I'm Danish myself, and a casual history buff who loves to have a well organized timeline in my head chronicling when various historical events happened in relation to other historical events.
But one of the things I'm surprised I've been unable to find specific, readily available information on is the timeline of Norse Mythology. I know most of what we know about it comes from the 13th century Icelandic sources, so it can be difficult to extrapolate an exact timeline from those, but do Historians have any idea when organized belief in Norse Gods - as we know them (Odin, Thor, Loki, Baldr Freya etc.) - began?
I've always been under the impression it started sometime after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but could it have begun earlier, concurrently with Christianity perhaps?
Thanks!
I've always been under the impression it started sometime after the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
You're absolutely right! Most of the earliest datable elements of Norse culture do indeed appear right about the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Danish archaeologist Lotte Hedeager has has claimed that as the Huns briefly supplanted Roman power in central Europe during the 450s, people around the Baltic began looking to the Huns for new cultural cues. This catalyzed the development of a new intellectual, political, and artistic culture that eventually flourished into Norse society as we understand it today. In particular, she points to the introduction of the character Odin as a god defined according to specific notions of earthly kingship that included possessing a hall and personally leading a household troop. This view, however, is only one perspective and by no means represents a scholarly consensus.
If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out her book, although it's worth reading with a skeptical eye. And if you want to read what a few other archaeologists are saying about Norse religion, there's a few other things you might want to look for:
Anders Andrén et al., eds., Old Norse Religion in Long-term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions (An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004), Vägar till Midgård 8 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2006). {lots of short articles—some of these are really good, others might not quite convince}
Martin Carver, ed., The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300-1300 (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2003). {a mix of short articles, many of them really good, but not the best place if you're looking for a survey}
Martin Carver, "Agency, Intellect and the Archaeological Agenda," in Martin Carver, Alex Sanmark, and Sarah Semple, eds., Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010), 1-20. {hard to find unless you've got a good library, but it's a great critique of Neil Price's compelling Viking Way}
Lotte Hedeager, Iron Age Myth and Materiality: An Archaeology of Scandinavia, AD 400-1000 (London: Routledge, 2011). {a very interesting theory about where Norse mythology came from}
Ronald Hutton, Pagan Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). {a really good survey of how much we can say about pre-Christian religion in the north}
Neil S. Price, The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, 2002). {considers how shamanism and viking violence might have been two sides of the same coin}
Stefanie v. Schnurbein, "Shamanism in the Old Norse Tradition: A Theory between Ideological Camps," History of Religions 43.2 (2003): 116-138. {asks a brilliant question: why does neo-paganism appeal to back-to-earth hippies and neo-Nazis as well?}