Norse and Germanic paganism — the spiritual tradition of the peoples of Scandinavia, Germany, and Anglo-Saxon England before Christianization — centers on gods who are themselves mortal: Odin the seeker of wisdom who sacrificed his eye at Mimir's well and hung on the World Tree to gain the runes, Thor the thunder-bringer and protector of humanity, Freya the goddess of love and war, Loki the trickster who both sustains and threatens the cosmic order. Its cosmos is not a paradise but a struggle — the world held together in the face of entropy, Ragnarök always on the horizon — and this gives it a quality of unflinching courage that continues to resonate. Contemporary practitioners of Asatru and Heathenry are reconstructing and reviving these traditions as living spiritual paths.
Each step builds on the last.