Heathen hofs
Encyclopedia
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
s of Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...
; there are also a few built for use in modern Germanic neopaganism
Germanic neopaganism
Germanic neopaganism is the contemporary revival of historical Germanic paganism. Precursor movements appeared in the early 20th century in Germany and Austria. A second wave of revival began in the early 1970s...
. The term hof is taken from Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
.
Background
Etymologically, the Old Norse word hof is the same as the GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
word hof, meaning a farm or a court, and the former is still its primary meaning in some Scandinavian languages. During the Viking Age
Viking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
, it appears to have displaced older terms for a sacred place, vé
Vé (shrine)
In Germanic paganism, a vé or wēoh is a type of shrine or sacred enclosure. The term appears in skaldic poetry and in place names in Scandinavia , often in connection with a Norse deity or a geographic feature. The name of the Norse god Vé, refers to the practice...
, hörgr
Hörgr
A hörgr or hearg was a type of religious building or altar possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse paganism...
, lundr, and vin, particularly in the West Norse linguistic area, namely Norway and Iceland. It is the dominant word for a temple in the Icelandic saga
Saga
Sagas, are stories in Old Norse about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, etc.Saga may also refer to:Business*Saga DAB radio, a British radio station*Saga Airlines, a Turkish airline*Saga Falabella, a department store chain in Peru...
s, but is rare in skaldic poetry.
Many places in Scandinavia, but especially in West Norse regions, are named hof or hov, either alone or in combination. These include:
- HovHov, Faroe Islands*Population: 133*Postal code : FO 960*Location: *Municipality: HovsHov is a village located on Suduroy’s east coast, in the Faroe Islands; it is frequently mentioned in the country's history. Salmon sea farming has been practiced in Hov since the 1980’s...
on SuðuroySuðuroySuðuroy is the southernmost of the Faroe Islands. The island covers 163.7 km². In 2010 there were 4763 inhabitants, but there has been a gradual decline in the population numbers ever since the 1950s....
, Faroe Islands - Hof in VestfoldVestfoldis a county in Norway, bordering Buskerud and Telemark. The county administration is in Tønsberg.Vestfold is located west of the Oslofjord, as the name indicates. It includes many smaller, but well-known towns in Norway, such as Larvik, Sandefjord, Tønsberg and Horten. The river Numedalslågen runs...
, Norway - HofHof, IcelandHof, in Öræfi, is a small village in southeast Iceland, approximately thirty kilometres east of Vatnajökull, and twenty kilometres south of the Skaftafell National Park....
, a village in Iceland
Some placenames, often names of farms, combine the word, such as:
- Several places in Iceland named Hofstaðir, one the site of a hof excavation
- NorderhovNorderhovNorderhov is a former municipality in Buskerud county, Norway.-Municipality:Norderhov municipality was established on January 1, 1838 . According to the 1835 census the municipality had a population of 7,234. On 22 April 1852 the city of Hønefoss was separated from Norderhov to constitute a...
, a former municipality in Norway - dedicated to Njörðr - TorshovTorshovTorshov is an area in the borough Sagene in Oslo, Norway.Vogts gate serves as the neighborhood's main street. In the street there are trams between the city centre and Kjelsås. Along Vogts gate are several coffee shops, restaurants and cafes....
, a neighborhood in Oslo - dedicated to ThorThorIn Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
There is also one in England: the village of Hoff
Hoff, Cumbria
Hoff is a hamlet and civil parish in the Edendistrict of the county of Cumbria, England. Hoff consists of a number of houses, a former pub, The New Inn, a postbox; and, formerly, a pioneering solar-powered lamppost. The name Hoff originates from old Norse and means 'a heathen sanctuary or temple'....
in Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
, with an associated Hoff Lund, "temple grove."
Changing scholarly views
The nature of Germanic places of worship has long been a subject of scholarly debate. TacitusTacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
famously wrote in Germania
Germania (book)
The Germania , written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus around 98, is an ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.-Contents:...
:
The Germans do not think it in keeping with the divine majesty to confine gods within walls or to portray them in the likeness of any human countenance. Their holy places are woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to that hidden presence which is seen only by the eye of reverence.There are in fact several sites in the historical period at which heathen rites apparently took place in the open, including Hove in Trøndelag
Trøndelag
Trøndelag is the name of a geographical region in the central part of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag. The region is, together with Møre og Romsdal, part of a larger...
, Norway, where offerings were apparently brought to images of the gods on a row of ten posts, but no trace of buildings was found. Yet Tacitus himself wrote of an image of Nerthus
Nerthus
In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with fertility. Nerthus is attested by Tacitus, the first century AD Roman historian, in his Germania. Various theories exist regarding the goddess and her potential later traces amongst the Germanic tribes...
. And in his Annals
Annals (Tacitus)
The Annals by Tacitus is a history of the reigns of the four Roman Emperors succeeding Caesar Augustus. The surviving parts of the Annals extensively cover most of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero. The title Annals was probably not given by Tacitus, but derives from the fact that he treated this...
he refers to a temple of Tanfana
Tanfana
Tanfana or Tamfana was a goddess of the Istvaeones in ancient Germanic paganism, the destruction of whose temple in the territory of the Marsi is mentioned in Tacitus' Annals.-Literary mentions:...
. Most older scholars considered that a hof would be a dedicated temple: an independent sacred place, built specifically for ritual proceedings, comparable to a Christian church. By extension, it was also commonly believed that the hofs had been located on the same sites as the churches that had superseded them.
This was the dominant theory until in 1966 the Danish archeologist Olaf Olsen published the results of a comprehensive study of archeological investigations in Iceland and Sweden and of a large number of the oldest Danish churches. He was not able to confirm a single case of a heathen hof underlying a Christian church, and concluded in light of this that a hof could not have been an independent building. Particularly in reference to the Hofstaðir building in Iceland (see below), he suggested the model of the temple-farm: that rather than being dedicated exclusively to religious use, the hofs were also dwellings, and that the word hof referred to the great farm in a rural settlement, at which the most powerful man also held sacrifice
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
s and feasts.
However, new archeological discoveries in the late 20th century revealed several buildings in various parts of Scandinavia that do appear to have functioned purely as cult sites. Some of them, for example the hall at Tissø, Denmark, were associated with the aristocracy, but others, for example Uppåkra
Uppåkra
Uppåkra is a village located five kilometres south of Lund in Scania in southernmost Sweden.-History:Uppåkra was situated on the ancient main road between Trelleborg and Helsingborg in what was to become the Danish kingdom. The original foundation of Uppåkra is dated to the first century AD,...
in Scania
Scania
Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...
(formerly in Denmark, now in Sweden) functioned as places of assembly for the local population. The temple found in England, at Yeavering
Yeavering
Yeavering is a very small hamlet in the north-east corner of the civil parish of Kirknewton in the English county of Northumberland. It is located on the River Glen at the northern edge of the Cheviot Hills...
, now appears to be an early example of a hall-associated hof, rather than an anomaly.
Gro Steinsland
Gro Steinsland
Gro Steinsland is a Norwegian scholar of medieval studies and history of religion and since August 2009 has been the Scientific Director of the Centre for Advanced Study of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters....
, a historian of Norse paganism
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...
, is of the opinion that in effect it was economic resources as much as local tradition that led to the development of dedicated hofs: in the richest areas, actual temples developed, while in poor areas, the spaces that people had were what they used for blót
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
.
Sagas of the Icelanders
Chapter 2 of Kjalnesinga sagaKjalnesinga saga
-External links:**...
contains an extended description of Thorgrim Helgason's temple at Hof:
He had a large temple built in his hayfield, a hundred feet long and sixty wide. Everybody had to pay a temple fee. Thor was the god most honoured there. It was rounded on the inside, like a vault, and there were windows and wall-hangings everywhere. The image of ThorThorIn Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
stood in the center, with other gods on both sides. In front of them was an altar made with great skill and covered with iron on the top. On this there was to be a fire which would never go out—they called it sacred fire. On the altar was to lie a great armband, made of silver. The temple godiGothiA goði or gothi is the Old Norse term for a priest and chieftain. Gyðja signifies a priestess.The name appears in Wulfila's Gothic language translation of the bible as gudja for "priest", but in Old Norse it is only the feminine form gyðja that perfectly corresponds to the Gothic form...
was to wear it on his arm at all gatherings, and everyone was to swear oaths on it whenever a suit was brought. A great copper bowl was to stand on the altar, and into it was to go all the blood which came from animals or men given to Thor. They called this sacrificial blood [hlaut] and the sacrificial blood bowl [hlautbolli]. This blood was to be sprinkled over men and animals, and the animals that were given in sacrifice were to be used for feasting when sacrificial banquets were held. Men whom they sacrificed were to be cast into a pool which was outside by the door; they called it Blótkelda (Well of Sacrifice).
There is a similar passage in Eyrbyggja saga
Eyrbyggja saga
Eyrbyggja saga is one of the Icelanders' sagas. The name means the saga of the inhabitants of Eyrr, which is a farm on Snæfellsnes on Iceland. The name is slightly misleading as it deals also with the clans of Þórsnes and Alptafjörðr. The most central character is Snorri Þorgrímsson or Snorri goði...
about Thorolf Mostrarskegg's temple at Hofstaðir, which gives more information about the layout of the hof:
There he had a temple built, and it was a sizeable building, with a door on the side-wall near the gable. The high-seat pillars were placed inside the door, and nails, that were called holy nails [reginnaglarReginnaglarIn Norse mythology, reginnaglar are nails used for religious purposes.For example, the Icelandic saga Eyrbyggja saga relates the use of reginnaglar in the construction of a temple by Þórólfur Mostrarskegg :...
], were driven into them. Beyond that point, the temple was a sanctuary. At the inner end there was a structure similar to the choir in churches nowadays and there was a raised platform in the middle of the floor like an altar, where a ring weighing twenty ounces and fashioned without a join was placed, and all oaths had to be sworn on this ring. It also had to be worn by the temple priest at all public gatherings. A sacrificial bowl [hlautbolli] was placed on the platform and in it a sacrificial twig [hlautteinn]—like a priest's aspergillum—which was used to sprinkle blood from the bowl. This blood, which was called sacrificial blood [hlaut], was the blood of live animals offered to the gods. The gods were placed around the platform in the choir-like structure within the temple. All farmers had to pay a toll to the temple . . . . The temple godi was responsible for the upkeep of the temple and ensuring it was maintained properly, as well as for holding sacrificial feasts in it.
Heimskringla
Snorri SturlusonSnorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...
's description in Heimskringla
Heimskringla
Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...
of the process of blót
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
repeats the same information about the blood and the bowl, and continues:
. . . and with [the hlautteinar] were to be smeared all over with blood the pedestals of the idols and also the walls of the temple within and without; and likewise the men present were to be sprinkled with blood. But the meat of the animals was to be boiled and to serve as food at the banquet. Fires were to be lighted in the middle of the temple floor, and kettles hung over them. The sacrificial beaker was to be borne around the fire.
Jan de Vries considered the 100 by 60 foot dimensions and the eternal flame exaggerated; the human sacrifices in a pool by the door, not so much.
Several sagas, including Kjalnesinga saga, also mention hofs being surrounded by a fence.
Gamla Uppsala
The most famous heathen hof of the Viking AgeViking Age
Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...
is that at Gamla Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 16,231 inhabitants in 1991.As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political centre...
("Old Uppsala") in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, which was described by Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. He is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum .-Background:Little is known of his life other than hints from his own chronicles...
around 1070, likely based on an eyewitness description by King Sweyn Estridsen
Sweyn Estridsen
Svein Knutsson c. 1016–1035, was the son of Cnut the Great, king of Denmark, Norway, and England, and his first wife Ælfgifu of Northampton, a Mercian noblewoman. In 1017 Cnut married Emma of Normandy, but there is no evidence that Ælfgifu was repudiated, and in 1030 Cnut sent her and Svein as...
:
That folk has a very famous temple called Uppsala . . . . In this temple, entirely decked out in gold, the people worship the statues of three gods in such wise that the mightiest of them, ThorThorIn Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
, occupies a throne in the middle of the chamber; WotanOdinOdin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
and Frikko[ presumably FreyrFreyrFreyr is one of the most important gods of Norse paganism. Freyr was highly associated with farming, weather and, as a phallic fertility god, Freyr "bestows peace and pleasure on mortals"...] 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 MarsMars (mythology)Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
. Thor with his scepter apparently resembles JoveJOVEJOVE is an open-source, Emacs-like text editor, primarily intended for Unix-like operating systems. It also supports MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. JOVE was inspired by Gosling Emacs but is much smaller and simpler, lacking Mocklisp...
. . . . 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.
A note or scholion appended to this passage adds the following description:
A golden chain goes round the temple. It hangs over the gable of the building and sends its glitter far off to those who approach, because the shrine stands on level ground with mountains all about it like a theater.
Another scholion describes natural features near the hof:
Near this temple stands a very large tree with wide-spreading branches, always green winter and summer. What kind it is nobody knows. There is also a spring at which the pagans are accustomed to make their sacrifices, and into it to plunge a live man. And if he is not found, the people's wish will be granted.
Rather than a single tree, the passage that follows on the great sacrifices held every nine years at Uppsala speaks of a sacred grove
Sacred grove
A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...
adjoining the hof, of which each and every tree is sacred and in which the human and animal victims are hanged.
Adam's presumed source, Sweyn Estridsen, was in service as a young man (from 1026 to 1038) with King Anund Jakob of Sweden, and therefore had the opportunity to personally see the hof at Uppsala. But we do not know how accurately Adam reports what he said. Accuracy concerning heathenry was not his objective in writing his history.
Goodmanham
In his Historia ecclesiastica gentis AnglorumHistoria ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...
(Ecclesiastical History of the English People), Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
describes the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria
Edwin of Northumbria
Edwin , also known as Eadwine or Æduini, was the King of Deira and Bernicia – which later became known as Northumbria – from about 616 until his death. He converted to Christianity and was baptised in 627; after he fell at the Battle of Hatfield Chase, he was venerated as a saint.Edwin was the son...
. His high-priest, Coifi
Coifi
Coifi or Cofi was the priest of the temple at Goodmanham in Northumbria in 627.Bede's description of Coifi is that of the chief of priests in Northumbria; the fact that he is the chief priest suggests that there was some sort of organised pagan priesthood in existence during Coifi's time...
, convinced that Christianity is a better way, volunteers to personally lead the destruction of the temple and its idols, which Bede says was located at Goodmanham
Goodmanham
Goodmanham is a small village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately to the north-east of Market Weighton...
, just east of York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
:
So he . . . asked the king to give him arms and a stallion—for hitherto it had not been lawful for the Chief Priest to carry arms or to ride anything but a mare. . . . Girded with a sword and with a spear in his hand, he mounted the king's stallion and rode up to the idols. . . . [W]ithout hesitation, as soon as he reached the shrine, he cast into it the spear he carried and thus profaned it. Then . . . he told his companions to set fire to the shrine and its enclosures and destroy them. . . . Here it was that the Chief Priest . . . desecrated and destroyed the altars that he had himself dedicated.
Tissø
In the 1990s, Danish archeologists excavated a chieftain's residence on the outskirts of Tissø in West Zealand CountyWest Zealand County
Vestsjællands Amt is a former county in the west-central part of the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark. The county was abolished effective January 1, 2007, when it merged into Region Sjælland Vestsjællands Amt is a former county (Danish: amt) in the west-central part of the island of Zealand...
. Among other finds, they uncovered the remains of a large longhouse or hall that was in use between the 6th and 11th centuries C.E. It was apparent from the postholes that the roof had been supported by a few very strong columns and that the building had been tall, possibly two-story. It contained a large central room, where a large number of animal bones, fragments of Frankish glass beakers, and a piece of a string instrument were found. These finds indicate with a high degree of likelihood that the hall was used for ceremonial feasts. In addition, large numbers of offered items were found in the area, among others a huge gold ring, amulets with mythological motifs, and animal bones. These finds all suggest that the entire complex was an important religious center.
Other finds in the area, for example weapons and jewelry, show that the site was associated with the highest strata of society, possibly with the royal family. The entire complex, which also included workshops and a marketplace, may have functioned as a temporary residence for the king when he made periodic visits to that part of the kingdom. Investigations have shown that the complex was only in use for short periods. The king also functioned as a religious leader, and the hof was used for the feasts and blóts that were held when the king was at the location. Similar complexes of buildings are known from other places in southern Scandinavia, for example Järrestad in Scania, Lisbjerg in Jutland, and Toftegård in Zealand. These royal centers, called central places by archeologists, perhaps also constituted a parallel to the royal palaces of the Merovingian, Carolingian, and Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
s, such as Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
's palace complex at Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
. These also included religious buildings, marketplaces, and workshops that were primarily used when the peripatetic court was in residence.
Hofstaðir
The name of the settlement of Hofstaðir, near MývatnMývatn
Mývatn is a shallow eutrophic lake situated in an area of active volcanism in the north of Iceland, not far from Krafla volcano. The lake and its surrounding wetlands have an exceptionally rich fauna of waterbirds, especially ducks...
, and local tradition indicate it was the site of a hof. The site was excavated by Daniel Bruun in 1908 and again by Olaf Olsen in 1965. Since 1991, the Icelandic Archeological Institute (Fornleifastofnun Íslands - FSI) has re-investigated it; since 2002, in an international investigation under the Landscape of Settlements program. The excavations have uncovered a large longhouse
Long house
A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building built by peoples in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe and North America....
with a small separate room at the north end, 42 meters long overall and 8 meters wide in the main section. It had three small protruding sections, two near the south end and one on the opposite side. There was a fireplace in the center and smaller fireplaces at both ends of the main room. Animal bones were found all around the inside of the walls in the main room, and a smaller number in the small room. Various associated buildings have also been excavated.
Olsen used Hofstaðir as a particularly good example of the idea of the temple-farm. Despite its large size, in form the building is identical to other longhouses, the small room at the north end was a later addition, and the 1908 excavation had not fully revealed the entrances, annexes, and ancillary buildings. He considered it primarily a farmhouse and only incidentally a hof. However, in addition to clarifying the relationship between the annexes and the main hall, the re-excavation revealed even more bone fragments, and analysis shows that at least 23 cattle had been sacrificial offerings. They were killed in an unusual manner, by a blow between the eyes, and their skulls displayed outside for years. The horns had not been removed and in age the animals ranged from just full-grown to middle-aged, both of these being unique in Icelandic farming at the time; also the majority appear to have been bulls, which is very surprising in a dairy economy. The dates of the skulls varied, with the last having been slaughtered around 1000 C.E., and one sheep skeleton was found that had been killed in the same manner as the cattle. The bone finds thus indicate the building did indeed serve as a hof. So do the surprisingly small size of the main hearth despite the great size of the building; the relatively few finds of valuable objects (and complete lack of weapons), and the location, which is convenient for travel and highly visible, but not good for a farmstead. Hence, the unusual evidence of frequent meat feasting does not simply indicate a particularly wealthy settlement, but a place of frequent ritual gatherings, probably in spring and summer. The unusual method of slaughter was deliberately dramatic and would have produced a fountain of blood. The skulls were found among roof and wall debris, all but one grouped in two places at the south end of the hall: inside the southeast annex and between the southwestern annex and the wall of the main building; it seems plausible that they were on display when the building was in use and that where they were found was storage, whether normal winter storage or concealment after conversion to Christianity caused the abandonment of the building in the mid-eleventh century. The goat sacrifice can be interpreted as a termination ritual.
Olsen also regarded as highly significant that only 9 meters from the south door of the building was an oval pit containing ash, charcoal, fragments of animal bone, and sooty stones. He pointed out that Icelandic farms usually disposed of their refuse down a slope, and interpreted this as a very large baking pit.
Sæból and other reputed square hof sites
A number of square ruins in Iceland, above all one at Sæból, were interpreted as the remains of hofs, but Olsen demonstrated that they are identical in form and scale with horse stalls still in use in Iceland. He ascribed the hof legends attached to them to romantic nationalism and pointed out that many were called medieval chapels (bænhús) at the beginning of the 19th century and had transformed into ruined hofs by the end of that century.Uppåkra
In 2000–2004, excavations in UppåkraUppåkra
Uppåkra is a village located five kilometres south of Lund in Scania in southernmost Sweden.-History:Uppåkra was situated on the ancient main road between Trelleborg and Helsingborg in what was to become the Danish kingdom. The original foundation of Uppåkra is dated to the first century AD,...
, south of Lund
Lund
-Main sights:During the 12th and 13th centuries, when the town was the seat of the archbishop, many churches and monasteries were built. At its peak, Lund had 27 churches, but most of them were demolished as result of the Reformation in 1536. Several medieval buildings remain, including Lund...
in Scania
Scania
Scania is the southernmost of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden, constituting a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian peninsula, and some adjacent islands. The modern administrative subdivision Skåne County is almost, but not totally, congruent with the...
revealed that a heathen hof was located there for several hundred years. Since it was possible to excavate the entire site and since it had not been disturbed, this excavation afforded the first opportunity for a purely archeological study of a heathen hof in its entirety.
The remains of the building consist of holes and trenches for the placement of the pillars and walls that once stood there. Various floor levels were discernible, and it was possible to determine that the hof was initially erected in the 3rd century C.E. on the site of an unusually large longhouse, and then rebuilt six times without appreciable changes, the last version of the building dating to the early Viking Age. The building material was in all cases wood, which was also sunk into the ground.
The building was not large, only 13 meters long and 6.5 meters wide. The walls on the long sides were made of slightly convex, rough-cut oak posts or "staves," which were sunk into a trench in the earth more than one meter deep. At each corner of the building stood a pillar or corner-post. The central part of the building, which stood free of the outer walls, was formed by four gigantic wooden columns. The holes for these and for the corner-posts are unusually wide and more than two meters deep, and stone packing found in three of the center holes indicates columns at least 0.7 meters in diameter.
The building had three entrances, two in the south and one in the north. Each opening had hefty posts on either side, and the southwestern had a projecting section in addition. That must therefore have been the main entrance of the hof. This has been interpreted as the men's entrance, the entrance on the north side as the women's entrance, and the southeastern entrance as for the priest, on the model of stone churches.
Two large iron door rings were found, one in the fill around a post, the other about 10 meters from the building.
In the wall trenches and the post holes, the excavators found roughly two hundred so-called gullgubber
Gullgubber
Gullgubber or guldgubber, guldgubbar are art-objects, amulets, or offerings found in Scandinavia and dating to early medieval times. They consist of thin pieces of beaten gold , usually between 1 and 2 sq. cm...
, the most found at any site in Sweden. These are small pieces of gold foil with incised human figures. Their size indicates that these cannot have served as examples of gold for trade without having a connection to religious worship. Finding such large numbers of them where the posts and walls of the Uppåkra hof stood indicates that they were offered in association with the erection of the temple. Those found at Uppåkra resemble those found at the Sorte Muld ("black earth") site on the Danish island of Bornholm
Bornholm
Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea located to the east of the rest of Denmark, the south of Sweden, and the north of Poland. The main industries on the island include fishing, arts and crafts like glass making and pottery using locally worked clay, and dairy farming. Tourism is...
, some even being made from the same molds. Most of them depict male figures, a smaller number depict females, and a few depict male-female couples.
North of the building, a large number of weapons were found, many of them deliberately broken like the offerings left in Danish bogs. Spear-points were most numerous, followed by fragmented shields. They had been placed on top of layers of stones, and with them were bones, some human. Some weaponry was also found south of the building. It is possible that these had previously been stored in the hof.
Immediately beyond the west end of the building was a concentration of fire-cracked stones and animal bones; there was a paved area just south of it, southwest of the hof. A few meters further to the west there had been a small building that was possibly related to the hof: a gold bracteate was found on a collapsed clay wall. To the east of the building there had been several longhouses and firepits at different times, and several grindstones were also found buried in an almost straight line, some smashed and others intact. These may have been offerings or have supported pillars.
The hof is near the center of the settlement and there are at least four burial mounds to the west and north of it, probably dating to the early Bronze Age or the early Iron Age.
The outer walls of the building were of so-called stave-construction, as in palisade churches and later stave church
Stave church
A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts have lent their name to the building technique...
es, with strong corner posts. The technique can be recognized from the preserved remnants of palisade churches in Lund dating to about 1050. The tops of the vertical posts or staves must have been slotted into a horizontal log or wall plate, called a lejd in Swedish (stavlægje in Norwegian), which was seated on the corner posts. The deep trench in which the staves were sunk together with the deep holes for the corner posts indicate that the outer walls must have been high. The purpose of the holes was to resist the lateral pressures so that the walls did not collapse. In Hemse
Hemse
Hemse is a locality situated in Gotland Municipality, Gotland County, Sweden with 1,836 inhabitants in 2005. It is the second largest locality on the island of Gotland. During 19th century Hemse was known for its market places....
church, Gotland
Gotland
Gotland is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden; it is Sweden's largest island and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, the region makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area...
, wall staves three meters long were found preserved from the early timber church. An above-ground height of up to four meters for the outer walls of the hof is therefore not impossible.
Reconstructions of the appearance of the hof at Uppåkra have assumed it looked like a stave church. In 2004 the Foteviken Museum published a reconstruction with the four central columns interpreted as the framework for a tower. The roof was clad in wood shakes, which indicate a fairly steep roof. From the side wall to the tower wall, there must have been a rise of a good two meters. The two-meter-deep postholes indicate a very strong construction, not least since the four columns formed a square, which made possible effective cross-bracing (as depicted in the above illustration). With a suggested height of ten meters for its columns, the roof of the tower would have protruded a full three meters over the roof ridge of the nave.
A second reconstruction, Lunda, was published in 2006. In the latter, the artist opted not to interpret the imposing dimensions of the four central columns and the tremendous depth to which they were sunk in terms of a tower, but instead to extend the outer walls up to a tremendous height, almost six meters. The two interpretations are represented together for comparison here.
Inside the Uppåkra hof was a fireplace, near which a bronze and silver beaker, a glass bowl, and shards of about ten other glass vessels were found buried in the floor. The beaker, dated to approximately 500 CE, is approximately 20 cm high and decorated with bands of thin gold leaf embossed with designs of humans, snakes, and horses. The bowl, roughly contemporary, is made of a clear layer of glass with a cobalt blue glass overlay cut through in a rosette pattern and comes from the region north of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
. Numerous other objects - fibulae, beads, potsherds, gold fragments - of varying dates were found in the various floor layers, suggesting a continuous tradition of offerings, and there were signs of the manufacture of gold objects near the building.
Lunda
At Lunda farm in SödermanlandSödermanland
', sometimes referred to under its Latin form Sudermannia or Sudermania, is a historical province or landskap on the south eastern coast of Sweden. It borders Östergötland, Närke, Västmanland and Uppland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea.In Swedish, the province name is...
, excavation revealed a small building parallel to the north side of a longhouse, with three phallic figurines inside, one solid gold, the other two cast in bronze and gilded. This is thought to have been a hof associated with the longhouse residence. In addition, a nearby hillside appears to have been a sacred grove: numerous settings of crushed stone and fire sites were found all over it, and evenly distributed on, under, and around them, large amounts of burned and crushed bone, burned and crushed clay fragments, and resin drops, and smaller numbers of beads and blades such as knives and arrowheads. The bone fragments were very worn, indicating they had been left exposed or possibly ground, and the very few that could be identified were from pigs and either sheep or goats.
Borg
At Borg in Norrköping MunicipalityNorrköping Municipality
Norrköping Municipality is a municipality in Östergötland County in southeast Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Norrköping, with some 90,000 inhabitants....
, Östergötland
Östergötland
Östergötland, English exonym: East Gothland, is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland, and the Baltic Sea. In older English literature, one might also encounter the Latinized version, Ostrogothia...
, a small building was excavated that had two rooms on either side of a central hallway. There was a stone foundation interpreted as a hörgr
Hörgr
A hörgr or hearg was a type of religious building or altar possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse paganism...
at the far end of the hallway from the entrance. Two amulet rings were found near this and 98 amulet rings and 75 kg of unburned animal bones, including numerous skulls and jawbones, were found in the paved area in front of the entrance, suggesting the building had been used for ritual feasts. In the eleventh century the building and its yard had been covered with a thick layer of gravel and a church erected 100 m away.
Gamla Uppsala
In a 1926 excavation, Sune Lindqvist found at least three levels of previous occupation under and immediately to the north of the church at Gamla UppsalaGamla Uppsala
Gamla Uppsala is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 16,231 inhabitants in 1991.As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political centre...
. In the layer immediately underlying the church, dated to approximately 900 C.E., he found post-holes that he interpreted as the remains of the great hof described by Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. He is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum .-Background:Little is known of his life other than hints from his own chronicles...
. He interpreted them as two concentric rectangles, the remains of an almost square building with a high roof. However, as Olsen demonstrated, the remains are too sparse to support this interpretation, which is in any case based on Carl Schuchhardt's reconstruction of the Wendish
Wendish
Wendish may refer to:* the Sorbian languages used by the Slavs* the Wends, a Slav people of Northern Europe...
temple at Arkona
Arkona
Arkona may refer to:* Cape Arkona on the German island of Rügen* Arkona , the Russian folk metal band* Arkona , a black metal band* Arkona, Ontario...
, a later and non-Germanic site. Moreover, Schuchhardt's excavation was rushed and his own data do not certainly support the square plan that he later claimed to have found at two other Baltic sites.
Mære
Under the medieval stone church at MæreMære
Mære is a village in the municipality of Steinkjer in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located along the European route E6 highway and the Nordlandsbanen railway line, about south of the town of Steinkjer. The village of Sparbu lies about south of Mære. Mære Church is located in this...
in Nord-Trøndelag
Nord-Trøndelag
is a county constituting the northern part of Trøndelag in Norway. As of 2010, the county had 131,555 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-least populated county. The largest municipalities are Stjørdal, Steinkjer—the county seat, Levanger, Namsos and Verdal, all with between 21,000 and...
, archeological investigation in the 1960s revealed remnants of a hof, the only one found under a Norwegian church. The building had been of post construction, and gullgubber
Gullgubber
Gullgubber or guldgubber, guldgubbar are art-objects, amulets, or offerings found in Scandinavia and dating to early medieval times. They consist of thin pieces of beaten gold , usually between 1 and 2 sq. cm...
were found in one post-hole.
Hov
At Hov in VingromVingrom
Vingrom is a village in the municipality of Lillehammer, Norway, located just north of the Gjøvik border by the lake Mjøsa. Vingrom has a population of 524....
near Lake Mjøsa
Mjøsa
Mjøsa is Norway's largest lake, as well as one of the deepest lakes in Norway and in Europe as a whole, after Hornindalsvatnet. It is located in the southern part of Norway, about 100 km north of Oslo...
in southern Norway, excavations of a 15-meter longhouse have revealed gullgubber
Gullgubber
Gullgubber or guldgubber, guldgubbar are art-objects, amulets, or offerings found in Scandinavia and dating to early medieval times. They consist of thin pieces of beaten gold , usually between 1 and 2 sq. cm...
and "strike-a-lights," suggesting cultic use. The as yet unpublished site is identified as a 6th-7th century building that was part of a farm and apparently was never used as a residence, and so far has yielded 29 gullgubber, a half-dozen strike-a-lights, a scramasax dated to approximately 550 C.E., pearls, knives, and a ring-nail.
Yeavering
The only heathen temple site yet found in England is at YeaveringYeavering
Yeavering is a very small hamlet in the north-east corner of the civil parish of Kirknewton in the English county of Northumberland. It is located on the River Glen at the northern edge of the Cheviot Hills...
, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
, which seems to correspond to Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
's Ad Gefrin.
Between 1952 and 1962, Brian Hope-Taylor directed an excavation of the site. This was a royal residence of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Northumbria, but Hope-Taylor emphasized that as implied by its Celtic name, its history began far back in the post-Romano-British past; the "Great Enclosure" on the eastern edge of the site, in his opinion, had most likely been created in the 4th or 5th century C.E., possibly earlier, and only one of the burials on the site could reasonably be claimed to be Anglo-Saxon rather than indigenous Celtic, and that mainly on grounds of the individual's unusual height. In his view the archeological evidence was "preponderantly Celtic." However, he also identified the buildings he found as the product of a "vigorous hybrid culture" and regarded the buildings with solid walls in foundation trenches as "Saxo-Frisian" halls constructed by native [Celtic] craftsmen; in construction they are very early examples of a technique later found widely in important buildings, including churches, in both Anglo-Saxon England and on the Continent, but at this time otherwise only found on Iona and near Yeavering, at Milfield, while in form they closely resemble buildings excavated west of the Weser.
Among these trench-built solid-walled buildings were three that lay some distance west of the great hall, with the amphitheatrical structure Hope-Taylor referred to as the assembly-structure lying between them: a pair of rectangular buildings placed end to end with what appears to have been a wattle fence between them, and an associated building that Hope-Taylor interpreted as a kitchen. These three were the only buildings on the site oriented north-south rather than east-west, and were constructed at the same time as or shortly before the assembly-structure. They were destroyed along with the Great Enclosure around 633, after which a church was built at the east end of the site. The southern building of the pair Hope-Taylor was convinced was a temple. No pottery or other indications of normal domestic use were found in this building. Nor were scattered animal bones. The building had been constructed in two stages: the second was constructed around the first (which was one of the few buildings on the site not to have been burned down), using carefully finished carpentry and heavy buttresses similar to those of the great hall. Inside the inner wall, the trench had been left open or opened up to form a pit approximately 6 feet long and more than 1 foot wide, which was full of animal bones; these had been deposited in at least 9 layers and stacked against the wall above the pit after space ran out, and there were half again as many as were found elsewhere on the site. They were mostly bones of oxen, with an extremely high proportion of skulls, and evidently had mostly been slaughtered as young calves, when their meat would be tender, rather than either shortly after birth when male calves would be surplus to dairy farming or after reaching full growth and being usable as draft animals. There were three non-structural postholes from which the posts had been removed before the building was burned and demolished. In addition, outside the northwest corner of the building there was a pit 4 feet in depth in which a post had been placed; nothing was found here except unusually clayey soil compared to the rest of the site, and crushed animal teeth, probably from sheep or goats; numerous thin, pointed stakes had been driven into the ground around this feature. And south of the pit, on the west side of the building, were traces of the successive erection of at least four temporary huts. A smaller, similar set of traces lay to the west of the screen between that building and the one to the north. South of the temple building was a rectangular enclosure that appeared to have been unroofed. There was no door out to this area from the building; both buildings had doors on their two long, east and west sides. Finally, of the graves in the western cemetery area of the site, the northernmost 16 were grouped around the temple building; but no burials lay to the east of the enclosure, suggesting that was where the gate was. All but one body, a child who was buried doubled-over, were buried with their heads to the west. Hope-Taylor considered the burials associated with free-standing posts beside the building and pointed out that although the form of burial—stretched out and without grave goods—would have been acceptable to Christians, the dating and association with the un-Christian building mean that at least some of the burials must have occurred during heathen times.
Stave churches
The unusual medieval stave churchStave church
A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts have lent their name to the building technique...
es of Norway and Sweden were constructed using a later version of the upright stave technique seen at Yeavering and Uppåkra, often have runic graffiti and very oldfashioned decorative carving, and the oldest, at Urnes
Urnes stave church
Urnes Stave Church is a stave church at the Ornes farm, along the Lustrafjord in the municipality of Luster in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway, about east of the village of Hafslo....
, has preserved in one wall two ancient door panels featuring the motif of the gripping beast that were evidently felt to be too pagan to continue to be prominently displayed. Many have thought that hofs probably looked like the early stave churches. However, although excavations have found the remains of earlier palisade church
Palisade church
A palisade church is a church building which is built with palisade walls, standing split logs of timber, rammed into the ground, set in gravel or resting on a sill...
es under many medieval Scandinavian churches, including two predecessors under the Urnes church, only under the church at Mære
Mære
Mære is a village in the municipality of Steinkjer in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is located along the European route E6 highway and the Nordlandsbanen railway line, about south of the town of Steinkjer. The village of Sparbu lies about south of Mære. Mære Church is located in this...
have traces of a heathen hof been found. In particular Olsen investigated the notion that the earliest Scandinavian churches were built over the hofs, and found it not substantiated. However, he did see no other source for the main stylistic characteristics of the stave-church - "the striving for height, the raised central roof and the surrounding gallery at ground level" - than indigenous Norwegian buildings, since the main influence on early Norwegian Christianity was Anglo-Saxon England, where stave churches were not built. But Olsen believed buildings like the first Urnes church would have been too small to accommodate heathen sacrifice and feasting, and no smaller hofs had yet been discovered, so he believed all hofs were longhouse temple-farms.
One Anglo-Saxon church, however, arguably is a stave-church: that at Greensted
Greensted Church
Greensted Church, in the small village of Greensted, near Chipping Ongar in Essex, England, is the oldest wooden church in the world, and probably the oldest wooden building in Europe still standing, albeit only in part, since few sections of its original wooden structure remain...
in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
. Also, some of the earliest Anglo-Saxon churches consisted only of wooden towers
Anglo-Saxon turriform churches
Anglo-Saxon turriform churches were an Anglo-Saxon style of church that were built in the form of towers. They can also be called tower-nave churches.Several Anglo-Saxon churches were built as towers...
, to which naves were added only later in the Middle Ages, for example at Earls Barton. These have sometimes been compared to stave churches, especially those with a central raised section, and many of the stave churches have been elongated or made cruciform from an originally square plan. For example, the reconstructed Øye stave church
Øye stave church
Øye stave church is situated in Øye, a village in the municipality of Vang, Oppland county, Norway. It is a triple nave stave church and dates from the second half of the 12th century. The church was situated next to the lake Vangsmjøse in Øye. Here, however, the river Rødøla would flood almost...
is square, and the traces of the earlier church under Ringebu stave church
Ringebu stave church
Ringebu Stave Church is a stave church located in Ringebu in Ringebu municipality, Gudbrandsdal, Norway. Built in the first quarter of the 13th century, and dated according to coins found during archeologic surveys.-History:...
show an almost square building.
Modern hofs
Some buildings have been constructed or adapted as hofs by modern heathensGermanic neopaganism
Germanic neopaganism is the contemporary revival of historical Germanic paganism. Precursor movements appeared in the early 20th century in Germany and Austria. A second wave of revival began in the early 1970s...
, for example the governmentally-recognized hof operated by Gladsheim Kindred in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. In Iceland, the Ásatrúarfélagið received planning permission in 2006 for a hof in Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
.
Sources
- Gunnar Andersson, L. Beronius Jörperland, J. Dunés. "Gudarnas gård: Tre fallosfiguriner från Lunda i Strängnäs socken, Södermanland." Fornvännen 98, 124-26. 2003.
- Lars Jørgensen. "Hov og hørg ved Tissø." In Torsten Capelle, Christian Fischer, Karen M. Boe eds. Ragnarok: Odins verden. Silkeborg: Silkeborg Museum, 2005. OCLC 68385544
- Gavin Lucas, ed. Hofstaðir: Investigations of a Viking-Age Feasting-Hall in North-Eastern Iceland. Reykjavík: Fornleifastofnun Íslands, 2009.
- Sven Rosborn. Den skånska Historien: Vikingarna. Höllviken: Fotevikens Museum, 2004. ISBN 91-973777-1-6
- Gro Steinsland. Norrøn religion: myter, riter, samfunn. Oslo: Pax, 2005. ISBN 82-530-2607-2
External links
- Digital archive of Hofstaðir re-excavation, Fornleifastofnun Íslands
- Vikingarnas landskap: Uppåkra - vikingacentrat i Skåne at Foteviken Museum (Swedish)
- re-creation of interior of Uppåkra hof by Foteviken Museum (Quicktime, opens focused on image of Odin)
- The Gefrin Trust
- Past Perfect: the virtual archaeology of Durham and Northumberland
- North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation lab reports on Hofstadir