Norse paganism /

Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age. Knowledge of Norse paganism is mostly drawn from the results of archaeological field work, etymology and early written materials. Some scholars, such as Georges Dumézil, suggest that some structural and thematic elements within the attested Norse religious ideas place Norse paganism within the framework of the pan-Indo-European expression of spiritual ideas as a whole. Norse religion was a cultural phenomenon, and—like most pre-literate folk beliefs—the practitioners probably did not have a name for their religion until they came into contact with outsiders or competitors. Therefore, the only titles bestowed upon Norse religion are the ones which were used to describe the religion in a competitive manner, usually in a very antagonistic context. Some of these terms were hedendom (Scandinavian), Heidentum (German), Heathenry (English) or Pagan (Latin). A more romanticized name for Norse