The lore is the written literature that gives us information about the gods and about the lives and thinking of the ancient heathens and how they worshipped the gods.

Heathenry doesn’t have “Holy Writ.” There are no texts that represent the official word of the gods, with the possible exception of Hávamál. Heathens disagree appreciably about what texts to include in the lore and how to interpret them in light of the disagreements between them. And unlike the three Abrahamic religions, heathenry has neither a divine command nor a tradition for us to honor the lore as a sacred mystery in itself. In fact there is no absolute reason a heathen must study lore. The ancient heathens did not need to do so, and probably didn’t have much reverence for the texts; it is the history since their time that makes the lore so important for us. So since the texts are indeed somewhat contradictory, and hard to understand in many details, and since they stretch over a span of about a thousand years and since there were throughout that period many different Germanic tribes and nations with different practices and somewhat differing beliefs—quite apart from the different theories and viewpoints in modern times--it is not hard to appreciate that heathens are going to differ in the importance they assign to particular lore texts, in what they pay attention to as “lore” at all, and in how they interpret things that are unclear. But most people in the West were raised in one of the Abrahamic religions, so heathen religion can seem strange and puzzling in this respect.

Most heathens agree that the most important lore texts are the Prose Edda and the Elder or Poetic Edda (at one time misleadingly called Sćmundar Edda, Sćmund’s Edda).

The Prose Edda was written (almost certainly) by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson. It is intended as an introduction to the gods and the tales about them, is clearly and engagingly written, and is therefore a unique gift to heathenry and the best starting point for everyone new to it. However, it was written in the twelfth century, as a guide for poets (so that they could compose the kennings required in skaldic poetry), so the Prologue is misleading and pretty much useless to a heathen: it is a medieval Christian apology for writing about pagan gods, involving claiming they were really humans from Troy. The sections heathens use as lore are the Gylfaginning (“Deluding of Gylfi) and the stories included in the Skáldskaparmál (“Poetic Diction”). There is also some evidence in the ţulur section, but this is rarely included in translations and is simply a list. Snorri is a good source of information, but cannot be completely trusted. He loved the stories of the gods and wanted them to live on for cultural reasons, but he was not heathen, and sometimes what he says is misleading or confused. As one example, in Skáldskaparmál he writes that Freyr/Frea and Freyja/Freo were born to Njörđ after his marriage to Skađi/Sceađu, which is patently impossible according to the sequence of events he himself has given in Gylfaginning. He has also left out a lot of information, particularly about the gods doing magic, and what he says about giants and norns reflects Christian notions of the opposition between good and evil as well as influence from Classical mythology.

The Poetic Edda is a medieval book of Old Norse poems in a simpler style than the skaldic poems, falling into two groups: “mythological” poems about the gods, and “heroic” poems about great legendary humans such as Helgi and Sigurđ. The poems are of varying ages, but were all written down after the conversion so even the oldest may have some changes since they were first composed. Some of them are fragmentary, and the Prose Edda quotes from a few that are not included in the book and from variant versions, so we can be sure there were many more that are now lost. In the Eddic poems we are much closer to heathen thought than in Snorri’s rationalized and cleaned-up retelling; but the poems also include unique words of unseen meaning, scribal errors, and other difficulties. They can be hard to read and to interpret, and some of their content is not heathen. The single most important Eddic poem is Völuspá (“The Sibyl’s Prophecy”), which was also a primary source of the Prose Edda. After that come Hávamál (“The Sayings of Hár” or “The Words of the High One”), which is a guide to heathen ethics and behavior but may reflect only the values of the Viking Age; Skírnismál (“The Lay of Skírnir”), Grímnismál (“The Lay of Grímnir”), Ţrymskviđa (“The Lay of Thrym”), Hymiskviđa (“The Lay of Hymir”), Baldrs Draumar (“Baldr’s Dreams”), Alvíssmál (“The Lay of Alvís”), Vafţrúđnismál (“The Lay of Vafthrúthnir”), Völuspá hin Skamma (“The Shorter Völuspá”), Svipdagsmál (“The Lay of Svipdag,” which is generally subdivided into two parts: Grógaldr, “The Spell of Gróa,” and Fjölvinsmál, “The Lay of Fjolsvith”), Völundarkviđa (“The Lay of Völund”), and Grottasöngr (“The Lay of Grotti”), in varying order of importance depending on which gods or other aspects of heathen belief one is most interested in finding out about or how one deals with the discrepancies. Three Eddic poems present special problems of interpretation, and heathens vary in how they respond to them and how much importance they accord to them: Hárbarzsljóđ (“The Lay of Hárbarth”) is about a disguised Óđinn/Woden tricking and mocking his own son, Thor/Thunor; in Lokasenna (“The Flyting of Loki”), Loki hurls insults at the other gods and goddesses, some of which may not be true; and Rígsţula (“The Lay of Ríg”) tells of a god (probably Heimdallr/Háma) siring the different classes of humanity, teaching the runes to his favored son, and insitituting kingship, which may be either traditional heathen belief or early medieval propaganda. In addition one poem is not found in the collection: Sólarljóđ (“The Lay of the Sun”). Heathens also differ on how much importance they attach to the heroic poems and whether they include them under lore.

Some of the skaldic poems were composed by heathens, and many of the kennings in later skaldic poetry continue to be based on heathenry. We have a large body of skaldic verse preserved, including numerous verses within sagas. However, skaldic poetry is often hard to interpret.

Sagas constitute the other large group of lore. They are prose stories composed almost exclusively in Iceland. Most of them claim to be historical, but in fact an indeterminate amount of the content is fiction, a lot of it invented to explore a point of law using medieval ideas of how the law must have worked in heathen times. (There is also a separate class of frankly fictional sagas, the lygisögur, “lying” or “fantasy sagas,” but few heathens read these except for fun or to glean information about magic, and all scholars agree they are a very unreliable source of information about heathenism.) In addition although many of the “family sagas” or “sagas of the Icelanders” (íslendingasögur) purport to be very old, none of them were written down until the twelfth century, and presumably changes were introduced during the period of oral transmission. The skaldic verses included within them are the parts most likely to have been preserved untouched since heathen times rather than representing in whole or in part later ideas of what heathen times were like.

Of the sagas, the sequence called Heimskringla (“The Circle of the World” or “The Round Earth”) fall in a special category. They are a history of Norway and Sweden starting far back in legendary times, as was the convention with medieval histories, and therefore they include tales of the gods (particularly in the first, Ynglingasaga, “The Saga of the Ynglings”) as well as of heathen kings and the process of converting Scandinavia to Christianity. Heimskringla is also traditionally attributed to Snorri Sturluson but is written in a quite different style from the Prose Edda and has different and sometimes conflicting information.

The other sagas that can be included within the lore are Brennu-Njálssaga (“The Saga of Burnt Njál” or “Njál’s Saga”), Egilssaga (“Egil’s Saga”), Hrafnkelssaga Freysgođa (“The Saga of Hrafnkell, Priest of Freyr” or “Hrafnkel’s Saga”), Víga-Glúmssaga (“The Saga of Glúmr the Fighter”), and sections of Eyrbyggjasaga (“The Saga of the Settlers of Eyr”) and Kjalnesingasaga (“The Saga of the People of Kjalnes”) dealing with heathen worship. But modern heathens vary in how much they believe the details of these sagas, or how important they believe it is to read them.

Similarly, there are historical reports about heathens written by non-heathens for various reasons. Some modern heathens include these in the lore, and some accord some of them high importance, but attitudes vary. There are four accounts from the Roman era, representing prehistoric heathenry. The most extensive of these is Tacitus’ Germania, a description of the tribes (mostly Germanic) in what is now Germany, the Low Countries, and possibly parts of Denmark and Austria. Tacitus also included some information on the Teutonic tribes in his Annales and Historić (“Annals” and “Histories”). Finally, Cćsar’s De Bello Gallico (“On the Gallic War”), although mainly about Celtic tribes, includes some information on Germanic, including comparisons. Opinions vary about how trustworthy this largely second- and third-hand information is, but it tells us about heathen religion in ancient times long before Christian influences. Cassiodorus wrote a history of the Goths, which is now lost but was the basis of a shorter account by Jordanes, who was himself a Goth. And many chronicles contain snippets of information, notably the two versions of the Lombard (Langobard) origin story. Few heathens would include these under lore, but some do, particularly those who focus on one people. And they contain information that has been influential in reconstructing heathenry.

In contrast, we also have later accounts in Latin by churchmen, some of which are thought of as lore by some heathens despite the authors’ attitudes. Saxo Grammaticus’ Historia Danorum (“Danish History”) includes a very jaundiced retelling of stories of the gods. Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum (“History of the Bishops of Hamburg”) includes information about heathen practices in Sweden, largely in the marginal notes (scholia) added by later commentators. And Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii or Vita S. Ansgarii (“Life of St. Anskar”) recounts what a missionary encountered in ninth-century Denmark and Sweden. The most hostile such sources, which probably no heathen would think of as lore but which are the sources of valuable information, particularly for the West Germanic peoples, are the accounts of Charlemagne’s destruction of the Irminsűl, the baptismal oath that Saxons were forced to swear renouncing the gods, and the various ecclesiastical pronouncements from different Germanic regions listing practices defined as heresy and paganism.

And we have one account by a more or less dispassionate outside observer from a period of heathenry close to that of our Old Norse sources: Ibn Fadlan’s Risala (“Travels Among the Rus”), a report by an Arab about the heathen Swedish traders on the Volga in the first half of the tenth century.

The vast majority of the lore is in Old Norse; the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity too soon to have left us a similar body of material to the Eddas, and there are very few kennings in surviving Anglo-Saxon poetry. However, Béowulf dates back to the eighth century and is regarded by Anglo-Saxon heathens as lore with a superficial Christian overlay. There are also heathen sentiments in one of the two groups of “Maxims,” and at least one verse in the Old English Rune Poem is heathen.

In addition, we have numerous charms or magic spells in Anglo-Saxon (two collections and several individual examples), and several of these include heathen material. There are no Old Norse charms, but there are two in Old High German, the First and Second Merseburg Charms. All of these are important lore.

The brothers Grimm drew heavily on folklore and folk tales to paint a more complete picture of heathenry, and some heathens regard such material as lore.

Finally, a few recent scholars have greatly influenced the heathen revival, and for some heathens, their writings are modern lore. After Jacob Grimm, whose Teutonic Mythology (originally published in German as Deutsche Mythologie) is still an important reference for many modern heathens, the most important are Vilhelm Grřnbech, whose The Culture of the Teutons (a revised edition of the Danish original, Vor Folkećt i Oldtiden) has shaped our idea of frith; Paul C. Bauschatz, whose The Well and the Tree has greatly influenced our view of wyrd; Viktor Rydberg, whose Teutonic Mythology (originally published in Swedish as Undersökningar i Germanisk Mythologi) reconstructs the tales of the gods in ways that have greatly influenced folkish, Odinist, and Armanist heathenry; and Guido (von) List, whose works, in particular Rita der Ariogermanen, are the basis for Armanism. Some would include the various works of Hilda Ellis Davidson (previously published as Hilda Roderick Ellis), particularly The Road to Hel as lore, but for most they are simply a frequently consulted and trusted authority. Of these scholars, only List is heathen. Nonetheless, all are more commonly regarded as lore than the influential explicitly heathen books and essays published by Edred Thorson, KveldulfR Gundarsson, Swain and Eric Wodening, and Stephen McNallen since the 1970s.

I must stress once more at the end of this summary that there is no universally accepted canon of lore; in fact heathens diverge widely in what they think of as lore, how they weight different items within that class, and even in how much importance they attach to lore. Most heathens give priority to works composed by heathens, but in the most influential lore, the two Eddas, it is ultimately impossible to determine how much is in fact heathen and how much Christian. For many heathens, the second most influential category of works is modern scholarly analyses that are seen as reflecting heathen values, whether or not the authors were heathen, but many heathens do not call these lore, although some do. And a large number of ancient and more or less heathen texts have shaped the modern reconstruction but are rarely read by modern heathens, although they are sometimes cited in translation, and therefore do not always come to mind as lore but are in effect accorded that status. The variations in what we call lore come from our not being a book-based or a revelatory religion, but a reconstructionist one. And heathens also accordingly differ in how much attention they pay to lore; some rely on others’ teachings, while some believe they have a duty to study the original texts. Most fall somewhere between the two extremes; despite the well known dictum of Manny Olds that heathenry is “the religion with homework,” there is no official policy or accepted tradition as to what a heathen “must” know or “must” have read.

by Marion Ingham