AIMS, DEVELOPMENT AND RESULTS
The aim of the project was initially to study how researchers with different theoretical perspectives and backgrounds in the history of research relate to issues concerning, for example, the analytical category of ‘religion’, emic and etic concepts, religious homogeneity and heterogeneity, continuity and change as well as regional variation and inter-regional relationships. The focus was on how these issues are expressed within the framework of three “models” for the study of Old Norse religion: a school based on comparative research into Indo-European religions, a “pan-Nordic” school focusing on the relationship between the pre-Christian religions in the Nordic region, and a recent trend inspired by postmodern and above all postcolonial theories.

An additional initial question was what implicit and explicit factors modelled these perspectives into schools of research, and, above all, whether certain "pre-paradigmatic structures" within the recent postcolonial research current could even potentially form a new school for future research into Old Norse religion. However, as this does not seem to be the case, less emphasis was consequently placed on the different “models” or schools as such. Instead, more emphasis was given to the fundamental theoretical problems mentioned above, and possible solutions for how to address these issues within the framework of the research into pre-Christian religion in Scandinavia. This adjustment of focus was in line with a point already made by RJ’s initial external assessor of the project’s potential, and was in accordance with considerations expressed during a discussion with RJ’s review panel at a follow-up meeting in the autumn of 2016. This approach was also better suited to the review panel’s proposal for a new publication strategy, which was changed from a monograph (in Swedish) to 3 - 4 articles (in English).

In the article “Lived Religion in Viking and Early Medieval Scandinavia” the perspective of “lived religion” is introduced in the study of pre-Christian Scandinavia. In international studies of religion, this category is mostly emphasised by Anglo-Saxon researchers with sociological perspectives, which, it is argued, should also be considered in the research into pre-Christian and Medieval Scandinavia. In addition, the perspective of religion as something “lived” evades several old and new stumbling blocks in this field of research, such as the issues concerning religion as coherent systems; the relationship between the categories of ‘religion’, ‘folk religion’, and ‘folk beliefs’; and the distinction between logical (theological) and functional coherence, etc. Furthermore, the view of religion as lived presents the opportunity to approach the kaleidoscopic Christianisation process in Scandinavia from a partly new perspective.

The article “Old Customs. The Vernacular Word siðr and its Cognates in the Study of (Lived) Religion in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia” concerns the relationship between the universal category of ‘religion’ and the vernacular term ‘siðr’ (“custom”). This study relates to the general international debate on emic‒etic concepts and categories and is consequently of general relevance to Social Anthropology and Religious Studies. In Viking Age vernacular language, ‘siðr’ denoted the ingrained customs, or, more broadly, culture, the traditional way of life. The lived religion was just one dimension of this. However, in recent years the term 'siðr' has been emphasised as an emic substitute for the category ‘pre-Christian religion’ by a number of researchers, who from a postcolonial perspective suggest that the general category of ‘religion’ is on the one hand misleading in a pre-Christian Scandinavian context, and can on the other be used as a categorisation of Christianity in medieval Scandinavia. The spread of Christianity could thus be regarded as a transition from ‘siðr’ to ‘religion’. However, the article “Old Customs” demonstrates that this proposed dichotomy between ‘siðr’ and ‘religion’ is deeply misleading for several reasons (not least, e.g. because ‘siðr’ was also the vernacular term for Catholic Christianity in the Middle Ages). Instead, the article advocates the use of the two concepts in a complementary way in the study of both the Viking Age and the medieval period in Scandinavia.

Within the study of pre-Christian Scandinavia, issues of religious continuity, variation and change have been frequently discussed in recent decades. In two articles the present project contributes new perspectives to this discussion. The common representation of Old Norse religion as a more or less homogeneous tradition is questioned, and it is stressed that religion must have displayed extensive regional and social hierarchical variations. In the article “Circular Flow of Tradition in Old Norse Religion” a model is presented to emphasise some of the many socio-cultural mechanisms that contributed to religious continuity, chronological change, and regional and social variation. In the article “Configurations of Religion in Viking Age Scandinavia” it is argued that inconsistent religious variations also existed on a personal level, within an individual’s religious interpretations of reality. Most people alternated between certain varying social, economic and cultural ecological milieus, some of which were also linked to varying frames of reference, codes of conduct, needs and value systems. Since religion was an integral part of people's entire existence, the shift between these socio-cultural milieus also entailed cognitive and practical alternation between corresponding religious subsystems, or configurations. The study identifies four such religious configurations associated with the agrarian livelihood, hunting and fishing, the comitatus and the warrior life, and the dimension of mythical storytelling. Many elements in the sources that have been perceived as incongruent and contradictory in previous research are seen in a new light when they are contextualised in accordance with this perspective on Old Norse religion. The model may therefore also be of significant interest for studies in other fields of religious research.

NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS GENERATED THROUGH THE PROJECT
Among several new questions, I would like to emphasise the potential of the result to form a foundation for certain new perspectives on the Christianisation of Scandinavia. For example, did Christianity initially form a new religious configuration during the transition period in the late Viking Age and the early Middle Ages? In what ways did the ecclesiastical traditions influence and shape the lived religion in the everyday domestic spheres during the early Middle Ages, and how did individuals or groups of people as active, subjective agents relate to the ecclesiastical message in ways that did not necessarily harmonise with the church’s intentions? Usually, the pagan public sanctuary and the medieval parish church are regarded by modern researchers as the central places of religion during the Viking Age and the medieval period, but what areas of religion may actually be conceived as central and peripheral in everyday life from the perspective of religion as something lived? I hope that I will have the opportunity to address these and other issues in future research.

INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS
A research visit within the framework of the project took place at the Department of Scandinavian Studies (Skandinavistika osakond) at the University of Tartu (Tartu Ülikool), Estonia, in May 2018.

DISTRIBUTION OF RESEARCH RESULTS
The research results are distributed as four separate articles in academic media with Open Access, in accordance with RJ’s directions. The articles are also (or will be) circulated digitally through scientific/academic forums such as DiVA and Academia.edu. Parts of the research results have been presented as lectures at international conferences. They have also come to form an important basis for lectures held at the Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies at Stockholm University.