remaining Heruls suddenly emigrated across most of Europe and into Denmark, around 510 CE. Here they built more ships and then sailed to Norway to settle around the Oslo fjord and along the south-western coast. The most curious part of this legend is the fact that the Danes neither fought them nor turned them back, but actually must have helped them. And that they, in the first place, were able to fight the Romans, but not the Danes. We know from later sources that the Norwegians regarded them as �Danes�, and that they were allied to the Skioldungar royal dynasty of Denmark, a fact which finally explains why they left Zealand so peacefully, half a century earlier.

 Archaeological evidence confirms that the regions Vestfold and Telemark, along the western coast of the Oslo fjord, as well as several places along the Norwegian west coast, were occupied and settled by 'Danes' around the middle of the 5th century CE. The earliest rune finds in Norway, and several kinds of earlier unknown jewelry, have also been dated to this period, and often classified as 'Danish' or 'Roman'. Included in the finds dated to this period are some buckles with the runic inscription "Ek Erilar", "I am an Erul".
 To me it seems evident that the Heruls must have originated from Crimea, and that they professional warriors, making their living as mercenaries. When Odin and his warbands arrived at the Baltic, around 70 CE, the Heruls first secured Fyn and the other islands (being the best sailors of the lot, as well as fierce warriors), then they pacified Zealand. Later, when Gevjon, Skiold and the Daner split away from the Svear, to run their own kingdom, the Heruls were paid off and went on their way, reaping a few spoils on their way south to their ancestral home. No other explanation fits all the facts.

 As for the runes, the present speculation that a wandering warband of professional warriors should have developed these have no credibility. The oldest runes which I have found predates the Scandinavian finds by about 700 years, and were found inscribed by the master builder of one of the Queen of Sheebas temples, in Marib, Yemen, on the temple foundation blocks. My guess is that evidence for the origin of the runes may be found somewhere in Syria or Lebanon. The Norwegian scholar Kjell Aartun have claimed to have found runes in the ruins of Troy, but his evidence is not very convincing, even though both the Phoenicians and the Etruscans used early alphabets similar to the runic one. No direct link has been found, but the use of the same rune for the same sound, even if the Scandinavian rune sometimes is a mirror image of the Mediterranean ones, can be no accident.

 Yet another 'accepted theory' I take exception to, is the classification of a tool, a weapon, a decoration or an artifact as 'Celtic', just because it has similarities to middle European Celtic designs from the same period. There is no doubt that the cultures known as the Celtic, which originated in Austria and Switzerland in the late Bronze Age, had a tremendous impact on the central- and west European cultures, way into the Roman age. But to call something 'Celtic' is as precise as to call something 'European'. Tools which today are made in Korea and Brazil, for economic reasons, may be as 'european' as tools made in Sweden or Switzerland, it is all a matter of design and quality. Such is also the case with much of what is called 'Celtic'. Then, just like today, any smith and craftworker would certainly copy any superior design and production method, and even the best of experts would find it near impossible to make a distinction between a sword made by the Austrian Celts and one made by the Bulgar Thracians of the same era.
 The Gundestrup Cauldron was long accepted as being the work of mid-European Celtic silversmiths. Not until recently was it discovered that it had actually been made of silver from Persian silver coins, and had some distinct features pinpointing it's makers as Thracians from the lower Danube.
 

In Chapter 9  I retell and substantiate the settlement of Scandinavia by the peoples who were later known as the Svear and the Daner, and also take a look at some of the possible routes which they may have traveled.
  From all the sources I have found, it seems quite clear that Sweden, Denmark and Norway were invaded by a multi-ethnic 'horde', who also annexed large parts of Saxony as they came north. This 'horde' were migrating north, they were not nomads, and possessed a technology and an organization superior to the north Europeans, much of which they had borrowed and copied from Indo-Iranian horse-fighters, the Greeks and the Romans. They were excellent sailors and horse riders, had light but sufficient armor, used powerful bows and short javelins, and had swords made of a steel much superior to that of the Northmen of the early Scandinavian Iron Age.
 Ethnically, it seems they roughly consisted of three distinct groups: The Indo-European Aes people, from whom the Sea of Azov has been named, a Caucasian people known as the Svani and a Crimean people known as the Heruls or Erils. In addition, there would be found among them several Alans, Thraco-Cimmerians and a number of Amazon warriors. Of these, the Heruls and Amazons, and possibly some others, may have been part of a mercenary army, paid by Aes to spearhead their occupation of the northern lands.

  Curiously enough, the legends and sagas do not contain any tall tales of heroic battles in this part of Scandinavian history. One reason for this may have been that the Kimber exodus, at around 130 BCE, may have left Denmark and parts of southern Sweden nearly empty of people. Sixty years later, when Odin and his army arrived, they just settled on Fyn, presumably secured all the other Baltic islands and parts of the Jutland mainland, and then sent a warband across to king Gylve in Sweden. He never put up a fight, but wellcomed the intruders, and gave the 'Asiamen' (the word Snorre uses) land according to their standing. The leader of the initial warband, the Valkyrje Gevjon, also secured the island of Zealand.
 Odin, Njord, Frey and Freya settled in Sigtuna, north of today's Stockholm, and became the royalty of the Svear and the religious leaders of the Asatru. Another lot, presumably the Svani, known later as the Daner, moved to Zealand and settled there, and became the overlords of all of what we call Denmark (plus, apparently, parts of southern Sweden). Only some parts of south-east Norway were settled by these peoples, initially, mostly the eastern shores of the Oslo fjord, but possibly also some of the rich and fertile land further north, in today�s Trondelag. (Map od Scandinavia)

 A side issue I tackle here, are the Merovingians. Among the European cultures there were three peoples who had a persistent history of having been the direct descendants of the Trojans, a culture that was apparently obliterated by the Greek kings in 1260 BCE, a bunch of 'loosers' who fled their homeland, only to become heroic cultures, the stuff legends are made of, in three corners of Europe: The Etruscans, the Aesar and the Merovingians.
 It was easy enough to establish that these three cultures did have a certain amount of contact, at least until the Romans defeated the Etruscans. The Romans later also had most of the royal line of the Merovingians assassinated. The Romans went after the northern branch too, sending Charlemagne north to slaughter Saxons, but he never got through to Denmark or Sweden.
 Like Odin, Njord and Frey, the Merovingian kings were ritual priests, and like Njord, they had a very strong connection to the sea. It is quite natural, then, to wonder if the Merovingians could have been the descendants of the sons of Odin, those he gave land in the Saxon territories he occupied on his way north.

In chapter 10, the final chapter, I present several detailed pieces of evidence found in Scandinavia, quoting various archaeologist and historian authors. Among these are Marija Gimbutas, Morten Stenberger, Marianne Gormann and Johannes Brønnsted.
 I look at the development of iron production, and the clear changes that can be found that are dated to around 100-50 BCE. I present a description of the famous Hjortspring boat, the oldest boat found in Scandinavia (apr. 2300 years old), built of Linden and large enough to carry 24 men, yet light enough for them to carry, even when full of weapons and provisions. I speculate about the Borremose fortress, built on a flat island in the middle of a very shallow lake, with a roadway 3 meters wide and 70 meters long, built so that it passed just under the surface of the lake. But for what reason? 
 I also take a closer look at the Gundestrup Cauldron, both one of the most extraordinary artifacts found in Scandinavia, and also one of the best known, not the least for its rendering of Cernunnos, the Horned God. And I take a closer look at the Dejbjerg wagons, the Grusian axes and the typical Frey figurines found both in Denmark and in Caucasus. All of it adds to evidence linking the peoples who lived along the north-eastern shores of the Black Sea with the peoples who settled Scandinavia, around 2000 years ago.


 When all is said and done, some questions still remain, one of them being: Why here? I have established with some credibility that if we look for a good time and reason for them to leave their homeland, then 90 BCE, during the extensive Roman offensive and occupation of this region, provided both the time and the initiative to bring your people and your valuables away to a place of safety. But why go north?
 Well, the Romans had, most likely, closed off the Strait of Bosporus, and they would also prevent anyone from passing south of the Alps. Odin initially tried going up the Volga, but here the Rus denied him passage. To the east, there were the Iranians to contend with, and to the north-west, their arch enemy the Schytians would have wellcome the battle and the riches. All that remained, was free passage up the Danube, through the land of their Thracian cousins, first west, then turn sharply right at the top, please, and enter the Teuton forests at your peril.

 They did, and one reason must have been that they had heard tales of the huge Kimber Exodus of ca. 130 BCE, leaving so much of the northern lands nearly void of people. And I believe that one of the reasons why this explanation, despite the evidence to support it, has not been accepted, not even properly researched (other than by individuals without funds) is because of national pride. It does not sit well with some people that we, the Scandinavians, were once occupants of these countries, refugees from Asia Minor, crowding out the Rus (the native Swedish population, who also created Russia), the 'Finns', the Sami and other locals, just like it must be difficult for some Australians to accept that they are descended from convicts, or for some English to digest the fact that their forefathers were Danish and Norwegian marauders. An example of this is the fact that Scandinavian historians still hotly debate if Denmark was populated by Swedes, or Sweden by Danes, or both countries by Germans, as if those national labels had any meaning 2000 years ago.

 At the end of the day, what difference does it make, then, from where our ancestors came, and what they did to the cultures they replaced? And why is history such a controversial discipline, where every detail can be twisted to suit your own ends, and not a more exact multidiscipline science?
 To answer the first, I believe that the world would be a better place, if we all realize that today's migrant workers and political fugitives, refugees from our wars and others from strange cultures are no more and no less than our own foremothers and -fathers were, humans in search of such basic needs as food, shelter, safety and a way to make a living. We humans have been at war with ourselves for more than 6000 years, and yet we give no sign of giving up killing each other to make a political point or to gain control of land and people, for political or economic profit. We are the most aggressive and the most self destructive species on this planet. And I believe that if we can look at our past, and possibly learn something from it, we may be able to create a better future.

 Also, the feminine aspects of human history and culture have been suppressed now for too long, and we have forgotten the spiritual significance of our goddesses, denying this essential part of our internal and external reality. Instead of looking at our environment as our Mother Earth, we have for too long just considered nature a source of resources to be exploited, or a disposal dump for our increasingly poisonous garbage. The last 2000 years, in particular, has increasingly been the war of the gods against the goddesses, fought by proxy, and it is now quite apparent that this is a loosers game - for all of humanity. A reawakening of our pagan past is an important step towards a healing of the wounds, and without such a healing, humanity may not survive.

 This reawakening has now gained momentum, and to those who are seeking another image of the roots of Scandinavian paganism than the one brought to us by Christians or agnostics, I dedicate this work, and hope that it will serve as an inspiration.
 

Stein Jarving
October 6, 1998


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