The traditions of the Northern and Scandinavian countries and of the Vikings are at the same time very interesting and rich in feats, accomplishments and innovations. The above-mentioned three refer to the peoples of Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Scotland. Finland has other traditions, slightly different ones, but it also has common traditions with the ones from the rest of the Northern countries; for most of the part, they coincide.
The Scandinavian mythology also influenced the Goths, namely the Germans before being Christianized. Vikings believed in Yggdrasil, the tree of truth. The tree symbolizes the ascent of the Northern civilization.
The wise and omniscient god of the Scandinavians is Odin. Odin rides the tree of wisdom and truth and lives on top of it. In the crown of the tree lies also the city of the white elves, elves that help people, especially by healing them.
In the Scandinavian mythology, the elves are magic beings; they come and help people with healing herbs and water and they go back afterwards to the mountains and the forests where they live. There are also dark elves; they help the shrewd and the lawless, pushing them to make evil; they live in the depths of the waters. The dark elves were chased away with horns and high fires, because they helped sorcerers make evil: they brought poisonous herbs so the sorcerers could make their poisons against men.
There were also dwarfs in the life of the Scandinavian populations, who helped people; they lived in the forests, too, working the land and giving people the fruit of the ground, so that they could treat themselves for various diseases. There were Trolls, too, very evil giants who battled with people and who helped sorcerers in the same way as the dark elves.
To people, important was Ilmatar – the daughter of the air and mother of the waters. She lived alone in the sky and helped people by purifying water and wind when the Vikings needed it for fishing or for anything else. She also patronized the wind when necessary.
There are many Scandinavian gods; the important thing is that they helped people with traditional medicine, too. The Scandinavian nations discovered that whale fat treats skin cancer, stones, kidney cancer and many others. The witch doctors of those times saw that the bigger the whale, the more beneficent its fat was. They came to the conclusion that – as big whales and fish fed on deep water seaweeds – deep water vegetation was richer in calories and minerals. They noticed it by making a comparison with the fat of small or young and thin whales. Therefore people dived to great depths and collected the vegetation growing there, which they dried and made into cure for certain affections or, combined with whale or shark fat, for other affections. They used sea mammals’ fat to enhance skin resistance to cold and hot, too.
The healers, who were under Odin’s protection, even climbed to the top of the mountains, where they picked herbs to make mixtures for cirrhosis and for affections of the lungs, heart and for various other affections; they also went into caves, where they collected the blue mud covering the precious stones; by mixing it with herbs, they treated cancers.
The Scandinavian medicine, again, gave mankind the honey-based treatment. In combination with certain herbs, honey turns into an aphrodisiac, but, in a different combination, it turns into treatment, strengthening the immune system and the central nervous system.
From the Scandinavian traditional medicine, we know the diversity of treatments based on mixtures of flower petals and medicinal herbs, or solely petals of certain flowers for the treatment of impotence, as well as stems of certain flowers that grow on high mountains for the treatment of sterility.
To the great thesaurus of Scandinavian traditional medicine also belong the Scandinavians’ recipes for cirrhosis made from the bark of certain trees, mixed with flowers and leaves from other trees.The trees are deeply-rooted into the ground; depending on their height and on their native climate, they are full of energy, minerals and vitamins. The bark of trees, such as the fir tree, is also used to treat inflammations and wounds with pus; healing is certain as is also in the case of eczemas.
The Scandinavian traditional medicine has brought its contribution to the world’s traditional medicine thesaurus, by countless recipes for the treatment of many diseases. It has shown mankind that life is not a hazard over which triumph only those who know how to play, but it is a source of wisdom if you evolve, searching continuously and proving yourself that everything is possible.
