Freyr, sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, prosperity, fair weather, and good harvest. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was especially associated with Sweden and seen as an ancestor of the Swedish royal house. According to Adam of Bremen, Freyr was associated with peace and pleasure, and was represented with a phallic statue in the Temple at Uppsala. According to Snorri Sturluson, Freyr was "the most renowned of the æsir", and was venerated for good harvest and peace.
In Norse mythology, Njörðr is a god among the Vanir. Njörðr, father of the deities Freyr and Freyja by his unnamed sister, was in an ill-fated marriage with the goddess Skaði, lives in Nóatún and is associated with the sea, seafaring, wind, fishing, wealth, and crop fertility.
Vikings is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia, who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, Volga Bulgaria, the Middle East, and North America. In their countries of origin, and some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a collective whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'.
The Æsir are the gods of the principal pantheon in Old Norse religion and Norse mythology. The second Norse pantheon is the Vanir, these two pantheons waged war against each other, resulting in a unified pantheon.
The Norsemen were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the predecessor of the modern Germanic languages of Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a large-scale expansion in all directions, giving rise to the Viking Age. In English-language scholarship since the 19th century, Norse seafaring traders, settlers and warriors have commonly been referred to as Vikings. Historians of Anglo-Saxon England distinguish between Norse Vikings (Norsemen) from Norway who mainly invaded and occupied the islands north and north-west of Britain, Ireland and western Britain, and Danish Vikings, who principally invaded and occupied eastern Britain.
Old Norse Yngvi[ˈyŋɡwe], Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ing are names that relate to a theonym which appears to have been the older name for the god Freyr. Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz was the legendary ancestor of the Ingaevones, or more accurately Ingvaeones, and is also the reconstructed name of the Elder Futhark rune ᛜ and Anglo-Saxon rune ᛝ, representing ŋ.
Igor is a common East Slavic given name derived from the Norse name Ingvar, that was brought to ancient Rus' by the Norse Varangians, in the form Ingvar or Yngvar. Igor, the son of the Varangian chief Rurik, was left with Rurik's distant relative, first Grand Prince of Kiev Oleg, as a child. Igor after the death of Oleg replaced him on Kiev's throne. Outside of the Slavic language sphere, the name has also become common in Brazil and Portugal, and in the Basque-speaking part of Spain.
The Ynglings were a dynasty of kings, first in Sweden and later in Norway, primarily attested through the poem Ynglingatal. The dynasty also appears as Scylfings in Beowulf. When Beowulf and Ynglingatal were composed sometime in the eighth to tenth centuries, the respective scop and skald (poet) expected his audience to have a great deal of background information about these kings, which is shown in the allusiveness of the references.
The Ingaevones[ɪŋɡae̯ˈwoːneːs] were a Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Frisia in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Frisii, Chauci, Saxons, and Jutes.
Ivor is an English masculine given name derived either directly from the Norse Ívarr, or from Welsh, Irish, or Scottish, all of which likely derive it also from the original Norse form. The Norse name is derived from the Old Norse elements ýr and herr : hence, 'archer, bow warrior'. It is possible the old Norse name Ívarr comes from the Celtic root and may be related to the Celtic root of -iv which is found in St. Ives for example, itself possibly referring to yew. This could indicate an earlier shared language origin; potentially through Indo-European, previous contact or another source.
Ingvar the Far-Travelled was a Swedish Viking who led an expedition that fought in Georgia.
The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name Eiríkr[ˈɛiˌriːkz̠].
Ivar is a Scandinavian masculine given name. Another variant of the name is Iver, which is more common in Norway. The Old Norse name has several possible etymologies. In North Germanic phonology, several of the elements common to Germanic names became homophonous. The first element Ívarr may contain yr "yew" and -arr, but it may have become partly conflated with Ingvar, and possibly Joar. The second element -arr may alternatively also be from geir "spear" or it may be var "protector". The name was adopted into English as Ivor, into Gaelic as Ìomhar, into Estonian as Aivar or Aivo and into Latvian as Ivars.
Yngve is a Scandinavian male given name, mostly used in Sweden and Norway. It is the modern form of either Old Norse Yngvi or of Ingwin. Yngvi was the Old Norse name of the Germanic god Ingu-, later identified with Freyr, or of Ingwian- "belonging to the tribe of the Ingvaeones" (who were in turn named after Ingu-.
Heitstrenging is an Old Norse term referring to the swearing of a solemn oath to perform a future action. They were often performed at Yule and other large social events, where they played a role in establishing and maintaining good relationships principally between members of the aristocratic warrior elite. The oath-swearing practice varied significantly, sometimes involving ritualised drinking or placing hands on a holy pig that could later be sacrificed. While originally containing heathen religious components such as prayers and worship of gods such as Freyr and Thor, the practice continued in an altered manner after the Christianisation of Scandinavia.
In Germanic paganism, a vé or wēoh is a type of shrine, sacred enclosure or other place with religious significance. The term appears in skaldic poetry and in place names in Scandinavia, often in connection with an Old Norse deity or a geographic feature.
The Rus' were a people in early medieval eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD. In the 9th century, they formed the state of Kievan Rusʹ, where the ruling Norsemen along with local Finnic tribes gradually assimilated into the East Slavic population, with Old East Slavic becoming the common spoken language. Old Norse remained familiar to the elite until their complete assimilation by the second half of the 11th century, and in rural areas, vestiges of Norse culture persisted as late as the 14th and early 15th centuries, particularly in the north.
Ingersoll is a surname derived of the Old Norse words "Ingvar" or "Inger" and "sál", common words in found in modern Icelandic, Swedish and Norwegian.
Germanic boar helmets are attested in archaeological finds from England and Sweden, dating to Vendel and Anglo-Saxon periods, and Old English and Old Norse written sources. They consist of helmets decorated with either a boar crest or other boar imagery that was believed to offer protection in battle to the wearer. They have also been proposed to be a costume for the ritual transformation into a boar, similar to berserkers, and to be associated with Freyr.
