Vidar is one of the youngest generations of gods to survive Ragnarok, the final cataclysm of the cosmos in Norse mythology. (In some accounts of that event, that is, in other accounts, the universe simply ends, and no one survives.) Virtually all references to him in ancient Norse literature refer to his role in Ragnarok; we know little or nothing about his personality or function outside of that particular episode.
During Ragnarok, the gods, the divine forces that maintain cosmic order, and the giants, the divine forces of chaos and destruction, fought, and most of those involved on both sides were killed. The god Odin was devoured by the wolf Fenrir. Vidar, Odin’s son by the giantess Grínor, immediately took on the wolf to avenge his father’s death.
He wore a shoe that had been handmade for this particular moment. It was the strongest and most robust of all shoes, and surely also imbued with magical properties. With it, Vidar kicked open the wolf’s lower jaw, and then, holding the beast’s upper jaw open, cut Fenrir’s mouth to pieces with his sword, killing the monster and putting an end to its devastating rampage.
Elsewhere, Vidar is called the “silent god,“ although no explanation is given for this epithet. He is said to be the strongest of the gods after Thor. His land is described as a place of thickets and tall grass, but the significance of the association of this particular type of landscape with this god is unknown.
1. Place names
Two place names in Norway contain his name: Virsu and Viskjol (from Víoarsskjálf, “Vidar’s Rock or Pinnacle“), which seems to suggest that Vidar participated in pagan Norse religious practice and was not just a literary figure.
Returning to the archaeological record, depictions of a man tearing the jaws of a wolf on the Gossforth Cross in northern England and the Kirk Andreas Cross on the Isle of Man, both from around 900 AD, could be Vidar and Fenrir.
But they could also be Christ and a more general wolf, as Christ’s triumph over various monsters was a popular motif in medieval art, and artists often freely mixed pagan and Christian imagery in the same works. Even if these are depictions of Vidar and Fenrir, they do not provide us with any new information, but simply further corroboration of a motif that recurs frequently enough in literary sources to leave no doubt as to its authenticity.
Unfortunately, then, we know Vidar onlyas Odin’s avenger and Fenrir’s slayer. The few other tantalizing but sketchy details do not add up to any particular, much less complete, portrait of a religious mythological personality or role. Sadly, the question of who exactly Vidar was to pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples is essentially unanswerable.
2. Poems of Vidar vs. Fenrir
Vidar is the name of one, the silent god. He has a thick shoe. He is almost as strong as Thor; in him the gods have great confidence in all fights. The nature of Vidar’s silence remains unexplained. He appears in mythology mainly as the avenger of his father’s death. In Ragnarok, the wolf Fenrir will kill Odin, after which Vidar kills the wolf with his sword, according to Voluspá:
“Then comes the great son of Victor-Sire, Vidar, to fight. With the deadly beast. With his hands he will pierce the giant’s son’s heart with his sword: Then come to your father. Vidar kills Fenrir.”
However, the manner of Fenrir’s death is different in Vafbrúonismál, stanza 53, which states that Vidar will break the terrible jaws and kill the wolf. This is further elaborated by Snorri in Gylfaginning:
“The wolf swallows Odin, but at that moment Vidar steps forward and puts his foot on the monster’s lower jaw, grabs the other hand, and thus tears it apart until it dies. Vidar is able to do this because he wears those shoes for which he has been gathering throughout the ages, namely the pieces of leather that are cut to form the toes and heels of the shoes, and it is for this reason that those who would render a service to the Aesir must be careful to throw away those fragments.”
After the cataclysmic events of Ragnarok, Vidar will be among the survivors. The giant Vafþrúonir says that Vidar and Váli will inhabit the sacred places of the gods when Surtr’s fires have been extinguished. Snorri adds that neither the sea nor Surtr’s fire will have harmed them.
In Skaldskaparmál, Vidar is portrayed as the silent god, possessor of the iron shoe, enemy and slayer of the wolf Fenrir, avenger of the gods, divine dweller in his father’s farms, son of Odin, and brother of the Aesir.
3. History of the Myth of Vidar and Fenrir
Fenrir was the most monstrous wolf in Norse mythology. In modern times, people even call Fenrir the god of destruction because of the things he destroyed in the myth. But during Ragnarok, Fenrir was unable to survive and was killed.
They had two siblings, Jormungand the Midgard Serpent and Hel, Queen of Helheim, the land of the dead. Fenrir was also the father of two wolves, Hachi and Skoll, who swallowed the Sun and the Moon before Ragnarok. In reality, Fenrir was not raised by his parents. He was kept in Asgard and raised by the Norse gods. But the gods quickly realized that Fenrir was growing at a dizzying speed, so they decided to bind Fenrir to the magical chain Gleipnir. With some tricks, Fenrir was successfully bound and abandoned, waiting for the days of Ragnarok to arrive.
When his time finally came, Loki and Fenrir broke free to wage war against the Norse pantheon. They led the giant army across the Bifrost bridge to enter Asgard. He used his poisonous breath to poison the entire sky while Fenrir stretched his jaw from the earth to the sky to swallow everything in his path. Hel sent her hound Garm and the army of the dead to join Loki’s side.
With the unexpected sound of Heimdall the Guardian of Asgard’s horns, the gods quickly grabbed their weapons and prepared to join the battle. Each god had the opportunity to fight their sworn enemy in their final battle: Thor against Jormungand, Freyr against Surtr (fire giant), Heimdall against Loki, Tyr against Garm. And, of course, the fight between Odin and Fenrir, which was followed by death and revenge for Vidar.
Odin fought Fenrir until his last breath and, despite everything, could not escape his prophesied fate. Odin managed to lead the army of Einherjar and the gods into battle before being consumed by Fenrir. The loss of their greatest leader was too much for any god or creature to bear.
One of Odin’s sons, Vidar, set out to avenge his father’s death. Before Ragnarok, Vidar was just a silent god who often spent hours sitting in his gardens, cultivating flowers and trees. Perhaps he was born for the great moment in Ragnarok. His shoes were meant for this key moment.
On that day, Vidar jumped off his horse to attack Fenrir. Vidar quickly grabbed Fenrir’s jaws. He stepped on one of his magic shoes on the wolf’s lower jaw and used his great strength to tear the monster apart. Fenrir was killed by Vidar, son of Odin. Thus, in addition to the name God of Silence, Vidar was also known as the God of Vengeance.
With his power, supernatural enough to kill Fenrir, Vidar survived Ragnarok and became one of the few gods to enter the new age of the world. To this day, there is a famous stone in Gosforth Church in Cumbria, England, depicting the battle between Vidar and Fenrir.
Vidar’s Revenge
The tribe of gods in Asgard and the tribe of giants fought, and only a few beings were able to survive this fateful event. Odin the Almighty Father was killed during this event by the wolf Fenrir, the god of destruction. Almost everyone mourned and despaired over Odin’s death, but almost no one dared to fight Fenrir. However, Vidar, the god who had remained silent most of the time, set out to avenge his father’s death.
4. Who was the god Vidar?
The god Vidar was the son of the god Odin and a giantess from Grid. Yes, an Aesir god and a giantess gave birth to the god Vidar. Despite the deep-rooted hatred between the god and the giant, there was a time when the god could not resist the beauty of the Jotun (the giantess). Perhaps because giant blood ran through his veins, he was the strongest god after his brother Thor. He was the Norse god of the forest, vengeance, and silence.
His home
Vidar’s home was known as Landvidi, a part of Asgard. It was a place full of flowers, bushes, tall green grass, and growing trees. With imagination, Vidar’s place looked like a garden and was a place of peace and silence. Vidar was also famous for his silence and spent hours sitting in his beautiful garden. Little was known about Vidar. But his famous survival must have been his revenge for his father’s attack.
The Magic Shoes
The creation of his shoes was for this historic moment. His pair of shoes was the strongest and most powerful of all shoes. He jumped off his horse, approaching the monstrous wolf to attack it. He used his sword to cut the animal’s mouth to pieces, ending the monster’s life and rage.
Vidar killed Fenrir
After all, the god Vidar was one of the few gods who survived Ragnarok. He then entered the new cycle of the universe and became one of the rulers of the new world.
