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Chapter 6. The Sky 146
to a religion worshiping an all-powerful God was a byproduct of their worldview.
In the early Christian way of thinking, the entire Universe was created and supported/
maintained by a single God who, in spite of delegating some power to other
beings like angels, saints, etc. for various trivial reasons, was the absolute, and sole
authority over heaven and earth. The Heathen definition of a God, if one can be
put together, was a being who was powerful and knowledgeable about the World
Tree, its function and all its inhabitants, and who could play direct or indirect
roles in the preservation of It right up to the Ragnarök. To the Heathen, a God
was like a king whose kingdom was the entire Tree, Lærað, and whose authority
over the inhabitants of Midgard was as parents to children: loving, strict, but not
over-bearing. If a Heathen felt that one God had interfered too much in the affairs
of his life, he, as often children do, rebelled, sometimes even changing his allegiance.
Egil Skalla-grimson, the famous Icelandic poet, warrior, and general rogue, in a
poem known as the Sonatorek (“The Wreck of the Sons”), laments his often blind
trust in Óðínn but considers the burden of his sons’ deaths his own rather than
blaming his patron God:
“And then I think of Óðínn:
A branch was torn from my tree,
But Óðínn bore it away
To the high halls of the Gods.
This God has been good to me.
Yet I trusted Him too much
And more than was good for me,
For He did allow that death.
Still, I sacrifice to Him–
Not eagerly, but because
He gave me my two great gifts
And they salve my heaviest hurts.” 7
Within 150 years of Egil’s death, the above poem, had it been written about the
God of the Christians, would have been considered a blasphemy and, consequently,
punishable under canonical law.
7 Fell, Christine, tr., Egil’s Saga (Everyman’s Library; London, UK)1975, pp. 148-48.