The Æsir and Vanir – their power, their flaws and their tales, and who belonged to whom.
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For a seafaring people the sea was both: lifeline and maw. No wonder the North gave it a divine couple. Ægir, the vast but hospitable sea-giant, is …
Read more →For a seafaring people the sea was both at once: road and grave, riches and death. In the North this double nature took on two faces – Ægir, the …
Read more →She appears rarely and never speaks a single recorded word – yet the greatest catastrophe of Norse myth springs from her. Angrboda, the giantess of …
Read more →He was the fairest, the gentlest, the purest – and yet it was he whom death struck. The legend of Balder is the most moving story in all of Norse …
Read more →In the halls of the gods sits one who would rather turn a fine phrase than swing an axe: Bragi, the long-bearded lord of poetry. He is the quiet …
Read more →Every great deity of the North has a dwelling. That of Frigg, the highest of the goddesses, is called Fensalir – „the fen-" or „sea-halls".
Read more →Where there is strife, one is needed who settles it. The North gave that idea a face: Forseti, the god of law. Whoever comes to him with a quarrel …
Read more →Freyja is far more than the „Norse goddess of love" she is often reduced to. She is a war-mistress, a master of magic and the most desired figure in …
Read more →Freyr is the god the Vikings offered to for good weather, rich harvest and peace – the „foremost of the Æsir", as Snorri says, though he truly comes …
Read more →Above all the goddesses of the Æsir stands one: Frigg, Odin’s wife and queen of Asgard. She knows the fate of all beings – and keeps silent about it …
Read more →Heimdall is the watchman who never sleeps – the god who hears the grass grow and the wool sprout on the sheep. Born of nine mothers, he stands at the …
Read more →Not every dead man came to Valhalla. Most people – all who died of sickness and age – went to Hel. She is the mistress of the death-world, Loki’s …
Read more →Loki fits no box. Now he saves the gods with a trick, now he plunges them into ruin. It is exactly this doubleness that makes him perhaps the most …
Read more →The strongest god has two sons: Magni („the mighty") and Modi („the brave / wrathful"). They are more than minor figures – for they are among the few …
Read more →In the North, the moon is a man. Máni, brother of the sun, steers his heavenly body across the sky night after night, measuring time with it – and …
Read more →Few figures in Norse myth are as puzzling and as important as Mimir. Sometimes he is a being at the well of wisdom, sometimes a preserved head that …
Read more →Some figures of Norse mythology stand in the bright spotlight, others in the shadow of the great ones. Nanna belongs to the quiet ones - and yet her …
Read more →Almost a thousand years before the Edda was written down, Germanic tribes drove a veiled goddess across the fields on an ox-cart each spring – and …
Read more →Every god has a mother. Heimdall has nine – at once. Nine sisters, giant maidens, bore the watchman of the gods “at the edge of the earth”. No other …
Read more →When a Viking prayed before a sea voyage for wind, safe return and a full catch, he prayed to Njörðr. The god of the sea, the winds and prosperity is …
Read more →Odin is no comfortable sky-father. He is wanderer, war god, poet, sorcerer and lord of the dead – a god who pays almost any price for knowledge, and …
Read more →There is a love story in Norse mythology made almost entirely of longing. Its hero is a god of whom we know little more than his name: Odr, Freyja's …
Read more →Her hair was of pure gold – and this hair set off one of the most consequential stories in all of mythology. Sif, wife of the thunder god Thor, seems …
Read more →She does nothing grand – no heroic deed, no spell – and yet she is one of the most moving figures in all of mythology. Sigyn, the wife of Loki …
Read more →She came to Asgard to take revenge – and stayed as a goddess. Skadi is the mistress of the mountains, of winter, of the hunt and of skiing: a …
Read more →In the North, the sun is female. Sunna – Sól to the Norse – races across the sky day after day, pursued by a wolf who will devour her at the end of …
Read more →He stood at the beginning and he stands at the end: Surtur, the fire giant, has guarded the border of the burning world Muspelheim since the …
Read more →No god was so beloved by ordinary people as Thor. With hammer, strength-belt and thunder-chariot he holds the powers of chaos in check – red-bearded …
Read more →Tyr is the god who knew what order costs – and was willing to pay it with his own hand. Once perhaps the highest sky-god of the Germanic peoples, he …
Read more →He is one of the best-known “unknown” gods: everyone who studies the mythology knows his name – and yet Ullr scarcely appears in a myth of his own …
Read more →Odin is the god who pays any price for knowledge – his eye, death on the tree, and nearly his head. In Vafþrúðnismál he literally stakes it.
Read more →Think of Norse gods and you think of the Aesir: Odin, Thor, Tyr. But the sources know a second divine family – the Vanir. They stand for everything …
Read more →In Germanic thought vengeance was no blemish but a duty – and the North gave it two gods. Víðarr, the silent god who at the world's end kills the …
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