Aside from the growing influence of the Christian faith throughout the Viking Age, many peoples in Viking societies clung to their pagan beliefs. Scholars have pointed out that Norse pagans did not try and speak with prayers of repetition like those that practiced Christianity.
There was no conversational tone of prayer with any of the pantheon of Norse gods, whether Thor, Odin, or Freya, which was starkly different from how Christians prayed to their one God.
Worship of the Norse gods often involved rituals that included giving offerings, feasting (especially drinking!), praising (flattery, it seems, would get a Viking somewhere in the afterlife), or, most disturbingly, making sacrifices.
Worshippers in Viking societies would often offer their blot to either the God/s or their ancestors and would involve an elaborate ceremony that normally ended with a great feast, including the drinking of mead.
Humans were the most precious sacrifice that could be made to please, or appease, the Norse gods. There has been archaeological evidence found at Trelleborg, in Demark, of a sacrificial site housing the remains of five humans, including children as young as 4.
The pagan temple at Uppsala, if we are to believe Adam of Bremen, was the scene of a gruesome communal festival every nine years. In it, nine males of "every living creature" were offered up for sacrifice, and the corpses hung on trees near the temple, including humans, horses, and dogs.
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