THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY
Christian missions came late to the north. Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the south of Sweden were Christianized in the tenth to eleventh centuries. Svealand and Norrland in the central and northern parts of Sweden were converted in the following centuries.
This was not a rapid or uniform process, but was relatively peaceful compared with the crusades and similar forms of forcible Christianization (Staecker 1999: 352-81). There are indications that the old religion was still practised secretly; beliefs and practices concerning guardian spirits particularly persisted into the Christian era. Some of the gods’ functions, such as fighting trolls, giants and ogres, were taken over by saints such as Saint Olav of Norway. Most of these beings were, however, demoted to the shady domain of spirits and demons in Scandinavian folklore.SUGGESTED READING
Clunies Ross, M. 1994. Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Medieval Northern Society. Odense.
Mitchell, S. A. 2010. Witchcraft and Magic in the Norse Middle Ages. Philadelphia, PA.
Schjodt, J.-P. 2008. Initiation between Two Worlds: Structure and Symbolism in Pre-Christian Scandinavian Religion, N. Hansen (trans.). Odense.
Simek, R. 1996. Dictionary of Northern Mythology, Angela Hall (trans.). Stuttgart.
Turville-Petre, G. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North. London.
More on the topic THE COMING OF CHRISTIANITY:
- The Teachings of Christianity
- Conclusion
- The Trend of Change and the Kuki Traditional Religion
- “Our” Universal Peace: From Christ to Constantine
- Conclusion
- Women in the Sacred Landscape of Early Christian Narrative
- 13.0 Introduction
- Zoroastrianism Through the Centuries
- The Construction of a Crisis
- Bredholt Christensen Lisbeth, Hammer Olav, Warburton David. The Handbook of Religions in Ancient Europe. Acumen,2013. — 456 p., 2013
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