Njörd: Vanir god of the sea and king of Vanaheim

Njörd was the Vanir god of the sea and the ruler of Vanaheim, reckoned among the greatest leaders of his people. He was father to Freyr and Freya and grandfather to Baldur, and the long war against the Aesir cost him both his wife and his daughter.

God and king of the Vanir#

Njörd was the Vanir god of the sea, and bore besides the titles of god of fishing, seafaring, wind, wealth, crop, and fertility. He was the king of Vanaheim and of the Vanir themselves, counted among the most powerful of his kind, and was genuinely loved by those who worshipped him. He was the former husband of Skadi, the husband of Nerthus, the father of Freyr and Freya, and the grandfather of Baldur.

Rather than rule as a sole chief in the manner of Odin among the Aesir, Njörd shared the leadership of the Vanir with his children, and was known for a restless wanderlust that his son Freyr inherited from him.

The Aesir-Vanir War#

As a Vanir patriarch, Njörd took up arms alongside his kin in the long war against the Aesir. During the fighting his wife Nerthus was struck down by Magni and Modi, the sons of Thor. In his grief and fury Njörd, together with his Vanir council, summoned fierce hurricane winds that sank the fleet of the Asgardian warriors.

After many centuries the war at last came to an end, but the cost to Njörd was great. He had lost Nerthus to the sons of Thor, and his daughter Freya to a marriage with Odin, the hated chief of the Aesir. Though peace was brokered and relations between the two peoples grew more amicable, the Vanir never forgave Freya for what they took to be a betrayal of her own kind, and refused to receive her back. With Freya bound to Midgard by Odin's curses, Njörd in all likelihood had not seen his daughter for many long years.

A shrine lost to the ice#

At some time after the war, during Odin's harrying of the giants, a village to the north of the Lake of Nine that housed a shrine to Njörd was destroyed. When the colossal Thamur was struck down by Thor, the Frost Giant's body fell upon his own chisel, and the cold of his dying flesh spread out to bury the whole landscape, and the shrine with it, in ice.