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 The
Vikings had a lot of gods. Their mythology was full of exciting and
wild stories about heroic, warlike gods. And the funny thing is that
each god represents a particular aspect or a special thing from the
daily life of the Vikings.
The Vikings called their gods Ases. The home of the Ases was a kind of heaven called Asgard. In Asgard was a giant house called Valhal. This house was where dead warriors met their gods. The enemies of the Ases lived in Udgard, they were a tribe of giants called 'Jætter'. The Jætter had two fearsome helpers. One was the enormous Fenris wolf, and the other was the Midgard serpent - a gigantic snake-like dragon that lived in the sea and wound its way all around the earth.
 The
Vikings believed that the Ases some day would lose a war to the Jætter
and their two monsters. Everybody would be killed and that would be
the end of the world. That day was called Ragnarok.
Odin
The leader of the gods was Odin. He was the wisest of them all, and both gods and humans had to obey him. To obtain such wisdom he had to sacrifice one of his eyes. Odin had two ravens, Hugin and Munin, that every day flew out into the world. When they returned to Odin, they told him everything they had seen and heard, so that Odin knew of everything that happened on earth. Odin also had an eight-legged horse. It was called Sleipner and ran really fast.
Thor
Thor was the strongest and bravest of the gods. He was in charge of thunder and lightning. Thor trravelled across the sky in his chariot, which was pulled by two huge goats, Tandgnjost and Tandgrisner. When he drove, the sky rumbled, and that was called 'Thor-drøn' - what we today call thunder. Thor's best weapon was a large and heavy hammer called Mjolner. When he threw Mjolner it hit everything he aimed at and then returned to his hand. The day Thursday is named after Thor.
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