Norse Gods: the pantheon of the Nine Realms

The Norse Gods were the pantheon that ruled over Scandinavia, the lands known within their own cosmos as the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil. One of the most powerful races ever to inhabit the realms, they were regarded as the protectors of Midgard and of humanity. The pantheon was divided into two nations of gods and two royal families: the warriors of Asgard, the Aesir, and the sorcerers of Vanaheim, the Vanir. Around these two tribes gathered stranger company besides, gods born of god and giant, the fate-reading Nornir, primordial beings older than the realms themselves, and in the final age two foreign gods, Mimir and Kratos, who came from other lands and made the North their home.

Two tribes, two royal families#

The pantheon was defined by the division between its two nations. The Aesir, natives of Asgard, were the more aggressive and warlike of the tribes, standing for the brute strength and raw power of nature. They held that the only honorable death was to fall in battle, and that every other end was cowardly and shameful. The Vanir, natives of Vanaheim, were known instead for their bond with nature and their gift for magic. Each tribe kept its own royal line, the house of Odin in Asgard and the rulers of the Vanir in Vanaheim, and the history of the whole pantheon turned on the rivalry, war, and uneasy marriage between the two.

The Aesir of Asgard#

Nine of the Aesir walked openly in the recorded history of the age. At their head stood Odin, son of Borr, the All-Father and King of the Aesir, a god of the sky, death, knowledge, wisdom, victory, ravens, the runic alphabet, and magic. His son Thor, god of thunder, lightning, storm, and strength, was the foremost warrior of the Aesir, and Thor's wife Sif, daughter of Mandafari, was goddess of wheat, earth, harvest, and family. Heimdall, another son of Odin, was god of foresight, surveillance, and foreknowledge, the sentinel of the Aesir. Tyr, also a son of Odin, was the Norse god of war, and with it of law, justice, honor, courage, and oaths. Baldur, youngest of Odin's sons, was god of light, joy, purity, peace, and prophecy. Thor's own children carried the line onward: Magni, god of force and brutality, Modi, god of courage and bravery, and Thrud, goddess of thunder and strength.

Behind these stood elder generations remembered only in lore. Buri, the first Norse God to exist and god of creation, fathered Borr, who with the creator goddess Bestla brought forth Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve. Other Aesir were spoken of without ever being seen in those days: Bragi, god of music and poetry, and his wife Idunn, keeper of the golden apples; Nanna, wife of Baldur, and their son Forseti, god of justice and reconciliation; Hodr, god of darkness and winter; Vidar, Ullr, Hoenir, the sea gods Aegir and Ran with their nine daughters of the waves. Of the great Aesir who walked the realms, only Sif, Thrud, and Tyr were known to remain alive when the age had run its course; Odin, Thor, Heimdall, Baldur, Magni, and Modi all perished.

The Vanir of Vanaheim#

Four of the Vanir took open part in the history of the era. Freya was goddess of sorcery, love, beauty, war, death, and fertility, the former wife of Odin, and in her time both Queen of the Valkyries and Queen of the Aesir. Her twin brother Freyr was god of fertility, kingship, prosperity, sunshine, and abundance. Hildisvini served as Freya's advisor and the counselor god of the Vanir, and Gna, goddess of wind and fullness, ruled as Queen of the Valkyries in later days.

The rest of the tribe lived on in name and memory. Njord, god of the sea, seafaring, and wealth, was King of the Vanir, and Nerthus, goddess of fertility and magic, was its Queen. Kvasir was the god of peace, mead, and wisdom. Skirnir, god of the messengers and Freyr's personal messenger, wielded the wand Gambanteinn; he sought refuge in the Great Gate of Alfheim, but was killed there by the drake Gravel Belly. By the close of the age Freya and Hildisvini endured, while Freyr and Gna had given their lives.

The First Great War and the marriage of Odin and Freya#

The two tribes did not share the realms in peace. Their simmering tensions broke into open war, remembered as the Aesir-Vanir War, the First Great War, when the Aesir attempted to murder the Vanir leader Freyr after the Vanir had tried diplomacy. The fighting raged for centuries until both sides, bled by heavy casualties, reached a stalemate. Mimir, then serving as ambassador for Odin, saw the way out: Odin agreed to marry Freya, queen of the Vanir, ending the war and, in secret, giving the All-Father a path to learn her magic. Together Odin and Freya produced Baldur, the youngest of Odin's sons, and for a time the marriage bound the two royal families into one pantheon. The peace did not hold; Odin's hunger for knowledge and his war on the giants outlasted his love, the marriage ended, and Freya was left a former queen of a tribe she despised.

Gods born of god and giant#

A rarer kind of god arose where the bloodlines of god and giant crossed. Such Jotunn gods were born of a god and a Giant and possessed the powers of both races. The only known god of this kind was Loki, the name the Jotnar gave to Atreus, son of Kratos and the giantess Faye. Loki was hailed as god of mischief, stories, magic, chaos, and change, and as the foremost warrior of the Jotnar. The lore of the giants also counted goddesses among their kin: Fjorgyn, goddess of earth and trees, Skadi, goddess of the hunt, skiing, winter, and mountains, and Hel, foretold as a daughter of Loki and Angrboda, goddess of the dead and future ruler of the underworld.

The Nornir and the primordials#

Above and beside the tribes stood older powers. The Nornir were the Norse goddesses of fate, the northern counterpart of the Greek Sisters of Fate. Unlike the Sisters, the Nornir neither controlled fate nor necessarily believed in it; they saw what mortals and gods called fate as nothing more than a being's inability to change, and that insight made them seem omniscient. Three sisters bore the burden: Urd, goddess of the past, Verdandi, goddess of the present, and Skuld, goddess of the future. Beside them the heavens kept their own keepers, Sunnurd, goddess of the sun, and Mani, god of the moon.

Older still were the primordial beings. Surtr, the first and last Fire Giant, ruled as chief of Muspelheim, with his wife Sinmara, a primordial of Niflheim. Audumbla, the primordial cow, belonged to the first days of creation, and Nidhogg, the primordial lindwyrm, guarded the roots of Yggdrasil itself.

Foreign gods among the pantheon#

Two gods of the North were born of other lands entirely. Mimir, god of wisdom and knowledge, had once been a fae of the Celtic lands; forced by the fairy king to leave his homeland, he came into the service of the Aesir, rose to be Odin's ambassador, and stood guardian of the Well of Knowledge before he broke with the All-Father. Kratos came for a darker reason: he had no homeland left, having killed the gods of Greece as the second Greek God of War. In the North he was known among the Jotnar as Farbauti, the "cruel striker," and in time he was recognized as the God of Hope and the second Norse God of War, a foreign god who ended his days as one of the pantheon's own.