Numbers in Norse Mythology

The numbers three and nine are significant numbers in Norse mythology and paganism. Both numbers (and multiplications thereof) appear throughout surviving attestations of Norse paganism, in both mythology and cultic practice.

While the number three appears significant in many cultures, Norse mythology appears to put special emphasis on the number nine. Along with the number 27, both numbers also figure into the lunar Germanic calendar.

Famous quotes containing the words numbers, norse and/or mythology:

    One murder makes a villain, millions a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow.
    Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977)

    Carlyle has not the simple Homeric health of Wordsworth, nor the deliberate philosophic turn of Coleridge, nor the scholastic taste of Landor, but, though sick and under restraint, the constitutional vigor of one of his old Norse heroes.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.
    Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)