By means of this process, the study attempts to provide contextual insight into the relationship that seems to have existed between rulers and religion in pre-Christian southern Scandinavia. It subsequently seeks to address other related questions such as when Óðinn came to become associated with warrior-kings in Scandinavia, where this seems to have occurred, and how it might have happened, including an examination of the social and political influences that might have been involved in the development. By approaching sources critically and focusing on archaeological evidence, it looks specifically at how the deity developed within the said milieu and at the uses his cult may have served for those who worshipped him. This thesis is a study of the cult of Óðinn as it seems to have evolved within the newly emerging warrior-based aristocracy of southern Scandinavia during the centuries prior to the Viking Age. It is therefore possible to conclude that the horned figures are a testament to the diversity of pre-Christian religions of the north, a phenomenon that was related to, but not the same as the picture preserved in the Old Icelandic sources. The distribution of horned figures, however, is limited to certain areas in a Norse context, and nothing in the Old Icelandic sources can be connected with them with any certainty. This phenomenon can possibly be traced to real-world ritual specialists in connection with social elites. The research has shown that the horned figures were a decidedly pre-Christian phenomenon. These artefacts have been found in a relatively large area including Anglo-Saxon England, the Viken region of Norway, Denmark, and Skåne, Öland, Gotland and Uppland in Sweden, along with isolated finds in Germany, Hungary and Russia. A total of 62 images depicted on a total of 60 artefacts are examined in this thesis. The figures under discussion are depicted with horn-shaped projections that are reminiscent of cattle-like horns. In connection with this development, it has become increasingly popular to identify the horned figures with Óðinn or other entities known from the Old Icelandic sources, a trend which is built on weak evidence.In reaction to this development, this MA-thesis aims to present an updated overview of all the relevant and scholarly published artefacts. This development has led to some scholars basing their research on incomplete and out-of-date data. The number of discovered artefacts depicting horned figures has increased significantly in recent decades, which has led to publications on such artefacts becoming increasingly scattered and lacking in any clear overview. Even though such artefacts have been known in scholarly circles since the middle of the 19th century, little has been published that focuses specifically on the horned figures, and most of what has been published treats them as little more than a side note. So-called horned figures have intrigued scholars for a long time, these being anthropomorphic figures depicted on, or in the shape of artefacts which can be associated with speakers of early Germanic languages during the Younger Iron Age (550–1050).
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