Icelanders will soon be able to publicly worship at a shrine to Thor, Odin and Frigg with construction starting this month on the island\u2019s first major temple to the Norse gods since the Viking age.<\/p>\n
Worship of the gods in Scandinavia gave way to Christianity around 1,000 years ago but a modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in Iceland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding about on a horse with eight feet,\u201d said Hilmar \u00d6rn Hilmarsson, high priest of \u00c1satr\u00faarf\u00e9lagi\u00f0, an association that promotes faith in the Norse gods.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Membership in \u00c1satr\u00faarf\u00e9lagi\u00f0 has tripled in Iceland in the last decade to 2,400 members last year, out of a total population of 330,000, data from Statistics Iceland showed.<\/p>\n
The temple will be circular and will be dug 4 metres (13ft) down into a hill overlooking the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, with a dome on top to let in the sunlight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sun changes with the seasons so we are in a way having the sun paint the space for us,\u201d Hilmarsson said.<\/p>\n
The temple will host ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. The group will also confer names to children and initiate teenagers, similar to other religious communities.<\/p>\n
Iceland\u2019s neo-pagans still celebrate the ancient sacrificial ritual of Blot with music, reading, eating and drinking, but nowadays leave out the slaughter of animals. <\/p>\n
Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in recent years as followers see the stories as metaphors for life not worship of the gods<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[10939,2548,10933,10938,10934,10935,10937,10936],"class_list":["post-17624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-frigg","tag-iceland","tag-norse-gods","tag-odin","tag-shrine","tag-temple","tag-thor","tag-vikings"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17625,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17624\/revisions\/17625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}