Odin at the table

Among the Northern peoples, there is no starter-main-dessert structure. The day is divided into two meals: dagmál (morning meal, after a few hours of work) and náttmál (evening meal). Separate from these are the great assemblies: veizla (banquet) and especially sumbl, the ritual round of the drinking horn where toasts are made to Odin, the ancestors, and oaths. Finally, blót refers to the sacrifice where the meat of animals offered to the gods is shared.

No grapes in these latitudes: sweetness comes from honey from beehives and berries, strength from grain. Barley, dried and sometimes smoked in the smoky longhouses, is the foundation of the whole table. And mead — mjöðr — is Odin's drink par excellence, he who stole the mead of poetry from the giants to give it to men.