Attempts to manipulate nature are termed ‘magic,’ and the mythologies of the Norse are no exception. One of the first authors to note this was Tacitus, the ethnographer whose chief work about northern Europe is titled Germania. Two scholars, E.O.G. Turville-Petre and Edgar Charles Polomé, write that:
In his Germania, Tacitus described the worship of a goddess, Nerthus, on an island, probably in the Baltic Sea. Whatever symbol represented her was kept hidden in a grove and taken around once a year in a covered chariot. During her pageant, there was rejoicing and peace, and all weapons were laid aside. Afterward, she was bathed in a lake and returned to her grove, but those who participated in her lustration were drowned in the lake as a sacrifice to thank her for her blessings.
By killing human beings as offerings to the Norse deities, the Norse hoped to gain some good fortune: a military victory, good weather, human fertility, or a bountiful harvest.
The Norse were not monolithic. Among them were many different tribes, each of which had its own variant of the foundational mythology. The Semnones occupied regions in southern Scandinavia and in what is now Germany.
Sacrifice often was conducted in the open or in groves and forests. The human sacrifice to the tribal god of the Semnones, described by Tacitus, took place in a sacred grove; other examples of sacred groves include the one in which Nerthus usually resides. Tacitus does, however, mention temples in Germany, though they were probably few. Old English laws mention fenced places around a stone, tree, or other object of worship. In Scandinavia, men brought sacrifice to groves and waterfalls.
Human sacrifice would continue to be common among not only among the Norse, but also among other European tribes, until roughly the era of Charlemagne. Made emperor in 800 A.D., he fostered education and culture, expanding his Frankish influence eastward and northward.
The Danish National Museum concludes that “archaeological finds from recent years show that human sacrifice was a reality in Viking Age Denmark.”
