The Vanir

39. In Vanaheim wise powers him created, and to the gods a hostage gave. At the world’s dissolution, he will return to the wise Vanir.

“The country of the people on the Vanaquisl was called Vanaland, or Vanaheim;”

The Vanir are a group of powers set beside the Æsir. In Vafþrúðnismál the only thing said about their home is that Njörðr was created in Vanaheimr, given to the gods as a hostage, and will return to the Vanir when the world ends. Gylfaginning says the same of him: born and bred in Vanaheimr, handed over to the Æsir and given Hœnir in exchange.

Elsewhere the Vanir are mentioned as a kind of being. In Skírnismál Gerðr asks the visitor whether he is of the Alfar, the Æsir or the wise Vanir, and later says she never thought she would love one of the Vanir race. In Alvíssmál the Vanir have words of their own for things; the earth, for instance, is vega to them.

Neither the poems nor Snorri describe Vanaheimr or place it on a branch of the tree. Ynglinga saga gives a different picture: Vanaland is a country by the river Vanaquisl, which Laing’s text identifies with the Tanais, the Don. The poems do not say this.

The name Vanir is not explained in the translations used here. The 1906 edition’s glossary connects it with a word meaning “beautiful”, an old suggestion that should be treated with caution. The same glossary calls Vanadis a goddess of the Vanir.

Snorri’s saga treats the gods as a people who came from Asia, so the Vanir become the neighbours of the Æsir by the Don. The poems treat them as powers and say nothing of rivers or countries. The war between the two families and its settlement are covered in The Æsir–Vanir War and The Hostage Exchange; Njörðr, Freyr and Freyja, the best-known Vanir, have entries of their own.