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U ll (U ller )
The winter god of skiers and of
hunting, snowshoes, the bow, and the shield. Son
of the goddess Sif and stepson of Thor, Ull lived in
Ydalir.
In Norse poetry, a shield is often referred to as
“Ull’s ship.” Scholars believe this reference means
that Ull may have skied down hills on his shield much
as one might use a modern-day snowboard.
Saxo Grammaticus, the 13th-century Danish
historian, refers to Ull as a cunning magician and
says that Ull traveled over the sea on a magic bone.
Archaeologists have found skates made of bones in
ancient Scandinavian sites and suggest that it was to
these that Saxo was referring.
Though the Norse authors, including 13th-
century Icelandic writer Snorri Sturluson, wrote
very little about Ull, he appears from other evidence
to have been a very important god to the Norse
people.
U ppsala , O ld (G amla U ppsala ; U psala )
A region in eastern Sweden, north of modern-day
Stockholm, that was, in the Viking Age, a kingdom
of its own. Old Uppsala was also the site of burial
mounds built over the cremated remains of kings
from the Migration Period and of gatherings of the
local ruling assembly, known as a “thing.”
According to Snorri Sturluson in the prologue
to G ylfaginning , it was near Old Uppsala that the
great warrior and leader Odin made his final king-
dom on the Scandinavian peninsula.
Archaeologists have excavated the royal burial
mounds, finding artifacts that have helped them learn
more about the times of these kings and that help tell
the stories of Norse mythology.
U ppsala , T emple
Runestone in Uppland, Sweden, depicting Ull on
skis (Photo by Berig/Used under a Creative Commons
license)
at A pagan temple to the
Norse gods, most likely a sacred grove of old-growth
trees where a wooden temple to Odin, Frey, and
Thor was later built.
According to Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish histo-
rian, and Adam of Bremen, a German historian, the
people of this kingdom offered human sacrifice in
the temple grove. They hanged people and animals
in the branches of the tree to honor Odin and his
nine days of torment when hanging in the world tree,
Yggdrasil—a torment he put himself through to
discover the secrets of the runes.
After the wood temple, worshippers built a gold
building, according to Adam of Bremen. In the center
stood an image of Thor, and on either side of him were
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