Níð, Ergi, and Viking Attitudes Toward Homosexuality: The Sources
We know what we know about Viking attitudes toward homosexuality and the words used to describe them through one source: the Icelandic Sagas. Nowhere else, except indirectly in Norse myths, do we have any information about how homosexuality was treated. Archeology doesn’t preserve sexual orientation–even in the famous example of a grave of an individual who had male and female genitalia, who is believed to have had Klinefelter syndrome, and was buried with male and female clothing and grave goods, leading researchers to suggest the person may have been ‘non-binary.’ And so, we must rely on the writings of the Icelanders who took their oral tradition and concretized it for us to read today. However, we must concede that this is an imperfect source. The sagas were written centuries after the events they purport to relay, and the stories and attitudes conveyed through them may have been warped by transmission.
What Was Níð?
Níð was a powerful insult. It could mean cowardice, dishonor, or lawlessness, but it also had strong sexual connotations, including accusing a man of being a passive participant (i.e., a ‘bottom’) in a homosexual relationship. From níðcame words like níðingr (a coward or outcast), níðvisur (insulting verse), and níðstöng (a scorn-pole used in rituals to publicly shame someone). A man could be accused of being sannsorðinn, or “homosexually used by another man,” which was considered one of the most offensive things you could say about someone. So far as we know, there were few negative consequences for taking an active role (i.e., a ‘top’) in such affairs. Therefore, we are not looking at a society that outright rejected homosexuality, but rather incorporated it into dominance and power structures within their social constructs.
What Was Ergi?
Closely tied to níð was the concept of ergi. The associated adjective argr meant effeminate, unmanly, or inclined to play the female role in sex. In Viking thought, this was deeply shameful because the passive role was viewed as a sign of weakness. Viking masculinity centered on independence, courage, and dominance. A man who submitted sexually to another man was believed to also submit in other areas and couldn’t be trusted to lead, fight, or act honorably.
This is reflected in specific law codes. In both Grágás (Icelandic) and Gulaþing (Norwegian), calling a man argr, stroðinn, or sannsorðinn was grounds for outlawry and justified violence. These insults were considered “killing words,” as uttering them had deadly consequences, and there were rules for when and how to use them.
Christian Influence
Before Christianity, same-sex behavior may have been tolerated in specific contexts, especially when it didn’t disrupt social expectations like marriage and reproduction. Men were expected to marry and have children to maintain the household and support family lines. So long as that happened, affectional preferences may have been overlooked.
With the Christianization of Scandinavia came new moral frameworks. Christian texts from the 12th and 13th centuries condemned homosexuality in the active and passive roles. Men and women who avoided marriage due to same-sex preference were labeled and shamed. For example, fuðflogi meant “he who flees the female sex organ,” and flannfluga meant “she who flees the male sex organ.”
Lesbianism is almost entirely absent from pre-Christian Norse texts. When mentioned, it is framed through Christian moralizing. Old Norse language didn’t even have a clear vocabulary to describe same-sex relationships between women. The focus was always on whether individuals performed their expected roles in society.
Gods, Heroes, and Contradictions
Norse mythology complicates the picture. Odin, the Allfather, was mocked for practicing seiðr, a magical art associated with women and the concept of ergi. Loki famously took the form of a mare and gave birth to a foal. Neither god loses their status as a result of these behaviors. There are hints in myth and ritual that certain priesthoods, especially those devoted to fertility gods like Freyr, may have included men who engaged in behaviors seen as argr by later Christian standards.
In some heroic literature, the boundaries between fiction and reality become even more blurred. The Icelandic poem Grettisfærsla claims that the protagonist Grettir had sex with “maidens and widows, everyone’s wives, farmers’ sons, deans and courtiers, abbots and abbesses, cows and calves, indeed with near all living creatures,” yet he remains a hero. The contradiction points to a more flexible pre-Christian morality, one reshaped by Christian authors who wrote down these stories centuries after the Viking Age had ended.
The Icelandic poem Grettisfærsla claims that the protagonist Grettir had sex with “maidens and widows, everyone’s wives, farmers’ sons, deans and courtiers, abbots and abbesses, cows and calves, indeed with near all living creatures,” yet he remains a hero.
Final Thoughts
I explored this complexity in my novel, The Lords of the Wind, through the character Egill, who, like Odin, practices the magical art of seiðr and is accused by Jarl Magnus of Ribe of seducing his brother. The accusation is meant to destroy his reputation, not because it’s necessarily true, but because it frames him as unmanly. Jarl Magnus is enraged; King Horic is unbothered. Their reactions are intended to reflect the spectrum of historical attitudes toward ergi—some rooted in power and shame, while others are more pragmatic. I further explore this concept in later novels through other characters who escape scorn for their behavior (as with Tariq and Grjotgar, who become lovers), provided they fulfill their social obligations within the warband. When they fail, disaster awaits them as they become the scapegoats for the failure (as happens in The Kings of the Sea). In this way, fiction can give voice to the subtleties that the historical record only hints at.
Further reading: