Rediscovering Norse Mythology in the 18th Century

I recently spent some time trying to discover the extent of British scholars’ familiarity with Norse mythology around the 1790s. There are a group of Antiquarians (18th century archaeologists) who make an appearance in book 2, and I needed to figure out how familiar they would be with Norse mythology.

To my surprise, I couldn’t find much evidence that Odin, Thor, and the whole Norse pantheon was very well known during that period. They weren’t completely unknown, but the Greek and Roman pantheons still largely monopolized the popular, ‘modern’ view of ancient religions.

But the Norse were about to experience a renaissance, or what some scholars call the ‘Nordic Renaissance’, which largely took place in Denmark in the 1770s. For example, Johannes Ewald (1743-1781) published The Death of Balder in 1775. Due to the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda, the Norse pantheon was better known in Scandinavian countries, but hadn’t yet swept through Europe’s collective consciousness through art and literature. While written in Iceland during the 13th century, the Prose and Poetic Edda weren’t really mainstream reading for scholars. And even then, only among Scandinavian scholars. This was true until 1665 with the publication of the Edda Islandorum, by Peder H. Resen, which made the Poetic and Prose Edda more accessible to international scholars. It took over a century for this to filter through to wider audiences.

However, this renaissance wouldn’t be confined to Scandinavia, but would eventually spread, seeing Proto-Romantic and Romantic era poets and writers exploring Norse myths. The earliest mainstream evidence I could find was a poem by Thomas Gray called “The Descent of Odin,” published in 1768. From what I can tell, he was fishing in the myths and legends of the Scandinavians for a subject matter other than the usual fare: the Greek and Roman gods.

That’s not to say Norse myths didn’t make it to British shores earlier under slightly different names. There is lots of evidence suggesting that when the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain and replaced the Roman-Celtic culture that existed before, they also brought their Germanic gods and religions. Over time, figures such as Woden appeared, but then slowly grew from gods back into kings alongside the rise of Christianity. Eventually the god-king Woden found his way into genealogical trees (he appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), so royalty could claim they were descended from great men of the past.

Perhaps even more fascinating, the Norse myths could have easily cross-pollinated with Greek and Roman myths during the Roman period, if not earlier, when Germanic peoples clashed with the Roman Empire and even acted as mercenaries (this is according to Neil Price of Uppsala University). Some Roman scholars, Tacitus, even record Germanic religious practices and equated Mercury with the deity Odin. Suggesting that even in that period, cross-pollination of mythic figures was at least a possibility.

The amusing conclusion to all this research is that the Norse, Greek, and Roman myths (not to mention Egyptian and Greco-Roman, but I’ll save that for another time) have been sloshing up against each other for millennia and then proceeded to grow independently for long periods of time. Or at least spent some time growing more or less independently, as their civilizations flourished then declined.

So, when Norse myths were rediscovered by mainstream European audiences in the 18th and 19th century, it was really the second or third time this occurred. But previous encounters were usually the result of Viking raids, Anglo-Saxon invasions, or ancient Romano-Germanic clashes. A lot fewer records of how those turned out from a comparative religions perspective. Still, it is interesting that Odin can be found buried in British records, under the pseudonym Woden, an important forefather to, very much mortal, kings.