What If: Greenland Norse reverts to Norse Paganism

What if the Greenlandic Norse had reverted to Norse Paganism? What could promt such a reversion? How would the reversion be recieved in the Abrahamic world?

How would Greenlandic Norse Paganism appear? How would it's mythology and theology be like?

Would a different view of life impact the development of Greenland and it's future inhabitation?
 
In 1721, aspiring to become colonial powers, Denmark and Norway sent a missionary expedition to Greenland with the aim of reinstating Christianity among descendants of the Norse Greenlanders who may have reverted to paganism. When the missionaries found no descendants, they baptized the Inuit Greenlanders they found living there instead.
One reason for the attempt at re-establishing contact between Greenland and Scandinavia was that some believed that the Greenlandic Norse might have reverted to paganism.

Why was reversion to paganism something that the christians in Scandinavia worried or thought about?
 
The Scandinavians would have considered the pagans and to be heretics who need to be reeducated with force to the Loveing Embrace of protestantism.
 
One reason for the attempt at re-establishing contact between Greenland and Scandinavia was that some believed that the Greenlandic Norse might have reverted to paganism.

Why was reversion to paganism something that the christians in Scandinavia worried or thought about?

Not really, the Danish were worried the Greenlandic Norse had stayed Catholic, not so much pagan, and wanted to convert them to Protestantism. Though, it doesn't really change anything, since the charge is now heresy instead of apostasy or just being infidels.

As to why they're doing so, well, better to claim the land before someone else does, basically.
 
What if the Greenlandic Norse had reverted to Norse Paganism? What could promt such a reversion? How would the reversion be recieved in the Abrahamic world?

How would Greenlandic Norse Paganism appear? How would it's mythology and theology be like?

Would a different view of life impact the development of Greenland and it's future inhabitation?
They certainly kept their pagan folklore alive in legends and stories. Otherwise they seemed overall to have stayed devoted Catholics until the end, even without an acting bishop. After all they built many churches. But maybe some of them played with the thought of going back to Odin, who knows. I recently read a novel "Greenlanders" about the last decades of the Greenland settlement by Jane Smiley. It follows a family over a span of three generations and ist written in the style of a Norse Saga. It covers the period between 1345 and 1415. Its pretty interesting If you are interested into the history of the Norse colony in Greenland.Pretty long, too. About 500 pages.
 
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They certainly kept their pagan folklore alive in legends and stories. Otherwise they seemed overall to have stayed devoted Catholics until the end, even without an acting bishop. After all they built many churches. But maybe some of them played with the thought of going back to Odin, who knows. I recently read a novel "Greenlanders" about the last decades of the Greenland settlement by Jane Smiley. It follows a family over a span of three generations and ist written in the style of a Norse Saga. It covers the period between 1345 and 1415. Its pretty interesting If you are interested into the history of the Norse colony in Greenland.Pretty long, too. About 500 pages.

Well, they are living in a frozen, inhospitable hell that would make survival via agriculture nigh-impossible. It might shake the beliefs of some into lapsing back into Norse paganism, but it's not likely to be decisive enough to convert the population, not without a charismatic leader appearing.
 
Well, they are living in a frozen, inhospitable hell that would make survival via agriculture nigh-impossible. It might shake the beliefs of some into lapsing back into Norse paganism, but it's not likely to be decisive enough to convert the population, not without a charismatic leader appearing.
OTL the Greenlandic Norse mostly survived on hunting with some farming on the side. We could call them hunter-farmers. Hunting provided the majority of the food intake for the Norse, while agriculture supplemented the Greenlandic Norse's diet.
 
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How could the Greenlandic Norse being pagan affect their relationship with the Inuit who arrived in Greenland around 1200. Both cultures being polytheistic might they see more exchanges of ideas?

Norse Greenlandic settlement: 977 AD - 1500 AD
Inuit Greenlandic settlement: 1300 AD - Present day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland#Norse_settlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland#Norse_failure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland#Late_Dorset_and_Thule_cultures
 
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They certainly kept their pagan folklore alive in legends and stories.
Do you have a source?
Otherwise they seemed overall to have stayed devoted Catholics until the end, even without an acting bishop. After all they built many churches.
Greenland was designated as bishopric although submissive to the Norwegian branch of the Catholic church. The Greenlanders also had many bishops of their own, allthough most were from mainland Norway aswell most never lived permanently in Greenland, some bishops did visit Greenland though.
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garðar_bispedømme
But maybe some of them played with the thought of going back to Odin, who knows. I recently read a novel "Greenlanders" about the last decades of the Greenland settlement by Jane Smiley. It follows a family over a span of three generations and ist written in the style of a Norse Saga. It covers the period between 1345 and 1415. Its pretty interesting If you are interested into the history of the Norse colony in Greenland.Pretty long, too. About 500 pages.
Does Jane explain what in her TL makes the Greenlandic Norse settlements dissapear or survive?
 
in a frozen, inhospitable hell

This in itself is a totally inunderstandable statement for somebody who spent his childhood up there.
These days its claimed the climate isn't unlike what it was during the settlement of the Norse hence farming was possible though on the distant fringe of possible. Irrigation was built do pull off the last resources of the agricultural yield. Even today Angelica archangelica is thriving in Greenland being introduced by the Norse.
 
One reason for the attempt at re-establishing contact between Greenland and Scandinavia was that some believed that the Greenlandic Norse might have reverted to paganism.

Why was reversion to paganism something that the christians in Scandinavia worried or thought about?
Actually I think it was to convert the Roman Catholic settlers to Lutherism.
 
One reason for the attempt at re-establishing contact between Greenland and Scandinavia was that some believed that the Greenlandic Norse might have reverted to paganism.

Why was reversion to paganism something that the christians in Scandinavia worried or thought about?

I had read that their real fear was that either they or the natives were still *shudders* Catholic.
 
Actually I think it was to convert the Roman Catholic settlers to Lutherism.
Both. There had been no known contact after the reformation, therefore it was assumed that the Norse Greenlanders were still Catholic. At the same time there was some speculation of the Greenlandic Norse reverting to paganism.
 
I had read that their real fear was that either they or the natives were still *shudders* Catholic.
The Greenlandic Norse settled Greenland before the Inuit did. Perhaps had the Greenland Norse survived as a group, they would be recognised as the natives instead of or in combination with the Greenland Inuit?
 
The Greenlandic Norse settled Greenland before the Inuit did. Perhaps had the Greenland Norse survived as a group, they would be recognised as the natives instead of or in combination with the Greenland Inuit?

The island was populated by the Dorset proto-eskimo people before norse (and inuit) settlement. The Danish had no way of knowing that the Dorset had vanished and the Thule taken over, just like they didn't know the original norse settlements had disappeared.
 
The island was populated by the Dorset proto-eskimo people before norse (and inuit) settlement. The Danish had no way of knowing that the Dorset had vanished and the Thule taken over, just like they didn't know the original norse settlements had disappeared.
That is true. It is important to state that the Dorset only lived in north-west-Greenland at the time of Norse arrival.
Arctic_cultures_900-1500.png
 
This actually makes me wonder, did the Danes even know of the existense of the Dorset natives in the first place? If not, then the precense of the Inuit would had come as a surprise.
Denmark probably knew that there were some people living in the region, but not who these people were.
 
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