>The Germanic Nordic Legacy
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When a religion dies, its legacy can be twofold. At one level, folk beliefs and customs preserve some fragments of the past which are handed on in unbroken tradition with little awareness of their origins owning to the instructive respect rural communities feel for the ways of earlier generations. The second level, in contrast, is the creation of academic interest. This occurs when scholars, writers and artists of a far later period rediscover the pre-Christian roots of their nation’s culture, and consciously use them to pursue a political or artistic agenda. Germanic heathenism has left its legacy in both these ways.
By the year [1000?] A.C.E., the work of Christian missionaries, which had begun in Germany some 400 years previously, had penetrated even the remotest areas of Scandinavia. Everywhere the ruling classes had accepted the new faith, and heathenism was officially abandoned, although common sense suggests that the conversion was not so sudden or complete as medieval writers claimed.
Nonetheless, heathen worship was condemned, and Christian writers adopted various ways of diminishing its power. To Snorri, although they were wise and powerful, the gods were based on human kings whom heathen men thought to be divine; to others, they were demons or else mere lifeless statues. But their names were never forgotten; not only are four English weekdays named after them, but Germanic and Scandinavian languages are rich in personal names alluding to gods, to heroes, to Valkyries, and to animals, such as the wolf, that had mythical associations.