Invocation Norse rites where Odin is invoked to "ride" workers of seidr (Norse shamanism), much like the god rides his eight-legged horse Sleipnir. Indeed, forms of possessive invocation appear throughout the world in most mystical or ecstatic traditions, wherever devotees seek to touch upon the essence of a deity or spirit. Some have performed invocation for the purpose of controlling or extracting favors from certain spirits or deities. These invocations usually involve a commandment or threat against the entity invoked. The following is a curious example of such an invocation, found engraved in cuneiform on a statue of the Assyrian demon
Norse activity in the British Isles primarily as inhabitants of specific locations, such as Jutland, Vestfold and Hordaland. It would only be in the later centuries that the national identities would develop amongst the Scandinavians, dividing them into such national groups as the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians. The Late Iron Age peoples of Scandinavia had not yet been converted to Christianity as the peoples of Britain and Ireland had, and instead followed Norse paganism, a polytheistic set of beliefs that revered such deities as Odin, Thor, Frey and Freyja. Scandinavian society was heavily dependent on fishing herring, and when that failed, the seafaring Norse sailors turned