This paper will be exploring how a specific category of popular music known as Viking Metal thematically reconstructs heritage and what meanings we can decode from images generally dealing with an idealized past more than often symbolically equated with Norse myth and antiquity. On the whole we are investigating how song texts and furthermore visual elements contribute to the formation of a cultural identity and memory which not only expresses attachment for a particular time and space, but also serves as a leisure experience with the cultural proposal of an alternate selfhood residing in the reproduction of a mystical heroic populace. The study case is that of a few contemporary Swedish Viking Metal bands and particularly their appropriations of Norse mythology.

Neopaganism, briefly defined as the attempt to reconstruct and reinterpret pre-Christian heritage, is not confined to purely religious movements. A romanticized view of ancestral religion particularly expressed through an extensive use of mythological elements adapted to a contemporary context now represents a fundamental part of certain scenes that utilize them to construct a primordialist view of the past. Pagan metal makes use of religion and mythology as a form of cultural capital to suggest cultural distinctiveness in order to create an alternative antimodern, conservative discourse to mainstream culture. Artists attempt to forge and empower a new identity shaped by language, music, style, behavior and values when they, for instance, dwell on old myths which they recontextualize according to their own agenda. Starting from an exploration of American and European pagan revivalist movements, this paper pinpoints the main characteristics of the relationship between Neopaganism and musical expression by evoking and commenting on textual and non-textual evidence in an attempt to offer a paradigm for understanding the intersections between spirituality and popular culture.

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The motif of the reckless raging berserker is one of the richest in all Scandinavian literature. However unclear some aspects may appear, for instance the possible origin of such a figure, the cultural history of this warrior type and the ritual madness it embodies proves his noteworthy symbolic value. In this short essay we will attempt to investigate the figure in older sources, tracing the controversies surrounding it, as well as pointing out its impressive contemporary reception using Heavy Metal music as a study case.

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