Hoenir: the silent god of the Aesir

Hoenir, called the Silent, was the Norse god of silence, indecision, mystery, and avoidance, one of the Aesir of Asgard. By the account of Mimir, he was a kind, sweet, but simple minded young man who required constant care to keep him from hurting himself. Odin sent him to Vanaheim under the banner of a cultural exchange between the realms, though the All-Father's true purpose was simply to be rid of him. The Vanir families of Vanaheim took Hoenir in and cared for him together, honoring him with a family crest of their own. His story ended in grief: when he learned why he had truly been sent away, Hoenir took his own life.

The god of silence#

Hoenir held a strange collection of domains among the gods of Asgard: silence, indecision, mystery, and avoidance. The titles suited a god who rarely spoke for himself and who shrank from the demands the other Aesir placed upon one another. He was presumed to have been born in Gladsheim, the great hall of Asgard, and he was counted a member of the Aesir, though his exact place among them was never made clear. Unlike Thor, Tyr, Heimdall, and Baldur, the sons whom Odin constantly sent on missions throughout the Nine Realms, Hoenir left little evidence of any close bond with the All-Father, and it was never established whether he belonged to the Aesir royal family at all.

Some old tellings named Hoenir a son of Borr and Bestla, which would have made him a brother to Odin, Vili, and Ve. Nothing in the records of the realms confirmed such kinship, and the manner in which Odin treated him argued against any brotherly regard. What the accounts did agree upon was his nature. Mimir remembered Hoenir as kind and sweet, a gentle soul in a pantheon that produced few of them. Among the Aesir, only a handful were remembered as good natured at all: Mimir himself, Hoenir, Tyr, Sif, Ullr, Thrud, and possibly Bragi. In that short list of decent souls in Odin's court, Hoenir stood apart even so, for he was also simple minded, and he needed constant watching to keep him from coming to harm.

The exchange between Asgard and Vanaheim#

In the years when Asgard and Vanaheim sought to bind their peace, the two realms arranged a cultural exchange, each sending one of their own to live among the other tribe. The Vanir meant to honor the agreement in good faith. They chose a young bladesmith named Sturla and sent him to Asgard, offering the Aesir a craftsman whose skill spoke well of his people.

Odin's choice revealed a different intent. The All-Father sent Hoenir to Vanaheim, and it soon became apparent that he had done so simply as a means of getting rid of him. Hoenir required constant care to keep him from hurting himself, and Odin had no patience for such a charge. What the realms were told was diplomacy was, in truth, a quiet act of abandonment, the disposal of a young god whom the master of Asgard considered a burden.

A ward of the Vanir families#

Whatever Odin's purpose, the Vanir did not treat Hoenir as a burden. The various families of Vanaheim welcomed the young god and came together to care for him, sharing the watchfulness his condition required among many households rather than leaving it to one. In time they gave him the highest token of belonging they had: a Vanir family crest of his own, marking him as kin among the people to whom he had been sent away.

That gift set Hoenir's crest alongside those of Vanaheim's own honored names. Long afterward, family crests bearing the marks of Skirnir, Hylli, Kvasir, Freya, and even Odin could be found across the realm, and Hoenir's lay among them in Noatun's Garden, resting in a quiet corner of that place. The crest endured as proof of what the Vanir had chosen to do for him: a god discarded by Asgard had been claimed as family by the realm that received him.

The truth and his death#

Hoenir's peace in Vanaheim did not survive the truth. By accident he overheard one of his caretakers discussing the All-Father's clear disgust for him, and with those words the kindness of his new home was poisoned by the knowledge of why he had come to it. He had not been sent as an honored guest of the exchange. He had been thrown away.

Distraught at the revelation, Hoenir was found the next morning having taken his own life. He died in Vanaheim, among the families who had cared for him, undone not by any enemy of the realms but by the contempt of the god who should have protected him. His death left its stain on Odin rather than on the Vanir, for the households of Vanaheim had done all that compassion asked of them, and the crest they had given him remained behind as the record of it.

In the accounts of Mimir#

Hoenir never walked through the recorded struggles of the Norse realms, but his name survived in the tellings of Mimir. In the account known as the Lost Pages of Norse Myth, Mimir placed Hoenir among the gods who witnessed the First Great War between the Aesir and the Vanir, standing alongside Idunn, Hodr, and Heimdall. In the same telling, when Freyr was set aflame, he caught sight of Hoenir, Bragi, and Sif drunk among the company.

It was Mimir, too, who preserved the truth of Hoenir's exile and death, remembering him as the kind, sweet, simple minded young man that Odin cast off and the Vanir embraced. Beside the long wars and murders that filled the histories of Asgard, the fate of the Silent god was a small sorrow, but it was among the plainest measures of the All-Father's character: even a gentle son of Asgard who threatened no one was not safe from Odin's contempt.