Vanir: The Adversaries Of The Norse Gods Aesir

Discover with us the Vanir, a tribe of gods from Norse mythology. Discover their members, origins, history and most popular legends.

Who are the Vanir?

The Vanir is one of the two main tribes of deities that appear in Norse mythology. (The other tribe is the Aesir.) Among their ranks are Freya, Freyr, Njord, and possibly also the Germanic goddess Nerthus. Their home is Vanaheim, one of the Nine Worlds held within the branches of the world tree Yggdrasil.

Controversies

Unfortunately, as fragmentary as the sources on pre-Christian Germanic religion are, we know almost nothing about what pre-Christian Germanic peoples thought of the Vanir as a group. “Vanir” is a rare word. Its meaning is unknown. Although there is a small amount of plausible evidence for the worship of Freyr, Freyja, and/or Njord outside of Scandinavia and Iceland, the title “Vanir” is never used in connection with them.

Some have even wondered whether Scandinavians and Icelanders themselves thought that Freyja, Freyr, and Njord belonged to a separate clan known as the “Vanir” prior to the writings of the Christian historian and poet Snorri Sturluson. The Vanir seem to be somewhat more associated with human and ecological fertility than the Aesir, but this is a vague tendency at best, and certainly not an absolute distinction; the Aesir god Thor, for example, had a large role to play in the fertility of the earth and human society as well.

Ultimately, all we can say with confidence about the Vanir is that some late Norse literary sources describe them as a slightly different group from the Aesir, and that the gods and goddesses to whom the title “Vanir” has been applied were among the most revered and passionate pre-Christian Norse deities.

Concept

The Vanir are one of two groups of gods (the other being the AEsir) and are the namesake of the place Vanaheimr (Old Norse “Home of the Vanir”). After the AEsir-Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the AEsir. Subsequently, members of the Vanir are sometimes referred to as members of the AEsir.

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The Vanir are only attested in these Old Norse sources. Vanir is sometimes anglicized to Wanes (singular Wane).

All sources describe the deities Njoror, Freyr and Freyja as members of the Vanir. An euhemerized prose account in Heimskringla adds that Njoror’s sister, whose name is not provided, and Kvasir were Vanir. In addition, Heimskringla tells a story about King Sveigoir’s visit to Vanaheimr, where he meets a woman named Vana and the two produce a child named Vanlandi (whose name means “man from the land of the Vanir”).

Although not attested as Vanir, the gods Heimdallr and Ullr have been theorized as potential members of the group. In the Prose Edda, one name listed for the boars is “Van-child.” Scholars have theorized that the Vanir may be connected to small pieces of gold leaf found in Scandinavia at some building sites from the Migration period through the Viking Age and occasionally in graves.

They have speculated whether the Vanir originally represented pre-Indo-European deities or Indo-European fertility gods, and have theorized a form of the gods worshipped by Anglo-Saxon pagans.

Etymology of Vanir

Numerous theories have been proposed for the etymology of Vanir. Scholar R. I. Page says that, although there is no shortage of etymologies for the word, it is tempting to link the word with Old Norse vinr, “friend,” and Latin Venus, “goddess of physical love.”

Attested

In the Poetic Edda, the Vanir, as a group, are specifically referenced in the poems Voluspá, Vafpruonismál, Skírnismál, prymskvioa, Alvissmal and Sigrdrífumál. In Völuspá, one stanza describes the events of the AEsir-Vanir War, noting that during the war the Vanir breached the walls of the AEsir fortress, and that they were “untamable, trampling the plain.”

Gagnraor asks Vafpruonir where the god Van Njororor came from, for although he rules over many hofs and horgrs, Njororor was not raised among the AEsir.

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Vafpruonir replies that Njoror was created in Vanaheimr (“home of the Vanir”) by “wise powers” and details that during the AEsir-Vanir War, Njororor was exchanged as a hostage. Furthermore, when the world ends (Ragnarok), Njoror “will return to the wise Vanir”. Alvissmal consists of question and answer exchanges between the dwarf Alviss and the god Thor.

In the poem, Alviss provides terms that various groups, including this one, use to refer to various topics. Alviss attributes nine terms to the Vanir; one each for Earth (“The Ways”), Sky (“The Weaver of Winds”), Clouds (“The Comet of the Wind”), Calm (“The Silence of the Winds”), The Sea (“The Wave”), Fire (“Wildfire”), Wood (“The Rod”), Seed (“Growth”), and Beer (“The Foam”).

Archaeological Record

A leafy branch between them, two figures embrace over a small piece of gold leaf dating from the Migration period to the early Viking Age.

Small pieces of gold foil decorated with images of figures dating from the migration period to the early Viking Age (known as gullgubber) have been discovered at several locations in Scandinavia, in one case nearly 2,500 of them. The foil pieces have largely been found at building sites, only rarely in tombs.

The figures are sometimes single, sometimes an animal, sometimes a man and a woman with a leafy branch between them, facing each other or embracing. The human figures are almost always clothed and are sometimes depicted with bent knees. The figures are participating in a dance, and which may have been connected with weddings and linked to this tribe, representing the notion of a divine marriage, as in Poetic Edda’s poem Skírnismál; the meeting of the god Vanir Freyr and his love, Geror.

Modern influence

This tribe appear in the poem Om vanerne in Nordens Guder (1819) by Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager. Some Germanic neopagans refer to their beliefs as Vanatrú (meaning “those who honor the Vanir”).

The gods and goddesses

The ancient Norse, the pre-Christian Scandinavian and Germanic peoples of Northern Europe and Iceland, must have understood this. In Norse mythology, there are two different tribes of gods and goddesses. The primary tribe is the Aesir, the other tribe is the Vanir, and although they generally work well together, they do not always agree.

Vanir Figures

While there are quite a few deities of Vanir, three main figures emerge. The first is Njord. Njord was generally associated with wealth, fertility, and navigation. He had a short marriage to the giantess Skadi, which ended because he hated his home in the mountains and she could not stand his home on the beach.

Njord

Njord had two children named Freya and Freyr, and although we are not quite sure who their mother was, these two were also prominent deities of Vanir. Freya was a fertility goddess, characterized by a love of beauty and material possessions.

In many stories of the gods, she is the party girl; the one who likes to let her hair down and have fun. This does not mean, however, that she was weak. Freya taught the gods the magical art of controlling the destinies of the cosmos and could basically bend anyone or anything to her will.

Freyr, her brother, was another fertility god, associated with prosperity, benevolence and well-being. Therefore, it is not surprising that Freyr was one of the most beloved gods, both in terms of mythology and everyday Norse life. He brought peace, bountiful harvests and health and traveled in a magical boat that could be folded up and carried in a pouch.

History and Mythology of the Vanir

Now, as this secondary tribe of deities, the Vanir occupy a very interesting place in Norse mythology. In fact, some scholars believe that they may be evidence of a secondary Germanic religion that was introduced into the Scandinavian world centuries ago.

There are a few reasons for this. For one thing, most of the gods of this tribe are strongly associated with fertility, which could mean that they come from a fertility-based religion, which did exist among the Germanic tribes. In addition, there is a fair amount of intermingling between the Vanir and Aesir myths indicating that the role of these figures changed over time.

In fact, during various parts of Norse history, Freya was even worshipped as the wife of Odin himself, chief of the Aesir. We see this mixed role of the deities of this tribe in two main sources. The first is the Poetic Edda, one of the most important collections of Old Norse poems.

The other source is the Prose Edda, a scholarly treatise on Norse mythology compiled by the 13th century Icelandic Christian scholar Snorri Sturluson. However, even in these sources the Vanir tribe appears infrequently, leaving the question of the mythological and historical origin of this tribe.