"Various forms of rituals were presumably practised on small farms, but the larger ceremonies took place at the magnates’ residences. Here the farmers of the area met on certain occasions to worship the gods in a great sacrifice known as a “blót”.
At the great blót celebrations the local magnate functioned as a ”Gode” (pagan priest) – the practitioner of the cult."
_____
"Cult specialists were closely connected to the gods. The sagas and archaeological finds show that völur or seeresses existed. These were women with magical and prophetic powers.
In the sagas and on rune stones great men are also mentioned known as “Goder”, or heathen priests, who functioned as cult leaders. Therefore both men and women could be specialists in cultic activities."
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________
"Harald I Fairhair (Old Norse: Haraldr inn hárfagri; Norwegian: Harald hårfagre; putatively c. 850 – c. 932) is portrayed by the Icelandic sagas as the first King of Norway.
According to traditions current in Norway and Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, he reigned from c. 872 to 930.
Supposedly, two of his sons, Eric Bloodaxe and Haakon the Good, succeeded Harald, respectively, to become kings after his death."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Fairhair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haakon_the_Good
"Haakon Haraldsson (c. 920–961), also Haakon the Good (Old Norse: Hákon góði, Norwegian: Håkon den gode) and Haakon Adalsteinfostre (Old Norse: Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri, Norwegian: Håkon Adalsteinsfostre), was the king of Norway from 934 to 961. He was noted for his attempts to introduce Christianity into Norway."
"Blot-Sweyn (Swedish:Blot-Sven) was a Swedish king c. 1080,[2] who replaced his Christian brother-in-law Inge as King of Sweden, when Inge had refused to administer the blóts (pagan sacrifices) at the Temple at Uppsala. There is no mention of Sweyn in the regnal list of the Westrogothic law, which suggests that his rule did not reach Västergötland.
According to Swedish historian Adolf Schück he was probably the same person as Håkan the Red and was called the Blót Swain (a swain who was willing to perform the blót) as an epithet rather than a personal name."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blot-Sweyn
"The 13th-century historian Snorri Sturlusson wrote in the Heimskringla that Blót-Sweyn had a pagan successor who continued the sacrifices:
"At that time there were many people all around in the Swedish dominions who were heathens, and many were bad Christians; for there were some of the kings who renounced Christianity, and continued heathen sacrifices, as Blotsvein, and afterwards Eirik Arsale, had done."
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"The most reliable sources about the goðar in Iceland are the Gray Goose Laws, the Landnámabók and the Sturlunga saga.
After the settlement of Iceland, a hofgoði was usually a wealthy and respected man in his district, for he had to maintain the communal hall or hof in which community religious observances and feasts were held.
The office over which a goði had leadership was termed a goðorð, a word that only appears in Icelandic sources
Initially many independent goðorð were established, until they united under the Althing around 930. In 964 the system was fixed under a constitution that recognized 39 goðorð.
The role of the goðar as secular leaders is shown in how the word was used synonymously with höfðingi, meaning chieftain.
Over time, and especially after 1000, when the Christian conversion occurred in Iceland, the term lost all religious connotations and came to mean liege-lord or chieftain of the Icelandic Commonwealth.
A goðorð could be bought, shared, traded or inherited.
If a woman inherited a goðorð she had to leave the leadership to a man.
The office was in many respects treated as private property but was not counted as taxable, and is defined in the Gray Goose Laws as "power and not wealth" (veldi er þat en æigi fe); nevertheless the goðar are frequently portrayed in the sagas as concerned with money and expected to be paid for their services.
During the Icelandic Commonwealth, the responsibilities of a goði or goðorðsmaður ("goðorð man") included the annual organization of the local assemblies várþing in the spring and leið in the autumn.
At the national Althing they were voting members of the Lögrétta, the legislative section of the assembly. When quarter courts were introduced in the 960s, the goðar became responsible for nominating judges for the Althing courts. When a court of appeals was established in the early 11th century, they also nominated judges for this court.
Further, they had a few formal and informal executive roles, such as confiscating the property of outlaws. They also had a central role in the redistribution of wealth, by holding feasts, giving gifts, making loans, extending hospitality, as well as pricing and helping to distribute imported goods.
The holder of the goðorð of the descendants Ingólfr Arnarson, the first Scandinavian to settle permanently in Iceland, had the ceremonial role of sanctifying the Althing each year, and was called the allsherjargoði ("all-people goði").
The followers of a goði were called þingmenn. Every free landowner in possession of a certain amount of property was required to be associated with a goði, although he was free to choose which one—a goðorð was not a geographical unit—and the contract could be canceled from either side.
The goði would help his þingmenn to bring cases before the court and to enforce their rights, and the þingmenn would in return provide the goði with armed manpower for his feuds and carry out legal sentences.
By the 13th century, all the goðorð were controlled by five or six families and often united under office holders who in modern studies are known as storgoðar ("great goðar") or storhöfðingjar ("great chieftains").
These goðar struggled for regional and sometimes national power, and occasionally sought to become retainers for the Norwegian king.
The institution came to an end when the major goðar pledged fealty to king Haakon IV of Norway in 1262–1264, signing the Old Covenant, and the Norwegian crown abolished the goðorð system"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothi
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"Jan Hendrick Bloetgoet (Bloedgoed)
Dutch: Jan Hendrickse Bloetgoet
Also Known As: "Jan Heyndricksz Goetbloet", "Jan Heyndrickse Goetbloet", "Jan Hendrickse Bloetgoet"
Birthdate: August 04, 1590
Birthplace: Zuid-Holand, Gouda, Gouda, South Holland, Netherlands
Death: circa 1690 (95-104)
Nord-Holand, Amsterdam, Government of Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Place of Burial: Amsterdam, Government of Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands
Immediate Family:
Son of Hendricke Dirkse Bloetgoet and Sophia Bloetgoet
Husband of Geerten Bloodgood
Father of Thomas Janszen Bloetgoet and Captain Frans Jansen Bloodgood"
https://www.geni.com/people/Jan- Bloetgoet/6000000008573796571
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"The godi also had a female equivalent, the gydja, whom we will encounter again in the context of
sorcery. The role of women in the officialdom of cultic practice was taken up relatively early in
Viking studies, especially in relation to fertility rituals (e.g Phillpotts 1914), and it is clear that some
of the gydja enjoyed a very high status in the apparatus of cult.
Several factors suggest a connection
to Freyja and the Vanir, and both the godi and the gydja could have responsibility for the sacrificial
blot (cf. Nasstrom 2002b: 97f)"
https://yale.learningu.org/download/c03d3162-0caf-4750-a30f-1333a18c3ec2/C3339_Viking%20Way.pdf
https://yale.learningu.org/download/c03d3162-0caf-4750-a30f-1333a18c3ec2/C3339_Viking%20Way.pdf
"In the royal sagas of Snorri's Heimskringla we encounter seidr on numerous occasions, generally
presented in incidental fashion embedded in the narrative. However, in one source it is presented in a
more explanatory context, and this is of course the Ynglingasaga. It first appears in chapter 4, when
we read of the introduction of sorcery to the £isir gods by Freyja:
69
• Chapter 2 •
Dottir NiarSar var Freyja; hon var blotgyQja; hon kendi fyrst me8 Asum sei5, sem VQnum var titt.
The daughter of NjorQr was Freyja; she was a blotgydja ['priestess of sacrifices']; she was the first to
teach seidr to the £isir, as it was practiced among the Vanir.
Ynglingasaga 4; my translation"
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"That Freyr had a cult at Uppsala is well confirmed from other sources. The reference to the change in sacrificial ritual may also reflect some historical memory. There is archaeological evidence for an increase in human sacrifices in the late Viking Age though among the Norse gods human sacrifice is most often linked to Odin.
Another reference to Frø and sacrifices is found earlier in the work, where the beginning of an annual blót to him is related."
_______
"0din could change his shape [hamr], when his body would lie there as if asleep or dead, while he
himself was a bird or an animal, a fish or a snake, and would travel in an instant to far-off lands on his
errands or those of other men.
He was also able, using words alone, to extinguish fires and to calm the
sea, and to turn the winds wherever he wished. He had a ship called Ski9bla5nir ['Built From Pieces
Of Thin Wood'] with which he sailed over great seas, but which could be folded up like a cloth. Odin
had with him Mimr's head, and it told him many tidings from other worlds [heimar]; at times he
would wake up dead men out of the ground or sit beneath the hanged; from this he was called Lord of
Ghosts or Lord of the Hanged. He had two ravens, which he had endowed with the power of speech;
they flew far over the land and told him many tidings. In this way he became very wise. And all these
skills he taught with runes and those chants [Ijod] that are called galdrar, because of this the jEsir are
called galdrasmidir ['galdra-smiths']. Odin knew the skill from which follows the greatest power,
and which he performed himself, that which is called seidr. By means of it he could know the futures
of men and that which had not yet happened, and also cause death or misfortune or sickness, as well
as take men's wits or strength from them and give them to others. But this sorcery \jjQlkyngi], as is
known, brings with it so much ergi that manly men thought it shameful to perform, and so this skill
was taught to the priestesses [gydjur], Odin knew everything about treasures hidden in the earth,
where they were concealed, and he knew such chants [Ijod] that would open up for him the earth and
mountains and stones and burial mounds, and with words alone he bound those who dwelled there,
and went in and took what he wanted.
By these powers he became very famous - his enemies feared
him, but his friends trusted him, and believed in him and his power.
Most of these skills he taught to
those in charge of the sacrifices [blotgodi];
they were next to him in all magic knowledge \frodleikr]
and sorcery \fjglkyngi].
But many others learned much of it, and for this reason sorcery [//p/fcyngt]
was widespread and continued for a long time.
Ynglingasaga 7
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