Animism In Norse Mythology

Norse Themes As we read about Norse mythology, many themes are visible. One of the most prominent themes that are displayed is animism. Animism is defined as “the consciousness/spirit is perceived as an innate quality of the entire world, and not belonging to one specific species.” Animism attributes the soul of a being to plants, inanimate objects, like trees, and natural phenomena, like earthquakes and hurricanes. The spirits are capable of helping or harming humans and their affairs. This means that everything can potentially communicate with other beings. This also means that it is possible for everything to be able to change something in the world. There are elements of feeling and free will in the world. Animals don’t run away from their predators because they’re programmed to do so, they run away because they don’t want to die. The Norse people called the animistic forces “land spirits” and “elves” (Norse-Mythology, Animism). In Norse mythology, there are nature spirits. These nature spirits are called “Vttir”. Next, these Vttir are

The souls of the deceased go into a type of underworld. Because the soul of a being was “tied” together with earthly objects, the underworld was an extremely close resemblance to a graveyard- underground and still connected to the earth in some way. There are three potential places for the dead to go to. The first place is Helheim. This is the home of the goddess Hel, who is the daughter of Loki and Angrboða, a giant. The second place to go to is Valhalla. In order for someone to go here, they must be chosen by a Valkyrie, or a “chooser of the fallen”. Lastly, it is possible to go to Folkvang, which is called “the field of people”. Many researchers have tried to find differences between all of these places, but it is nearly impossible to find many differences. All of these places are just basically different names for the underworld (Norse-Mythology,