Eddic poetry constitutes an important gateway into the pre-Christian legal universe of Scandinavia. This paper presents a broader, deeper discusson of how the thing functions in the eddic poems and the legal language and motifs that are used around this concept. It is argued here that eddic poetry can provide some insight into the ideal characteristics of Norse assemblies; indeed, Norse assemblies in real time may have drawn from motifs and concepts in the eddas. Place-name and archaeological evidence is used to demonstrate that the population of Viking Age Scandinavia strived to reproduce the “ideal assembly site”, described in the poetry, in their own landscape.