Aesir, Vanir, and Jötnar of Viking Mythology

Norse gods, worshiped by the Vikings, were divided into two factions: the Aesir and the Vanir. Stories often pit them against each other and against the Jötnar (giants). In some stories, “Aesir” refers to the entire pantheon of Norse gods and goddesses, Aesir and Vanir alike.

The Aesir

Many of the Aesir are the Norse gods people know best: Odin, Thor, Heimdall, Baldr, Frigg and Týr, some of them familiar from the movies. They live in Asgard and work to hold the world in order against the forces of chaos, often personified by the Jötnar. (Loki lives among them too, though his family tree is complicated. More on that below.)

The Vanir

The Vanir are more mysterious, gods of fertility, wealth and the sea, whose home is Vanaheim. They practiced seiðr, a form of magic used to see and shape fate. After a war between the two tribes ended in a truce, hostages were exchanged: the Vanir sent the sea-god Njörd and his son Freyr to Asgard, and Njörd’s daughter Freyja came too.

Freyja was the great mistress of seiðr, and Snorri’s Ynglinga saga says it was she who first taught it to the Aesir. Her status was enormous: according to the Eddic poem Grímnismál, she chooses half of the slain for her hall in Fólkvangr, and Odin takes the other half.

The Jötnar

The Jötnar live in Jötunheim. The word is usually translated ‘giants,’ but that’s misleading: many are no bigger than gods, and some, like Skaði and Gerðr, marry into the Aesir. The line between god and giant was blurry. Odin’s mother Bestla was a giantess, and so, in most accounts, was Thor’s mother Jörð.

Loki‘s father, Fárbauti, was a giant. His mother, Laufey (also called Nál), is harder to place, and the sources never clearly say what she was. Unusually, Loki is often named after his mother, ‘Loki Laufeyjarson.’ Scholars have debated why.

Do you have a Norse topic or question about Viking history that you’d like to learn more about? Leave us a comment below and we’ll write about some of the more popular ideas in an upcoming post.