Processions and Ritual Movement in Viking Age Scandinavia

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Luke John Murphy; Simon Nygaard

Published:

2023

Publisher:

Oxbow Books

In this chapter we survey and analyse evidence for processions and their possible functions in Viking Age Scandinavia. We propose two forms of processional movement, and examine forms of ritual transport and their likely venues. Although older studies of ‘procession’ as part of human ritual activity defined it as purely linear – that is, a ritual movement from Point A to Point B (and occasionally back again) we also incorporate evidence for circulatory movements around a particular place, which seems to have played a significant role in pre-Christian Nordic culture. Indeed, what we term circulatory processions are arguably more numerous in our written source material than their linear counterparts, although the ever-growing archaeological record may nuance this picture in years to come. Linear processions are mostly found in funerary contexts, and consist of ritual movement from one place to another, potentially also including a non-ritual return to the starting point via the same route. Circulatory processions, on the other hand, seem to have typically begun and ended at a particularly sacred place (such as a sacral building, grove, or lake), and to have been conducted by one or more representations of a deity and their ritual specialist(s), who progressed around local or regional landscapes. In at least some cases there is evidence to suggest that ritual activities were conducted at stops along the way, and it is possible that linear processions formed subsidiary parts o…

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