quality:corruption, linguistic:translation, structural:reformatting
Temples

Several of the sagas refer to cult houses or temples, generally called in Old Norse by the term hof. There are detailed descriptions of large temples, including a separate area with images of gods and the sprinkling of sacrificial blood using twigs like the Christian use of the aspergillum, in Kjalnesinga saga and Eyrbyggja saga; Snorri 's description of blót in Heimskringla adds more details about the blood sprinkling. Adam of Bremen 's 11th-century Latin history describes at length a great temple at Uppsala at which human sacrifices regularly took place, and containing statues of Thor, Wotan and Frikko (presumably Freyr); a scholion adds the detail that a golden chain hung from the eaves.

These details appear exaggerated and probably indebted to Christian churches, and in the case of Uppsala to the Biblical description of Solomon's temple. Based on the dearth of archaeological evidence for dedicated cult houses, particularly under early church buildings in Scandinavia, where they were expected to be found, and additionally on Tacitus ' statement in Germania that the Germanic tribes did not confine their deities to buildings, many scholars have believed hofs to be largely a Christian idea of pre-Christian practice. In 1966, based on the results of a comprehensive archaeological survey of most of Scandinavia, the Danish archaeologist Olaf Olsen proposed the model of the "temple farm": that rather than the hof being a dedicated building, a large longhouse, especially that of the most prominent farmer in the district, served as the location for community cultic celebrations when required.

Since Olsen's survey, however, archaeological evidence of temple buildings has come to light in Scandinavia. Although Sune Lindqvist 's interpretation of post holes which he found under the church at Gamla Uppsala as the remains of an almost square building with a high roof was wishful thinking, excavations nearby in the 1990s uncovered both a settlement and a long building which may have been either a longhouse used seasonally as a cult house or a dedicated hof. The building site at Hofstaðir, near Mývatn in Iceland, which was a particular focus of Olsen's work, has since been re-excavated and the layout of the building and further discoveries of the remains of ritually slaughtered animals now suggest that it was a cult house until ritually abandoned. Other buildings that have been interpreted as cult houses have been found at Borg in Östergötland, Lunda in Södermanland, and Uppakra in Scania, Remains of one pagan temple have so far been found under a medieval church, at Mære in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway.

In Norway, the word hof appears to have replaced older terms referring to outdoor cult sites during the Viking Age; it has been suggested that the use of cult buildings was introduced into Scandinavia starting in the 3rd century based on the Christian churches then proliferating in the Roman Empire, as part of a range of political and religious changes that Nordic society was then experiencing. Some of the cult houses which have been found are located within what archaeologists call "central places": settlements with various religious, political, judicial, and mercantile functions. A number of these central places have place-names with cultic associations, such as Gudme (home of gods), Vä (vé), and Helgö (holy island). Some archaeologists have argued that they were designed to mirror Old Norse cosmology, thus connecting ritual practices with wider worldviews.