Since Thor’s Oak Kindred was founded nine years ago for the practice of the Ásatrú religion in Chicago, we’ve focused our annual rites of spring on honoring the Vanir.
Of the two divisions of deities in Norse mythology and religion, the Æsir are – largely thanks to Jack Kirby and Stan Lee – the better known in today’s popular culture.
Most prominent among their ranks are Thor, Odin, Tyr, Baldr, and Frigg, Even the giant Loki is, according to the Icelandic antiquarian Snorri Sturluson, “reckoned among the Æsir.” The major myths of the Old Icelandic corpus focus on these figures.
The Vanir, however, are just as complex and worthy of veneration as their Æsir counterparts. The name Vanir itself may be related to the Old Norse word vinr (“friend”).
Tree decorated with fehu rune for Vanir blót of Thor’s Oak Kindred [Photo by Karl E. H. Seigfried]
Due to the myths of the war, truce, and intermingling of the two divine tribes, it’s sometimes difficult to clearly determine which figures are or were originally Vanir. Njörd and his children Frey and Freyja are, maybe Heimdall is, and (as discussed below) an equivalent of the Germanic goddess Nerthus probably was.
We honor four of the Vanir during our springtime blót (the Old Icelandic term for sacrificial ritual, from the verb blóta, “to strengthen [the god]”). Each of them is associated with a specific theme, and we address each one in relation to their theme as we pass the drinking horn around the oak tree and take turns speaking.
Njörd and prosperity
In the Old Icelandic Hákonar saga góða (“Saga of Hákon the Good”), participants at a blót drink Njarðar full ok Freys full til árs ok friðar (“a toast to Njörd and a toast to Frey for plenty and peace”).
In addition to the parallel construction of the phrase (Njörd/plenty, Frey/peace), Frey is elsewhere specifically associated with peacefulness (see below), so we put prosperity in Njörd’s column. There is other evidence for this connection.
Texts and toponymy (analysis of place-names) connect Njörd with both seafaring and agriculture. For the long-ago peoples who venerated the Vanir, sea and land were indeed sources of ár (“plenty, abundance, fruitfulness”).
Whether trading or raiding, growing crops or raising livestock, prosperity was tied to the deity honored by place-names on Norway’s coast in Sweden’s agricultural areas.
Today, we honor Njörd in the context of the reciprocal gifting cycle that forms the core of the blót rite.
We thank him for his gifts of prosperity over the past year and ask him to continue to help us in the coming year, offering in return a gift of good strong Celebrator Doppelbock beer at the roots of the oak as the incense burns and we speak our hails over the horn.
Prosperity can mean different things to different participants, from promotion at work to making it through another year with food to eat and a roof to sleep under.
We purposely leave terms like this loosely defined, so that individuals can find their own meanings within the context of the group rite – including one long-time member who serves in the U.S. Navy and has his own special connection to the god who watches over the seas.
Nerthus and springtime
In his Germania of 98 CE, the Roman writer Tacitus briefly describes a goddess worshiped alike by eight Germanic tribes.
They share a common worship of Nerthus, or Mother Earth. They believe that she takes part in human affairs, riding in a chariot among her people.
On an island of the sea stands an inviolate grove, in which, veiled with a cloth, is a chariot that none but the priest may touch. The priest can feel the presence of the goddess in this holy of holies, and attends her with deepest reverence as her chariot is drawn along by cows.
Then follow days of rejoicing and merrymaking in every place that she condescends to visit and sojourn in. No one goes to war, no one takes up arms; every iron object is locked away.
Then, and then only, are peace and quiet known and welcomed, until the goddess, when she has had enough of the society of men, is restored to her sacred precinct by the priest.
After that, the chariot, the vestments, and (believe it if you will) the goddess herself, are cleansed in a secluded lake. This service is performed by slaves who are immediately afterwards drowned in the lake. Thus mystery begets terror and a pious reluctance to ask what that sight can be which is seen only by men doomed to die.
(Mattingly/Handford translation)
We’re mature enough in our study of past religious practice to realize that slavery and execution are neither key to the celebration of the goddess nor necessary today. Religions change and evolve as societies change and evolve, and we’re not living in the past. It’s the rest of the passage that is so interesting.
Well over a thousand years before the Norse myths were written down in Iceland, Tacitus tells us of a goddess with attributes associated with the Vanir.
She is connected to earthly fecundity, arrives among her devotees in a wagon (surely not a Roman chariot), brings peace to all, and is associated with both land and water. Like the Vanir as “friends,” she is joyfully welcomed by her followers.
The fact that Tacitus clearly calls her Mother Earth also connects her to Njörd. Despite both of them being associated with both land and water, she is primarily an earth goddess, and he is primarily a deity of the seas. Unlike Njörd’s failed marriage with the mountain giantess Skadi, this pairing fits well within the domain of the Vanir.
Scholars have long pointed out that – adjusting for regional and temporal linguistic differences – the name Nerthus corresponds to Njörd as Frey does to Freyja.
Loki reveals in the Old Icelandic poem Lokasenna (“Loki’s Quarrel”) that Njörd and his sister are the incestuous parents of Frey and Freyja, whom he also declares to have lain with each other.
Students of world religions are familiar with the paired and often incestuous divine twins of Indo-European mythologies, so this shouldn’t be taken as a literal mandate for this sort of behavior.
Instead, we see Nerthus as the sister of Njörd who is mentioned but missing from Norse mythology, and we treat her as one of the Vanir. We honor her as Mother Earth in the context of springtime, addressing her for gifts of new life, new beginnings, and new endeavors.
And we always make sure to ask her forgiveness for the myriad ways that all of us degrade her through our addiction to fossil fuels, plastics, and a host of other noxious poisons that we constantly vomit onto her.
Frey and peace
The Old Icelandic Flateyjarbók (“Book of the Flat Island”) of the 14th century describes a wooden idol of Frey being taken around farms in Sweden by a young priestess.
She is in charge of Frey’s holy temple, and – accompanied by servants – she travels with the idol during springtime in a wagon pulled by oxen, so that the god can visit and speak with his devotees. The multiple parallels with the rite of Nerthus described by Tacitus are truly striking.
Thor’s Oak Kindred altar to the Vanir with figures of Freyja and land spirit Papa Hildebrand [Photo by Karl E. H. Seigfried]
Although his boar is a symbol of belligerent protection in battle (and on boar helmets), multiple sources besides the toast mentioned above connect Frey (and various versions of him) to peace.
Njörd acknowledges both sides of the coin in Lokasenna, when he calls Frey both “the protector of the Æsir” and the one “whom no one hates” (again, a connection to the Vanir as “friends”).
In the poem Skírnismál (“Sayings of the Shining One”), Frey gladly gives up his sword to win the love of a maiden of the giants, the ancient and future enemies of the gods – a fairly on-the-nose action for a god of peace.
When Snorri downgrades myths of the gods into tales of human kings in his Ynglinga saga (“Saga of the Ynglings”), he tells of Njörd’s successor Frey being “blessed by friends” (yet again, like the Vanir as “friends”) and bringing a great era of peace to all lands.
This peace is continued after his death as his followers pour tribute into his burial mound, a clear reference to sacrifices made to the god Frey.
Nowadays, we continue to honor Frey in his role as bringer of peace, a role that is sorely needed in our own age of unchecked genocide, invasion, assault, and war.
We thank him for what peace we have managed to find over the past year and ask him to guide our world away from war and towards peacefulness in the year to come. We hope that he hears us.
Freyja and love
Back in 2011, when I interviewed Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir, Staðgengill Allsherjargoða (“deputy high priestess”) of Iceland’s Ásatrúarfélagið (“Æsir Faith Fellowship”), she had this to say about the gods:
Our gods are not persons. They are powers. They are symbols of powers within ourselves and within nature. That’s true.
Those wonderful stories of Nordic mythology are very funny. They are both educating and entertaining. They are really to show you the characters, and those characters are something that you can always find one of within yourself. If you look, you can always find one god that is exactly like yourself or somebody that you know. Because it’s just a power, it’s not a person.
Thor is my god. That’s because he was the strong one, and he was the one that was the son of the Earth. I’m the daughter of the Earth. He was a friend and a protector, and that’s why I like him. He has this power, and I need a lot of power. He is the guy that I look up to. He is the power that I need.
But, when you fall in love, for example, and you’re just head-over-heels in love, then you think, “Oh, Freyja is my god.” It depends on which power that you need in your life at that time.
Paganism is polytheism, and polytheism means that we turn to different deities at different times and for different reasons. We could all use a bit of Freyja right now.
Like her brother Frey, Freyja has both bellicose and benevolent aspects.
Like Odin’s Valkyries, she chooses those slain in battle. Like Odin, she hosts the fallen warriors in her hall in Asgard. Her dwelling is called Fólkvang (“field of the people”), which can connect both to the burial ground (a field where people are buried) and to the Vanir (as the friendly ones who travel among the fields of their followers).
Snorri tells us that Freyja, like Nerthus and Frey, travels in a wagon (although drawn by cats instead of cows or oxen). Again like the Vanir as “friends,” Snorri reports that “she is the most approachable one for people to pray to.
As for specific areas of her divine attention, Snorri writes, “She was very fond of love songs. It is good to pray to her concerning love affairs.” And so we do, although we define love to cover a far broader scope than merely coupling.
Love can be a powerful force in a family, in a community, in a city, in a nation, and in a world. All around us, we face people who have chosen to prioritize hate in their lives, to make it the lens through which they see the world and the mode in which they interact with others. Pagans of positive intent must choose love to overcome the hate.
To choose love is not to be passive or to surrender. Love drives action, powers resistance, and sustains us in the fight against hate. The power of love unites both sides of Freyja, and it unites us to stand together against hateful forces.
Above all, it is for this form of love – the love that brings strength – that we thank the lady of the Vanir.
“Oft-repeated ceremony”
Prosperity, springtime, peace, and love.
These may not seem like core components of Heathenry for those who view this new religious movement as some sort of “warrior religion,” a faith built on 19th-century nationalist concepts, or a revival of 1930s German propaganda.
For us, as Heathens who embrace our place in a still-developing modern religion inspired by the positive aspects of the old pagan traditions, these are indeed central to our practice.
Ever since reading the German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s discussion of religious ritual while studying at the University of Chicago Divinity School, I’ve sought to apply his concept to Ásatrú blót as something that spurs action in the world.
Kant writes of a religious community’s “oft-repeated ceremony” that is celebrated “under laws of equality,” like our communal rite of taking turns speaking over the horn around the oak tree. The formal act of “a common partaking at the same table,” he states,
contains within itself something great, expanding the narrow, selfish, and unsociable cast of mind among men, especially in matters of religion, toward the idea of a cosmopolitan moral community; and it is a good means of enlivening a community to the moral disposition of brotherly love which it represents.
(Greene/Hudson translation)
Joining together in blót expands the perspective of the individual, builds a community of common cause, and drives us to act upon our convictions.
We honor the Vanir. We thank Njörd, Nerthus, Frey, and Freyja. We focus on prosperity, springtime, peace, and love.
Then we go out into the world and do what we can to make it a better place for all.
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