Ideology of the Ruler in Pre-Christian Scandinavia: Mythical and Ritual Relations

This article is an attempt to analyse some of the important aspects of the ideology of the ruler in pre-Christian Scandinavian religion. These aspects are the notion of ‘sacral kingship’ as it has been perceived within the study of Norse religion and the methods used in dealing with this subject; the relation between the notions ‘descent from the gods’ and ‘euhenerism’; possible solutions to the fact that we have both the gods Freyr and Óðinn as progenitors of the Scandinavian and Germanic kings; the relation between the Christian notion of rex iustus and the pagan ideology of kings. Basically the article argues that these subjects cannot be dealt with without a comparative view of the Scandinavian and Germanic material.