Vanir

Vanir
Leader	King Tiwaz
Properties
Head­quarters	Vanaheim
Appearances
Appears in	"You Will Gladden His Ravens" "The Worm"
Debut	"You Will Gladden His Ravens"

The Vanir, also referred to as the bramble gods or the old gods, were a group of gods that were neglected by their followers, so they began to rot. Leif begged them for their help in his goal for Sigrid's vengeance. The Vanir were first revealed in an early preview shortly before the release of Twilight of the Gods.

History

The Aesir and Vanir battle.

Long ago the Vanir went to war with the Aesir because the leader of the latter, Odin, felt intense jealousy towards them for their prophetic powers, Seidr magic. When the Vanir refused to give them their knowledge, the Aesir attacked. There were many casualties, so when the Aesir offered a truce, despite it being disadvantageous to the Vanir, they agreed to it to end the bloodshed.

Expand! This section is incomplete.

Members

Tiwaz

Freya

The Seid-Kona (half-Aesir)

Norse origins

The Vanir were a major faction of gods who competed with the Æsir for worship from mortals. While the Sigrid-led war between Aesir and Vanir is not based on Norse mythology, the first war and general antagonism between the two groups are.

The only Vanir god directly based on a specific Vanir god from Norse mythology is Freya, whose story shares many similarities with her mythological counterpart while also taking on elements of her mythological father and brother, who do not appear in Twilight of the Gods. Instead, her brother is Tiwaz, who was not a Vanir god in the original mythology.

Though most of the Vanir are background characters in Twilight, there are figures among them that share minor similarities with Norse or other deities, which may or may not have been influenced by these deities. One such example is a pair of gods seen in Twilight, one male and one female, each with two heads. This is reminiscent of Tuisto, the mythical ancestor of the Germanic peoples. Tuisto was a god with an unknown gender whose name means "doubled," which is similar to the two double-headed characters. Not much is known about Tuisto and the myths don't directly suggest they had two heads or two bodies. They were one of the oldest gods, around during the time of Ymir. The double-headed gods in Twilight were also depicted as aged.

Another example is the pair of Lithuanian bee gods, Bubilas and Austheia. Bubilas was a minor god credited for serving bees and beekeepers, while his wife Austheia was the queen of bees and was associated with weaving connections between friends and families, fertility, and creation. A pair of gods among the Twilight Vanir are a mass of bees acting as a single entity and a flower-like woman who mourns the former after Thor kills him. Like the double-headed gods, these characters have broad representational traits that can be associated with these mythological figures but aren't necessarily based on them. Beyla's name, of the Norse gods, also may translate to "bee."