A fire in the open air, a horn passed around, words to gods and ancestors, and at the end a libation for the earth: that is what a modern blót with sumbel looks like. What is old about it? The word blót and the plea for "a good year and peace" are attested, as are sacrificial feasts with consecrated cups and drinking to the memory of the dead. The present sequence with thing peace, rounds and closing formula, by contrast, is a new design. We follow the sources from Snorri through Adam of Bremen and Beowulf to the bone finds from Iceland.
Picture a clearing in autumn. A dozen people stand around a fire, someone proclaims the thing peace, meaning that for the duration of the feast no quarrel counts, and then gods, ancestors and nature spirits are invoked. A gift goes to the powers, usually a libation of mead, beer or apple juice. Then a horn travels from hand to hand, each person speaks a toast, and at the end what remains of the offering is poured onto the earth. In the Eldaring e. V., one of the largest German-language communities, the closing formula runs: "From the gods to the earth to us, from us to the earth to the gods."
Groups across the German-speaking world celebrate like this, mostly at the festivals of the year but also at life transitions (more in Pagan rites of passage). In its self-description (as of 2024) the Eldaring sets out the sequence in three parts: opening with thing peace and invocation, offering with libation, sumbel and blessings, closing with the pouring out. There are no religious offices and no ritual leaders appointed by the association; every blót group shapes its own. How much of this can be found in the sources, and what is new? That is the question of this piece.
Old Norse blót belongs to the verb blóta, "to worship by sacrifice". The Eldaring translates it likewise: to honour the deity through sacrifice. A blót is therefore no prayer and no sermon but an act based on gift and counter-gift. Alongside the word blót the sources give the formula til árs ok friðar, "for a good year and peace". It occurs in Snorri in several places and is probably the best-attested purpose of a sacrifice.
The sagas know several related words. Hlaut means sacrificial blood or meat and the sacrificial act, hlautteinn the twigs or rods with which blood was sprinkled, stalli the altar. Add sumbl for the feast and full for the consecrated cup. The overall picture is that of a sacrificial feast in which slaughter, blood rite, communal meal and communal drinking belong together; the drinking part is only an excerpt that is stressed particularly today.
The fullest description of a Norse sacrificial feast stands in Hákonar saga góða in Snorri's Heimskringla, written down around 1230. It deals with King Hákon the Good, born around 920, who grew up at the court of the English king Æthelstan, where he met Christianity. He ruled from 934 and fell around 961 at Fitjar. The Historia Norwegiæ calls him an apostate who "observed both pagan and Christian rites". His story is thus that of a king between the religions, and that is exactly why the saga describes pagan customs so closely.
Snorri describes how farmers gathered at a sacrificial feast, how blood was sprinkled with hlautteinar on the altars, on the inside and outside walls of the temple and on those present, how the meat was boiled and eaten together, and how the host, the goði, blessed the cups. The first cup was for Odin, drunk for victory and power for the king; then came the cups for Njörðr and Freyr, for peace and a good year. After that people drank to the minni, the memory of departed friends. We give the sequence here in substance, following the summary in the specialist literature; whoever wants the wording will find it in Samuel Laing's public-domain English translation (1844).
Particularly revealing is the scene at the sacrificial feast at Mære. Hákon, who had become a Christian, was pressed by the farmers to take part and eat horse liver, since horse meat was an abomination to Christians. According to Snorri, Hákon must give way to keep his position, and he makes the sign of the cross over the drinking horn, which Earl Sigurðr of Hlaðir, whom the saga calls inn mesti blótmaðr ("the greatest sacrificer"), interprets as the sign of the hammer. The scene shows that a sacrificial feast was never only religion but politics, and it shows how contemporaries already had to live with mixed forms.
Hákonar saga góða (Snorri, c. 1230) is the fullest source for a Norse sacrificial feast: blood rite with hlautteinar, blessing of the cups for Odin, Njörðr and Freyr, drinking to the minni of the dead. Hákon ruled from 934 to about 961. The saga arose some 270 years after his death and describes paganism from a Christian point of view.
Further building blocks come from Ynglinga saga, the first part of the Heimskringla. It credits the god Odin with instituting three sacrificial feasts in Sweden: one at the start of winter for a good year, one at midwinter for growth and one at the beginning of summer for victory, the sigrblót. In addition there are the dísablót at Uppsala and a sonarblót with divination. The three-part scheme is a literary order of the kind Snorri liked, and it has influenced the modern festival cycle; the "three great blóts" are a fixed term in many groups. More on the yearly round in The Germanic festivals, Yule and Solstice.
The same saga also tells of human sacrifice: King Dómaldi is sacrificed so that the harvest improves, and the altars are reddened with his blood. Whether that is the memory of a practice or a literary tale cannot be said. Anyone who claims that human sacrifice was certain cult practice goes beyond the sources; so does anyone who rules it out.
Adam of Bremen writes around 1075 about the temple at Uppsala and a feast said to have taken place every nine years. The chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg reports in the early eleventh century that the Danes gathered every nine years at Lejre for a great sacrifice. Rudolf Simek argues (2022) that Adam probably took the nine-year detail from Thietmar. Both chroniclers were Christians writing from a distance, and in Thietmar's day Denmark had been nominally Christian for about 50 years, so large sacrificial feasts there are unlikely to have continued. Research suspects that both wanted to portray the heathens as barbarians. More on Adam in our piece about him.
Texts are one thing, bones another. The most impressive find comes from Iceland: at Hofstaðir in the north of the country, oxen were beheaded over many years at set times, and the skulls were displayed. Examination of the bones shows blows to the neck, with axe or sword, perhaps to produce a jet of arterial blood (Neil Price 2020). That is a rare case where finds and saga image touch: blood plays a role in both.
In Sweden the finds at Frösön in Jämtland and Borg in Östergötland stand out, where skull bones are over-represented compared with other bones, which suggests that heads were offered while the meat was cooked for feasts. At Melhus in Norway many cooking pits, mostly dated between 900 and 1300, contained bones of domestic animals. At Borg in the Lofoten there is a pit of about six by three metres interpreted as a seyðir, a cooking pit for ritually prepared meat. That fits the picture of a communal meal as in Snorri's description.
What archaeology does not deliver is words. We know the pits but not the spells, and we do not know whether a god was invoked at Hofstaðir. Further notes on places and sacrificial sites are in Blót sites, Sacrificial bogs and Germanic sacrifices.
From the sources one basic idea can be read that modern communities take up: sacrifice is an exchange. Humans give, the powers are expected to give. The formula til árs ok friðar names what people hoped for: a good year, meaning a good harvest and healthy livestock, and peace. The Eldaring stresses the giving side instead: "Offerings to the gods are not an act of renunciation that we suffer, but an act of sharing and gratitude for our well-being." That is a modern turn of the thought, which fits the picture of the Hávamál, where the principle of "giving and giving back" carries friendship.
A word of restraint belongs here: that Viking Age sacrifices were a kind of trade with the gods is an interpretation. The sources show sacrifices for victory, peace, fertility and prosperity, but nowhere do they describe the inner attitude of those sacrificing. Priests as a separate estate probably did not exist in Scandinavia; the host, often a goði, led the feast. More at Germanic priests. The notion that a blót is a ceremony with a fixed liturgy comes from the twentieth century.
The word sumbl is Old Norse, the Old English form is symbel. Both first simply mean "feast, banquet". Corresponding forms exist in Old Saxon and Old High German. The usual derivation leads back to a Common Germanic word for "banquet", resting on an Indo-European root for "joint meal, gathering". Earlier scholars thought of a borrowing from Latin (symbola), which P. A. Erades rejected in 1967. Paul Bauschatz suggested the word means "coming together of ale" (with alu, "ale"). As with many etymologies, all proposals are defensible hypotheses.
The word occurs in Beowulf (lines 489 to 675 and 1491 to 1500), in the Old English Dream of the Rood, in Judith and in the Old Saxon Heliand. In Beowulf we witness a symbel in the hall: the speaker Unferth addresses Beowulf and challenges him, and nobody intervenes. That suggests the exchange belonged to the feast, a form of flyting. Boasts (gielp) and vows (beot) were added; the poet, the scop, recited genealogies and songs. According to Beowulf, a woman of the house served the drink and poured first. All of these are scenes from poetry, not from a protocol, and Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon poem with a Christian frame.
The Old Norse counterpart is the Lokasenna, the poem of insults at the feast of the sea giant Ægir. The prose introduction begins, in our own rendering:
"Ægir, who was also called Gymir, had brewed ale for the Æsir."Lokasenna, prose introduction (our own rendering)
The poem is regarded as a work of the tenth century, though the dating is disputed; Lee Hollander doubted that it was a popular lay, and Ursula Dronke (1997) holds that the prose ending is a heavily abridged version of Snorri's account. Anyone who reads it as a sumbel source should bear in mind that a feast of the gods at which Loki insults everyone is a poetic distortion of a drinking feast, not a ritual model. More on this world in Ægir's feasts.
Two Old Norse terms have become especially important for modern practice. The bragafull (also bragarfull), often read as "Bragi's cup" or "promise cup", was a ceremonial drinking cup over which vows were sworn. The origin of the name is unclear: it may relate to bragr, "the best, foremost", or to the god Bragi; the sources show no clear link to him. Vows over the cup appear in Ynglinga saga (King Ingjald's vow), in Fagrskinna (Sven Forkbeard), in Hervarar saga and in the prose to Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar. This is a pattern that also turns up in today's practice: whoever holds the horn can speak a promise that then carries weight. We have a piece of its own on Sven Forkbeard.
The minni is memory: people drank to the dead, to gods and friends. After Christianisation the custom lived on as a toast to Christ, Mary and the saints, as Krists minni. It is therefore a good example of continuity across a change of faith: the custom proved stronger than its content. Today's commemoration of the dead at a sumbel picks up here.
The modern sumbel has a founding moment that can be dated fairly exactly. The American Germanist Paul Bauschatz published the essay "The Germanic Ritual Feast" in 1978 and the book The Well and the Tree in 1983. He interpreted early medieval feasts as a ritual that binds the community, secures loyalty and drives deeds. This thesis was taken up in American Heathenry and made the central ceremony: a horn of mead or ale is passed, toasts are spoken, usually to gods, ancestors or heroes. Some groups distinguish a "regular" from a "high" sumbel with stricter rules. The Anglo-Saxon-oriented Theodism movement sees in it "perhaps the highest rite".
Typical is a structure of three set rounds specified by the host: first toasts to the gods, then to ancestors and heroes, then a general or personal one, often the "boast" (gielp) or a vow (beot). A figure modelled on the Beowulf speaker, the thyle, is meant to test boasts in order to protect the "luck" of the hall. After the formal rounds the sumbel is closed so that it does not become "mere partying". The source for these rules is handbooks from the scene, mainly in the USA, not the texts of the Middle Ages.
One interesting detail: Icelanders do not call their ritual a sumbel. The Ásatrúarfélagið knows a similar form, but within the blót. The term sumbel is thus mainly a term of the English-speaking scene and the German scene influenced by it. That is not criticism, only placement.
"The sumbel is a fixed Viking ritual." What is attested: the word sumbl, drinking feasts in hall and sanctuary, consecrated cups for gods and for the memory of the dead, and vows over the cup. The round structure with gods, ancestors and boasting, the rules for passing the horn and the thyle as examiner are a twentieth-century reconstruction on the basis of Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon source. Whoever celebrates a sumbel celebrates an honest new creation from old elements, but not a handed-down ceremony.
Two elements of the modern sequence deserve a closer look. The first is the thing peace. The thing, the legal assembly, was according to the sources a protected space, and the sanctity of the thing is attested (more in our pieces on the Thing and the thing sites). That a thing peace was proclaimed before a sacrificial feast is not known to us from the sources. It is a modern combination of two attested institutions, the thing and the sacrificial feast, that fulfils a practical task: it protects the celebration from quarrel.
The second is the closing formula "From the gods to the earth to us, from us to the earth to the gods". It stands in the Eldaring's self-description and is, as far as we can see, a modern formula; we know of no source for it. That a libation is poured on the earth fits the idea of the gift but is not handed down as an exact procedure. The choice of mead, beer or apple juice is also a decision of the groups. We have pieces on mead and beer that show what is documented about the drinks.
The design is thus free, as long as it is understood as design. That is the attitude the Eldaring formulates in its self-description: sources are read critically, each group decides for itself.
Let us break the present sequence into its components and assign each a source level.
The overview of blót practice in the specialist literature notes that reconstructionist adherents of Germanic paganism have developed blót rituals since the 1970s and that food and drink offerings usually replace animal sacrifice, with a strong focus on sharing and strengthening relationships. That is, in short, a description of what the groups themselves say.
Anyone who wants to see a blót without joining an association has several routes. The Eldaring says it organises regional and national gatherings, working groups and projects, and it expects members to take part for religious and cultural reasons and to respect others who do the same. Every group is different, which means a visit is worthwhile before forming a judgement.
A few hints are practical. A libation need not contain alcohol; many groups use apple juice or mead in small amounts, and whoever does not want to drink passes the horn on. Taking part in a sumbel obliges to nothing, but vows at the horn count as serious in this culture: you say only what you mean. And anyone coming as a guest should ask beforehand whether the group is open to guests; the Eldaring describes itself as a "dogma-free, inclusive, pagan community", but that is a statement about the association, not about every event. For demarcation and the history of the scene we have written Asatru today.
You will find dates for the festivals of the year in our blót calendar, and how the old festivals were reckoned by the moon is shown by the Germanic moon calendar. Whoever wants to read up on a concrete festival can start with Þorrablót, the Icelandic midwinter feast, or with ancestor veneration at Yule.
"Blót means blood sacrifice, and today's pagans sacrifice animals." The first half is only half right: blót means sacrifice in general, and the blood rite was part of it, as Hákonar saga and the finds at Hofstaðir show. The second half is false for the communities described here. According to the overview of practice, food and drink offerings take the place of animal sacrifice. The contrast between the Viking Age and the present therefore lies in the exchange of the gift, not in slaughter.
Modern blóts are sometimes criticised as "not authentic". The question misleads, because it demands an original that does not exist. The Viking Age had no uniform religion with a liturgy; customs differed by region, century and rank. Instead of an original we have scenes, stanzas and finds from 500 years and from Iceland to Uppsala. Every blót today is a selection from them, just as every historical blót in Norway was a selection from local habit.
A better question is: is it said openly what is attested and what is designed? That is exactly what the serious communities do, and exactly the attitude we share at Glanz & Gravur. We want neither to claim more than the sources bear nor to infer from their gaps that nothing remains. A great deal remains: a word, a formula, a cup, a communal meal and the habit of drinking to the dead.
What is a blót? Old Norse blót means a sacrifice, from blóta, "to worship by sacrifice". Today it usually means a feast with invocation, libation and sumbel, often outdoors.
What is a sumbel? The word originally means "feast, drinking party" (Old Norse sumbl, Old English symbel). In present-day paganism it names the ritual in which a horn is passed around and toasts are spoken, usually in three rounds for gods, ancestors and personal words.
How old is the sumbel? The word and the drinking feast are attested in the Middle Ages (Beowulf, Lokasenna, Hákonar saga). The present round form was developed in the 1970s after Bauschatz (1978/1983).
What does til árs ok friðar mean? "For a good year and peace". The formula stands in Snorri's Heimskringla and names the purpose of many sacrifices.
Were there human sacrifices? Ynglinga saga tells of a sacrificed king, and Adam of Bremen and Thietmar report nine-year feasts. Both chroniclers wrote as Christians from a distance, and research considers exaggeration possible. Animal sacrifice is secure; human sacrifice is not securely attested.
Do pagans today sacrifice animals? According to self-descriptions and the specialist literature, food and drink offerings take the place of animal sacrifice. An example is the libation of mead, beer or apple juice that is poured out at the end.
For courage. For remembrance. For legends that live on.
The Germanic feasts · Þorrablót – the winter feast · The solstice festivals · Seiðr – the magic.
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