A Conversation for Norse Mythology

Viking Conversion?

Post 1

Norsiness

This articles states:

"In 1030 AD, the Vikings were converted to Christianity, and the worship of the Nordic gods soon died out."

In an interview with the Norse Mythology Blog, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson (high priest of Iceland's Norse pagan church) discusses exactly this issue:

"It was said - after the conversion in 1000 or 999 - that you could not worship the old gods except in secrecy. That was part of the truce. People carried on secret worship for at least two centuries. I don’t think it ever really went away. To illustrate that, I met this old man in the shop yesterday. He came up to me and shook my hand, and he told me that - when he was confirmed in the early 1920s - his grandmother came to him and gave him a book with the Eddic poems and said, 'You should read that, because this is what we also believe.' She thought, 'Christianity is okay, but you should not forget your roots.'"

Source: http://www.norsemyth.org/2011/06/interview-with-hilmar-orn-hilmarsson-of.html

Since conversion happened at different times in different locations in the Northern World (and, as Hilmarsson says, not everyone actually converted), I'm not sure where you're getting the 1030 date from.


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