Though Odin and Thor are clearly Nordic Gods, their relationship seems very much similar in development to that between the Suavic Jasion and Piorun. The first is a Sky God, the second the God of Thunder. This divergence is, of course, only possible with thunder becoming its own freestanding portfolio independent of the sky (to see an example see here). The divergence was pointed out in the Suavic pantheon by a number of scholars, most notably by the Polish professor Henryk Łowmiański (who, however, thought, I believe incorrectly, the Suavic Sky God’s name was Svarog). Among the Suavs this aspect (the coming of Thor into his own) may have been intrusive – coming from the Varangian Rus.
Indeed in the Nordic or Teutonic pantheon the divergence is illustrated by the usurpation of the Sky God’s central position by the God of Thunder. We see this most visibly in the report provided on the Gods of Uppsala by Adam of Bremen. Adam of Bremen’s description of the Suavic Gods we wrote about here. Now is the time to take a slight detour into that same author’s account of the Gods of Sweden. The following comes from Book IV (“A Description of the Islands of the North…”). For the Suavic parts of that Chronicle, see here (I will at some point also add the scholia which are interesting in and of themselves). The below also discusses some customs of the Swedes along with another reference to the Suavs in a scholium discussing barbarian polygamy. The translation is that of Francis Tschan who also translated the “Chronicle of the Slavs” (for which see here and here).
21. … Only in their sexual relations with women do they known o bounds*; a man according to his means has two or three or more wives at one time, rich men and princes an unlimited number. And they also consider the sons born of such unions legitimate. But if a man known another man’s wife , or by violence ravishes a virgin or spoils another of his goods or does him an injury, capital punishment is inflicted on him. Although all the Hyperboreans are known for their hospitality, our Swedes are so in particular. To deny wayfarers entertainment is to them the bases of all shameful deeds, so much so that there is strife and contention among them over who is worthy to receive a guest. They shown him every courtesy for as many days as he wishes to stay, vying with one another to take him to their friends in their several houses. These good traits they have in their customs. But they also cherish with great affection preachers of the truth if they are chaste and prudent and capable so much that they do not deny bishops attendance at the common assembly of the people that they call the Warh. There they often hear not unwillingly, about Christ and the Christian religion. And perhaps they might readily be persuaded of our faith by preaching but for bad teachers who, in seeking “their own; both the things that are Jesus Christ’s” give scandal to those whom they could save.
* Scholium 132 (127) says: “The Slavs also suffer from this vice, likewise the Parthians and the Mauri, as Lucan testifies about the Parthians and Salust about the Mauri.” See Lucan’s “Civil War” (8, 397-404) and Sallust’s “Jugurtha” (13.6).
22. … Whenever in fighting they [Swedes] are placed in a critical situation, they invoke the aid of one of the multitude of gods they worship. Then after the victory they are devoted to him and set him above the others, By common consent, however, they now declare that the God of the Christians is the most powerful of all. Other gods often fail them, but He always stands gym a surest “helper in due time in tribulation.”
23. … Our metropolitan [that is of Bremen] consecrated the third bishop, Adalward the elder, truly a praiseworthy man. When he thereupon came to the barbarians, he lived as he taught. For by his holy living and his good teaching he is said to have drawn a great multitude of heathen to the Christian faith, He was renowned, too, for his miraculous powers such was were shown when, the barbarians in their need having asked for rain, he had it fall, or again had fair weather come, and he worked other wonders that still are sought of teachers,..
24. Between Norway and Sweden dwell the Wärmilani and Finns and others; who are now all Christians and belong to the Church at Skara. On the confines of the Swedes and Norwegians toward the north Iive the Skritefingi, who, they say, outstrip wild beasts at running. Their largest city is Halsing land, to which the archbishop designated Stenphi as the first bishop, to whim he gave the name Simon. By his preaching he won many of those heathen. There are besides countless other Swedish peoples, of whim we have learned that only the Goths, the Wärmilani, and a part of the Skritefingi, and those in their vicinity, have been converted to Christianity,
25. Let us now proceed to vie a brief description of Sueonia or Sweden. On the west, Sweden has the Goths and the city of Skara; on the north, the Wärmilani with the Skritefingi whose chief is Halsingland; on the south, the length of the Baltic Sea, about which we have spoken before. There is the great city of Sigtuna. On the east, Sweden touches the Rhiphean Mountains, where there is an immense wasteland, the deepest snows, and where hordes of human monsters prevent access to what lies beyond. There are Amazons, and Cyneocephali, and Cyclops who have one eye on their foreheads; there are those Solinus calls Himantopodes, who hop on one foot, and theses who delight in human flesh as food, and they are shunned, so may they also rightfully be passed over in silence. The king of the Danes, often to be remembered, told me that a certain people were in the habit of descending from the highlands into the plains. They are small in stature but hardly matched by the Swedes in strength and agility. ‘Whence they come is not known. They come unexpectedly,’ he said, ‘sometimes once in the course of a year or after a three-year period. Unless they are resisted with all one’s might, they lay waste the whole region and then withdraw.’ Many other things are usually mentioned, but in my effort to be brief I have not mentioned them, letting those speak about them who declare they themselves have seen them. Now we shall say a few words about the superstitions of the Swedes.
26. That folk has a very famous temple called Uppsala, situated not far from the city of Sigtuna and Bjorko. In this temple, entirely decked out in gold, the people worship the statutes of three god in such wise the the mightiest of them, Thor, occupies a throne in the middle of the chamber; Wotan and Frikko have places on either side. The significance of these gods is as follows: Thor, they say, presides over the air, which governs the thunder and lightning, the winds and rains, fair weather and crops. The other, Wotan—that is, the Furious—carries on war and imparts to man strength against his enemies. The third is Frikko, who bestows peace and pleasure on mortals. His likeness, too, they fashion with an immense phallus. But Wotan they chisel armed, as our people are wont to represent Mars. Thor with his scepter apparently resembles Jove. The people also worship heroes made gods, whom they endow with immortality because of their remarkable exploits, as one reads in the Vita of Saint Ansgar they did in the case of King Eric.
27. For all the gods there are appointed priests to offer sacrifices for the people. If plague and famine threaten, a libation is poured to the idol Thor; if war, to Wotan, if marriages are to be celebrated, to Frikko. It is customary also to solemnize in Uppsala, at nine-year intervals, a general feast of all the provinces of Sweden. From attendance at this festival no one is exempted. Kings and people all and singly send their gifts to Uppsala and, what is more distressing than any kind of punishment, those who have already adopted Christianity redeem themselves through these ceremonies. The sacrifice is of this nature: of every living thing that is male, they offer nine heads, with the blood of which it is customary to placate gods of this sort. The bodies they hang in the sacred grove that adjoins the temple, Now this grove is so sacred in the eyes of the heathen that each and every tree in it is believed divine because of the death of putrefaction of the victims. Even dogs and horses hang there with men. A Christian seventy-two years old told me that he had seen their bodies suspended promiscuously. Furthermore, the incantations customarily changed in the ritual of a sacrifice of this kind are manifold and unseemly; therefore, it is better to keep silence about them.
28. In that country there took place lately an event worth remembering and wildly published because it was noteworthy, and it also came to the archbishop’s attention. One of the priests who was won’t to serve the demons at Uppsala became blind and the help of the gods was of no avail. But as the man wisely ascribed the calamity of blindness to his worship of idols, by which superstitious veneration he had evidently offended the almighty God of the Christians, behold, that very night a most beautiful Virgin appeared to him and asked if he would believe in her Son, if to recover his sight he would put aside the images he had previously worshipped. Then he, who for the sake of this boon would refuse to undergo nothing that was hard, gladly promised he would. This the Virgin answered: ‘Be completely assured that this place in which so much innocent blood is now shed is very soon to be dedicated to my honor. That there may not remain any trace of count in your mind about this matter, receive the light of your eyes in the name of Christ, who is my Son.’ As soon as the priest recovered his sight, he believed and, going all the country about, easily persuaded the pagans of the faith so that they believed in Him who made the blind see…
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