Asatru: The Modern Revival of the Old Norse Religion

Asatru, from Icelandic Ásatrú, "faith in the Æsir," is a modern revival of the pre-Christian Norse religion. Its oldest organization, Iceland's Ásatrúarfélagið, was founded in 1972 and recognized by the Icelandic state in 1973. Practitioners honor the Old Norse gods through offering ceremonies called blót and ritual toasts called sumbel, and the major Asatru organizations explicitly reject racism.

Most of this blog looks a thousand years backward. This post looks at the present, because since the 1970s the old religion has been openly practiced again, first in Iceland and now worldwide. Asatru is a living religion, so we will treat it the way we would treat any other: describe it accurately, keep our opinions out of it, and be honest about where the historical record ends and modern practice begins.

What Is Asatru?

Asatru is the best-known name for modern Norse paganism: the organized, contemporary worship of the Old Norse gods such as Odin, Thor, Freyja, and Frigg. The Icelandic word Ásatrú combines áss, a god of the Æsir family, with trú, faith. Many practitioners prefer the broader umbrella term Heathenry, and some simply say they follow "the old way."

The word itself is modern. It was assembled in the nineteenth century, during the Scandinavian romantic revival, from Old Norse parts; no Viking Age source uses it. People of that era had no single name for their religion at all. When the sagas needed to contrast it with Christianity, they sometimes called it forn siðr, "the old custom," which is why several modern groups, including Denmark's main organization, use that phrase instead.

That naming gap points to something important, and it is worth stating plainly. The pre-Christian Norse religion left no scripture, no creed, and no priestly institution that survived. What we know of it comes from fragments: the Eddic poems, sagas written down by Christians centuries after conversion, a few outside accounts, and archaeology. Modern Asatru is therefore a revival built on those fragments, not an unbroken tradition, and the serious organizations say so themselves.

How Did the Old Norse Religion Come Back?

The revival has a precise starting point. In the spring of 1972, a small group led by Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson, a sheep farmer and traditional rímur poet, founded the Ásatrúarfélagið, the Asatru Fellowship, in Reykjavik. The next year the Icelandic state formally recognized it as a religious organization, which gave its priests, called goðar after the chieftain-priests of the sagas, the legal right to conduct marriages, name-givings, and funerals. Sveinbjörn served as the first allsherjargoði, the fellowship's chief religious officer, until his death in 1993; the composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson has held the role since 2003.

Recognition spread slowly to other countries. Denmark's Forn Siðr association gained state recognition in 2003. In the United States, where several Heathen organizations date back to the 1970s and 1980s, a quieter milestone came in 2013, when the Department of Veterans Affairs approved the Hammer of Thor as an official emblem of belief for veterans' headstones. In Iceland, meanwhile, the city of Reykjavik granted the Ásatrúarfélagið a hillside site in Öskjuhlíð, where work on a purpose-built temple, or hof, began in 2015. The project has been delayed for years and, at the time of writing, is still not finished. It would be the first major Norse temple built in roughly a thousand years.

What Do Practitioners of Asatru Believe?

Carefully, and with room for disagreement, because Asatru has no dogma. There is no required creed, no central authority that rules on doctrine, and no holy book. The Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda are treated as essential sources, but not as scripture; both were written down in Christian Iceland in the thirteenth century, and practitioners read them as a window on the old worldview rather than as revealed truth. The Ásatrúarfélagið itself describes the faith in open terms, closer to a poetic relationship with the powers of nature and tradition than to a fixed theology.

Within that openness, some common threads run through most groups. Practitioners honor the gods of the Norse pantheon, from Odin and Thor to Freyja, Njörðr, and dozens of others. Many also honor ancestors and landvættir, the spirits of the land, both of which are well attested in the medieval sources. Ethics tend to be drawn from the Hávamál, the Eddic poem of practical wisdom, with its emphasis on hospitality, honesty, courage, and keeping one's word. Beliefs about an afterlife vary from person to person, which is less strange than it sounds: even the medieval picture of Valhalla and the Norse afterlife was never one tidy system.

How Is Asatru Practiced?

The central ceremony is the blót, an offering rite. The word is Old Norse and the practice is well documented: Snorri's Hákonar saga góða describes seasonal sacrificial feasts in pagan Norway, with toasts drunk to Odin for victory and to Njörðr and Freyr for good harvests and peace. A modern blót keeps the structure but replaces the sacrifice. Participants gather, often outdoors, invoke one or more gods, and share or pour out an offering, most commonly mead; the Icelandic fellowship has stated plainly that it does not sacrifice animals.

The second key custom is the sumbel, a ceremonial round of toasts in which a horn is passed and each person speaks: to a god, to an ancestor, or as an oath or a boast. Ritual toasting of this kind appears in the Eddic poem Lokasenna and, as the Old English symbel, in Beowulf, though the fixed three-round format many modern groups use is a contemporary arrangement. If the custom sounds familiar, it should; it is the same toasting culture behind the word skål.

The ritual year follows the old seasonal markers. The Ásatrúarfélagið's calendar centers on four main blóts: jólablót at Yule, þorrablót in midwinter, sigurblót on the first day of summer, and veturnáttablót at the winter nights. Yule is the most widely kept of these, and many of its customs passed into the modern holiday season, a history we trace in our post on Viking Yule. Beyond the calendar, goðar conduct weddings, name-givings, coming-of-age ceremonies, and funerals, the ordinary lifecycle work of any religious community.

How Many People Practice Asatru Today?

In Iceland, the numbers are exact, because the state registers religious affiliation. The Ásatrúarfélagið has grown from a dozen founders in 1972 to more than 5,000 registered members by the mid-2020s, according to Statistics Iceland, which makes it the largest non-Christian religious organization in the country, at around one and a half percent of the population.

Elsewhere the picture is blurrier, and honesty requires saying so. Most countries do not register religion, many practitioners are solitary, and surveys use inconsistent labels, so global estimates for Heathenry range from the tens of thousands upward. What can be said firmly is that organized groups now exist across Scandinavia, Western and Central Europe, North America, and beyond, with The Troth, founded in the United States in 1987, among the largest international organizations.

Why Do Extremists Misuse Norse Symbols, and What Do Asatru Organizations Say?

This question has to be addressed directly, because it shadows the religion online. The most common Asatru identity marker is the Mjölnir pendant, Thor's hammer, worn today exactly as small hammer amulets were worn in the Viking Age. That symbol, along with runes and other Norse imagery, has also been appropriated by white-supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, a misuse with roots in nineteenth- and twentieth-century racial nationalism rather than in the medieval sources, which describe a trading, raiding, intermarrying world that was never racially sealed.

The mainstream organizations have rejected that appropriation explicitly and repeatedly. The Ásatrúarfélagið is open to all regardless of origin, and its allsherjargoði, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, has publicly and sharply condemned racist uses of the faith. The Troth's membership policy welcomes practitioners of every ancestry, gender, and sexual orientation. In 2016, Heathen groups began signing Declaration 127, a joint statement named for stanza 127 of the Hávamál, which counsels that when you see evil you should call it evil; more than 180 organizations in over 20 countries have since signed it. The declaration formally severed fellowship with the Asatru Folk Assembly, an American group, over policies and statements that exclude people on the basis of ancestry, sexuality, and gender identity.

Honest reporting means naming the divide behind that document. Within Heathenry, "folkish" groups hold that the religion belongs to people of Northern European descent, while "inclusive" groups reject any ancestry requirement. The oldest and largest organizations, including the Icelandic fellowship and The Troth, are firmly on the inclusive side, and the folkish position has no support in the historical record. Someone wearing a Mjölnir is, overwhelmingly, expressing heritage or faith, not hate, and the people practicing this religion have been the loudest voices saying that hate is not welcome in it.

Asatru: Frequently Asked Questions

What is Asatru?

Asatru is the modern revival of the pre-Christian Norse religion: the contemporary, organized worship of the Old Norse gods such as Odin, Thor, and Freyja. The name is Icelandic for "faith in the Æsir." Many practitioners use the broader term Heathenry. It is a reconstruction built on medieval sources, not an unbroken ancient tradition.

Is Asatru an officially recognized religion?

Yes, in several countries. Iceland recognized the Ásatrúarfélagið as a religious organization in 1973, giving its priests the right to perform legal marriages and funerals. Denmark recognized Forn Siðr in 2003, and in 2013 the US Department of Veterans Affairs approved the Hammer of Thor as an emblem of belief for veterans' headstones.

What do Asatru practitioners believe?

There is no creed and no scripture. Practitioners honor the Norse gods, and often ancestors and land spirits, drawing on the Poetic and Prose Eddas as sources rather than holy books. Ethics generally follow the Hávamál's emphasis on hospitality, honesty, and keeping one's word. Beliefs about the afterlife vary from person to person.

Is Asatru connected to racism?

The religion is not, though extremists have misused its symbols. The major organizations reject racism explicitly: Iceland's Ásatrúarfélagið is open to all and has condemned racist appropriation, The Troth welcomes members of every ancestry, and since 2016 more than 180 Heathen groups have signed Declaration 127, formally disavowing an organization with discriminatory membership rules.

How is Asatru practiced?

Mainly through blót, an offering ceremony in which participants invoke the gods and share or pour out an offering, usually mead, and sumbel, a round of ritual toasts to gods, ancestors, and oaths. Seasonal festivals mark the year, with Yule the most widely kept. Priests called goðar conduct weddings, name-givings, and funerals.

A religion that survived only in manuscripts and place-names is being practiced again, openly, with legal standing and a temple slowly rising in Reykjavik. Whatever one believes, that is a remarkable turn in a story usually told in the past tense. We have tried to describe it the way its own organizations do: medieval fragments in one hand, the modern revival in the other, and a clear line drawn between the two.

Keep exploring: meet the deities at the center of it all in our guide to the Norse gods and goddesses, or read the full story of Mjölnir, the hammer of Thor, the symbol most practitioners wear.

Skål.