Who were Odin, Thor and Loki, and what did the Vikings believe?

The Vikings believed in many gods whose world was foretold to end in an immense battle between the gods and their enemies. Three of them stand out. Thor was the thunder god, striding about with a mountain-crushing hammer. Odin was the one-eyed god associated with death, wisdom and poetry. Loki was the troublemaker who ended up turning on the others.

Thor was the people's favourite. Records of personal names and place names show he was the most popular god among Scandinavians in the Viking Age. Even as Scandinavia was being Christianized, emblems of his hammer Mjölnir were worn. His name lives on in English: Thursday comes from Old English for 'Thunor's day', Thunor being the English form of Thor.

Odin was more unsettling. He is one-eyed, having sacrificed the other eye for wisdom, and he hunts for knowledge across all nine worlds. In one story he hanged himself upside-down for nine days and nights on the world tree Yggdrasil, and in return he gained knowledge of the runic alphabet and passed it on to humanity. He also receives slain warriors in his hall, Valhöll, though he must share half of his dead with the goddess Freyja.

Loki is harder to pin down. He is a shape shifter who once appeared as a mare and gave birth to the eight-legged horse Sleipnir. Yet he also engineers the death of the beloved god Baldr, and is bound as punishment. Scholars note he probably received no worship at all, yet he plays a notable role in the stories.

All of this is only a remnant: only a tiny amount of the tales and poems that once existed has survived.