Hundreds of years ago, the Vikings arrived in boats – much like the Skidbladner – from their Scandinavian homelands across the sea. 

They were skilful sailors, reading the sky above them to help navigate fierce oceans. 

They brought with them tales of Norse gods and how the stars came to be. The story goes that in the beginning, the planetary bodies didn’t know where to go, or what to do, but then the gods gained power and set them all in motion….

The sky was the dwelling place of the gods and the Vikings looked for these all-powerful beings in the clusters of stars above. Many constellations are visible all the year in the northern hemisphere, so it’s not surprising that they became a part of Norse mythology. 

The brightest constellations are identified by many cultures, for instance, Ursa Major (the Great Bear) is also known as the Big Dipper, or the Plough. But through Norse eyes, it was ‘Karlsvagn’ – the man’s wagon. This could have been the chariot of Thor – Norse god of Thunder – with his famous hammer. But sometimes it was identified with Odin himself, Chief of the Norse gods, as it has also been known as ‘Odins vagn’. 

Located above Ursa Major is Ursa Minor (the Little Bear). Like many mythologies the Norse linked these two constellations. They knew it as ‘Kvennavagn’ – the woman’s wagon – and associated these stars with Odin’s partner, Freyja, goddess of fertility, war and wealth. 

Freyja’s constellation was important for navigation as it includes Polaris, known to the Norse as Leidarstjarna, the Guiding Star. Her wagon was traditionally pulled by two cats as she travelled the heavens gathering up half of those who fell in battle – the other half going to Odin’s hall, Valhalla (‘hall of the slain’).

It is difficult to identify exactly which group of stars represented which Norse story. Indeed, they may not have been fixed and they do not always match up with how other cultures grouped the stars.  

For instance, the easy-to-spot stars of Orion’s Belt were known to some Norse as the fishermen – ‘Fiskikarlar’. While the three stars hanging from Orion’s Belt, which we know as his Sword, were known as Freyja’s distaff – a tool for spinning her thread.

Thor appears in many Norse myths and one of his tales describes the constellation known to the Norse as ‘Aurvandil’s Toe’. It may be the constellation Corona Borealis, which is seen in the northern night sky in the Spring.

Aurvandil was one of Thor’s warriors. Thor carried him across a frozen river, but one of his toes got frostbitten, so Thor broke it off and threw it to the heavens where it became the group of stars known as ‘Aurvandil’s Toe’. But it was not just the gods that the Norse saw in the sky. 

The Hyades cluster, in the constellation Taurus, is a set of bright stars forming a V – which the Norse saw as a wolf’s jaw – ‘Ulf’s Keptr’ – mouth of the wolf. 

In Norse mythology, two wolves – Skoll and Hati – had been chasing the Sun and the Moon across the sky since the dawn of time. In Ragnarök, the Norse story of the fate of the gods and the end of the world, they finally catch and swallow their prey, causing total darkness. 

The constellation Auriga, with its distinctive pentagon shape, can be seen during the winter months in the northern hemisphere. It is known in Norse mythology as the ‘Asar Bargadi’, or the Battlefield of gods. 

The Norse gods had many battles and this constellation is also described as ‘Thor’s Fight’. But this may also be a reference to final battle of the gods as described in the Ragnarök, which leads to the end of the Norse gods and the world as they knew it.

Much of the Norse knowledge of the stars has been lost, but what we do know from a few key sources shows how important the sky and the stars were in this culture. 

There are stories of how they lived, what they feared, how they viewed the world and the skies above, and how they thought it would all end.