This study aims to deepen the understanding of how belonging and community is created in one of the Aesir faith communities in Sweden. The study examines the Aesir faith communities ability to develop the community members religious identity as well as their understanding of the importance of cultural heritage and how it affects the members in their practices of their Aesir faith. The main argument in this study is that cultural heritage creates a sense of community that makes the members want to stay and develop their religious identity together with the other members of the Aesir faith community. I have used cultural heritage, symbols and rituals, belonging, community and religious identity as concepts in order to answer my research questions. The methods used in this study are participant observation during the group's public activities, as well as interviews with the members of the Aesir faith community in order to confirm the analysis I made during the participant observation.

In this work, you get drawn into a different and distant world than the one we are usedto. You get to know what shamanism is, in a basic and understandable way, easy to lookupon for a newcomer to this gigantic subject. The world of raging spirits and meddlingshamans with the belief of three worlds where spirits roam will be compared toreligions that we might know better, with big focus on the Aesir Faith. Oden and otherwell-known characters from this belief are in a historical way looked upon and relatedto beliefs, storys and findings.The archaic belief of the humans are intriguing and exciting, and I hope you find outthat yourself, when you dig in to this essay.

This essay is about how the Aesir are used as an ideal image of the original Nordic aspects and as a symbol of heroism and pure strength. The main subject of this essay is to look at how this ideal of masculinity is represented in the art produced during the era of romantic nationalism. The choice of focusing on this era in particular is made due to the fact that it was during this time that the modern images of the Aesir and the Vikings were made. The purpose of this study is to examine how the ideal of masculinity reflects upon the artistic interpretations of the Norse mythology in a selected group of art work produced during the 1800?s.