Viking women and sacrifices (blóts)

The Old Norse verb blóta means 'to sacrifice'. Sacrifices are an integral part of the religion of the Vikings, which is comparable to the religions of other Indo-European peoples. The Vikings made no distinction between religion and secular life: daily life and religion were fully intertwined. For them, religion was their dharmic way of life and not a separate entity. They didn't even have a word for 'religion' and called it siðr , which meant 'custom' or 'tradition'. People in Viking society lived in kinship with their gods, animistic spiritual power, and the ancestors. It was the role of the aristocracy to maintain this cosmic connection and prevent chaos, both externally and within the community. 

While the society was patriarchal, it was the aristocratic Viking women who played a central role in religion and rituals. One of their roles during ceremonies involved offering. Little is known about the rules Vikings attached to offerings. They may have been as rigid as those of other Indo-European peoples like the Vedic, Greeks, or Romans. The concept remains the same: you give to the gods, in return they give to you. Thus, the circle of reciprocity is maintained. This tradition can also be seen in the sacred hospitality principle where guest and host enter into a ritual bond with each other. Here too, the woman as hostess played a prominent role. 

The Gyðyes was a female priestess, likely the counterpart of the male goði, responsible for religious ceremonies and temple worship in Old Norse society.

The Eyrbyggja saga describes how certain families had a strong religious role and managed temples. In Landnámabók, a woman named Thorbjorg gyðyes is mentioned as a priestess in a sanctuary dedicated to Thor.

The blótgyðyes was a priestess who was involved in blót, the Old Norse sacrificial ceremonies where animals or other gifts were offered to the gods or spirits.

The gyðyes was likely a priestess who managed temples and cults, while the blótgyðyes was specifically involved in sacrificial ceremonies. It is unclear if both were the same person.

Although the sources on this are limited, both sagas’s and archaeological findings suggest an important religious role for women in the Viking Age. It is possible that eventually gyðyes and blótgyðyes became synonymous with each other.

An example of a slave who was offered as a religious sacrifice to accompany a deceased Viking chieftain to the afterlife can be found in the account of the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlān, known as the Risāla, circa the year 920 AD. This source is unique because it is the only eyewitness account of a funeral of a leader of the Rus. Ibn Fadlān encountered the group he describes near the Volga River. His translation and cultural barriers make his account heavily colored for an Islamic audience. The same applies to a modern feminist interpretation of the text. We recommend approaching his account through a dharmic lens, suitable for pre-Christian European societies.

Ibn Fadlān describes how the funeral preparations began with the distribution of the deceased man's possessions among his family. “A young slave girl was asked if she was willing to die with her master,” and she accepted. Ibn Fadlān then describes that preparations took place over ten days, including the construction of a burial mound, the preparation of alcoholic beverages, and the sacrifice of animals. During the ceremony, the slave girl was brought inside and given alcohol to drink. She had sex with several men of the tribe, who wanted to emphasize their love for their deceased chieftain, and was then strangled by an older woman, after which she was laid in the grave with her master. Finally, the ship was set on fire and a mound was raised over the entire site.

It will be clear to those familiar with Viking Age burial practices that there are striking overlaps between Ibn Fadlān’s's account and other richer grave finds. Ships, animal sacrifices, and valuable grave goods are known. The idea of sacrificing a slave is not unique to the Viking World and can be placed in the context of funerary rituals from Indo-European societies. From the Bronze Age, it became common in Europe for both men and women to accompany the deceased in their graves. The most massive examples of this can be found among the Scythians.

Another Arab traveler describes how a man was buried with his possessions, his wife, and his slave, who thereby showed their love for him. An episode in Gautrek’s's saga repeats this idea, in which a male slave was allowed to be buried with him. 

Examples of this include the famous Oseberg ship burial and numerous other multiple burials such as in the urban center of Kaupang in Vestfold, Norway. These are likely slaves who wanted to die with their master. Conversely, there are also several cases that rightly give rise to a different interpretation of male victims. For example, the male and female burial in Gerdrup in Zealand (Denmark), where a woman was apparently murdered by a man who had bound her feet and hanged her. The 'Elk Man' from Birka in Uppland, Sweden, is another example, where an older man was presumably sacrificed by a younger male companion. He was randomly thrown into the grave.

People lived in a society based on oath-bound reciprocity. You were loyal to your chieftain until death. After his death, the chieftain went to Valhalla, where people from the lowest class (thralls) of society could never go. His death caused a disaster within the society. It was this aristocrat who watched over the cosmic order. After his death, chaos threatened to break out unless a smooth transfer of power occurred. 

Thralls had no legal personality and belonged to the land. They had to see who came to power and how they would be treated by this new leader. It is therefore not surprising that a female thrall, who might have had a good relationship with her leader, could choose to follow him to Valhalla, the place of eternal glory. 

The men who had sex with her remained among the living. For them, a dangerous time began in which they had to prevent the tribe from internal collapse. In her final days, they must have considered this slave as semi-sacred. The idea that these elite warriors had sex with her prior to the sacrifice cannot likely be seen from the perspective of male dominance over a female victim. At that moment, her social status was too high for that. Instead, it was the woman who, through this act, connected the men with the chieftain and with each other. After all, it was these men who had to neutralize the impending disaster without bashing each other's heads. 

Continuing with Ibn Fadlān’s Risāla, this source also contains an important female figure who performs the ritual. This is the Malak al-Maut or 'Angel of Death', as described by Ibn Fadlān: an old, corpulent woman with a disturbing appearance. Aside from her physical characteristics, there are also suggestions that she was the coordinator of the ritual. She is described as the one responsible for wrapping the dead in burial clothes—a role considered important, as a third of a jarl's wealth was invested in his funeral. Furthermore, she coordinates the ritual from start to finish and personally carries out the final killing of the slave girl. Who she was is unclear, but she may have been a sacrificial priestess from an aristocratic family. Possibly even that of the deceased chieftain. The Angel of Death provides much insight into how the ritual actually functioned, but perhaps evokes less fascination.

Another interesting text is the Ynglinga saga from the fourteenth-century Flateyjarbók. This describes the use of female leaders, rituals, and sacrifices. It describes how during King Christianizer Olaf's campaign, they stopped at a sacred farm, where an annual ritual was performed by the lady of the house. Every evening she washed a sacred phallus, the Ylgr, and the household members sang and anointed it and passed it from hand to hand. Each chant ended with the prayer: “May this phallus bring abundance.” The phallus presumably represents the god Freyr, who was often associated with fertility, women, and sexual energy—an association carried out with remarkable openness by the priestess. The source is vivid, theatrical, and emphasizes the intensity of the ritual. These types of rituals, although different from Ibn Fadlān’s Risāla, demonstrate the power and visibility of women in ritual contexts.

In Ibn Fadlān’s Risāla, where the slave girl is buried in a structure resembling a door frame, 'to meet her master in the afterlife', this symbolism remains strong. The phallus is also found in a significantly older object: a small bone scraper found in Norway. The nature of the sacrifices themselves may have been lost in translation, but the echo’s of women as instigators of sacrificial practices persists. 

Returning from the lighter tone of the Vǫlsa þáttr, we can see an older association with women as performers of sacrifices in various Germanic sources. Strabo’s Geographica (around 64 BC–21 AD) mentions how priestesses among the Cimbri (possibly originating from Jutland in Denmark) slit the throats of prisoners of war and prophesied with their blood and entrails. Other Germanic sources also describe human sacrifices, although usually the gender of those performing these rituals is not mentioned.

There are connections between women and the cyclical blót-offerings, as in the Óláfs saga helga. A passage describes how the skald Sigvatr and his companions struggled to find shelter at a farm. They were turned away by the lady of the house because they were engaged in an álfablot and Sigvatr and his companions were Christians. At that moment, they were not welcome. The exact role of the lady of the house in this álfablot remains unclear, but because she was the one who turned guests away at that time, we can assume a role of direct involvement in the ritual.

The Dísablót was an ancient sacrificial feast held in honor of the dísir — female spirits or deities who provided protection and were associated with fate and fertility. In some sources, these are the norns, but sometimes Valkyries could also be associated with the dísir. The purpose of this ritual was to promote a good harvest and secure prosperity for the community.

This sacred ritual is mentioned in various old Norse texts, including the Hervarar saga, Víga-Glúms saga, Egils saga, and Heimskringla. According to some sources, the Dísablót took place during the Winter Nights or around the spring equinox. In one version of the Hervarar saga, it is described how Alfhildr, the daughter of King Alfr of Alfheim, was abducted by Starkad Aludreng while she was coloring a horgr (a sacrificial altar of stones) with blood red.  Blood, as in other Indo-European traditions, represented the life story that connected images, graves, and attendees to the world of the living.

Despite sacrifices being almost exclusively associated with priestesses, the Ynglinga saga mentions that the king also played a role as high priest of the temple of Uppsala. The Dísablót had not only religious significance but also political and social significance. 

It usually took place in late February or early March in Gamla Uppsala, where it coincided with the large annual market, the Disting, and the people's assembly, the Thing of all Swedes.

The Old Norse Dísablót can be associated with the Anglo-Saxon modranect (“mother's night”), a night dedicated to female deities. Also, the Anglo-Saxon month blot-monath (sacrifice month) — roughly corresponding to November — points to a broader Germanic tradition of female worship.

The Old Norse religion, like other Indo-European religions, does not distinguish between church and state. After all, it was the aristocracy that was responsible for the balance between order and chaos.

Women were closely connected to sacrificial practices in Old Norse society in many ways, but it is important to realize that they were never depicted as the sole performers of this role. However, it seems that the role of giving offerings to the gods was primarily predestined for women and that they thus held a central and powerful position within the Viking community and its dharmic traditions.