Vanir — Givers of Life

The tribe of gods that, in Norse mythology, sustain the cosmos — the ones who create and preserve its material form — are the Vanir, the world’s sustaining powers that uphold existence.

It is the Vanir who are gods in the ordinary sense. Their power is manifest in the wind’s breath and in the growth of grass.

They ensure the cycle of life, endowing the world with life.

The generative power of this tribe provides not only the fertility of the soil, but also the life-giving flow of rivers and the life-giving light of the sun.

The radiant Freyr, the mighty Njord, and the wise Freyja take a direct part in shaping the Cosmos, their participation sustained by their life in the creative capital of the gods, Asgard. Freyja even shares slain warriors with Odin, for a mighty warrior is also a mighty man in the sense of fertility.

We should not forget that it is Freyr, the Benevolent Radiance of the Sun, who fights Surtr, the destructive power of fire, and does so without a sword — just as he defeated the giant Beli, brother of Jörd (Gerðr), without a sword. Freyr’s victory over Beli (the name Jörd denotes the Earth), achieved with the aid of a stag’s horn (a phallic symbol), corresponds to Life’s triumph over the elemental forces deep in the earth — that is, to life harnessing subterranean resources for its own needs. Surtr’s victory over Freyr, on the other hand, is a sorrowful testimony to the destruction of life in the fire that renews worlds.

Moreover, Njord, father of Freyr and god of sea and fertility, is both twin and husband of Jörd, the Earth, which indicates the Vanir’s close kinship with Mother Earth and with the Jötnar progenitors, assigning them their place within the overall picture of the Cosmos.

Besides their cooperation with Asgard (so intimate that Odin even appears to be Freyja’s husband and certainly her student in seiðr — the Vanir’s magic), the Vanir inhabit their own world, Vanaheim, since they have their own view of the order.

At the same time the Vanir pervade nature itself, filling every stone and every blade of grass with life. It is the Vanir whom the poet Daniil Andreyev fittingly calls ‘Stikhiali’. It was to the Vanir — as spirits of springs, spirits of mountains, spirits of forests — that ancient peoples offered their worship.

However, it should be noted that the Vanir, as Spirits of Nature and Life, are in close interplay with the god who makes life possible, who stands between life and death as Lord of the Threshold — Heimdall, Cernunnos, Veles. But that god will be the subject of later discussion.

The Vanir are the tribe of gods most benevolent toward humans. At the same time, their power stands in some tension with the forming power of the Aesir, as evidenced by their war at the beginning of time, in which, however, there was no true victor. Indeed, the formalizing or ‘civilizing’ of nature often leads to its disturbance, yet just as the Aesir cannot exist without the current of life that flows from the Vanir, so the Vanir need the Aesir’s evolutionary, refining influence.

Two further points are important for understanding the character of relations between the Vanir and the Aesir. The first is that Gullveig, the “Power of Gold,” came to the Aesir from the Vanir, bringing corruption into Asgard. This tale shows that Possession as a sexual act and Ownership as a social relation must not be conflated. That which harms and endangers the Vanir corrodes the Aesir.

The second point is decapitation, or more precisely, the “disembodiment” by the Vanir of Mímir, handed over to them as a hostage by the Aesir. Mímir, Lord of the Well of Wisdom, deprived of his body, becomes a speaking head, a pure embodiment of wisdom that gives counsel to Odin in difficult hours. This event corresponds to the division of nature symbolized by the Aesir and the Vanir. Just as the Aesir, by slaying the primal being Ymir, created the world, so the Vanir, by dividing Mímir — keeping his body and sending the head to the Aesir — partitioned Wisdom into “Wisdom of the Body” and “Wisdom of the Mind.”

The differentiating, paternal influence of the Aesir is complemented by the unifying, maternal influence of the Vanir for the cosmos’ harmonious existence. A world without the Aesir would be thin and fragile; without the Vanir it would be cold and cruel.