The Scandinavian Pantheon
The the Scandinavian Pantheon indicates the whole of the God X (and, by extension, of all the creatures not forming part of the common run of people) of the Scandinavian Mythologie.
Gods
In the Scandinavian Mythology, one can classify the Gods in two groups: the Ases, which present many Indo-European features, and the Vanes, their elder. The latter are undoubtedly the paramount gods of a religion former to the Indo-European invasions. Their features are more naturalists than the Adzes.
In the Scandinavian culture, the Adzes were rather requested by the Scandinavian Aristocrats. The Valves, representative of fruitfulness and the fertility inter alia, were adored by the farming community Viking.
This characteristic of the Scandinavian religion is an interesting example of cultural integration. The war between the Adzes and the Valves could symbolize the gap between l'" aristocratie" and farming community of the time.
The Adzes
The names in Vieux norrois will be added later on.
- Former god of the sea, brother and husband of Rán.
Baldr Balder, Baldur .
- Wire of Odin and Frigg, husband of Chick and father of Forseti, he is the god of the light and the beauty. Its name means “the valiant one”, “the white”, “the prince” or “the courageous one”. It resides in the market of Breidablik. Its strange dreams on its death make a wounded god of it that the evil spells of Loki led to the kingdom of dead the where it was carried by his large Hringhorni ship. At the end of the Ragnarök, it will return among the alive ones to found a new order on ashes of the old world.
Eir
- Maidservant of Freyja, minor goddess of medicine.
Forseti , Fosite , Foseti , Forsete .
- God of justice, wire of Chick and Baldr.
Frigg Frigga/Frea
- Frigg is a goddess of the love, protective marriage and maternity. It is the woman of Odin and the mother of Baldr. As the Nornes she knows the destiny of each being.
Fulla
- Maidservant of Frigg. She brings the fertility.
- Goddess of the fertility, the fields, the ploughings. Sponsor virgins.
Gnaa
- Messenger of Frigg, girl of Bertha and sister of Mani. She has a horse which gallops in the sky as on the sea.
Heimdall
- Wire of nine mothers, probably the Girls of Ægir personifying the waves. Guard of Ásgard and the men, guard of the Bifröst, it is charged to alert the gods of the beginning of the Ragnarök. He just lives Himinnbjörg (mount of the sky) beside Bifrost. Watcher of the Gods, it has the horse Gulltopp and a horn, Gjallarhorn, whose sound gets along in the nine worlds.
- Girl of Loki, goddess of deaths.
Hlin , Hlina
- Maidservant of Frigg, goddess of the consolation. It takes care on protected from Frigg.
Hnoss
- Fille of Freyjja and Odr, so beautiful that all that is beautiful and invaluable is called to hnoss-nir
Höder , Hödhr, Hod, Hodr
- It is one of wire of Odin, blind man and dark. It is handled by Loki in its plot to kill Baldr.
- Goddess of longevity, guardian of apples of youth, woman of Bragi, girl of the Ivaldi giant and sister of Orvandil.
- Giant, mistress of Thor, mother of Magni. A hypostasis of Sif according to Snorri Sturluson.
Jord
Lofn
- Maidservant of Frigg, goddess of the lost and illegitimate loves.
Loki , Cabin, Loptr, Logathore
- God of fire and the slyness, wire of the giants Farbauti and Laufey. It is a sower of discord which could change form. He plotted to kill Baldr and was pitilessly punished for this crime.
- Wire of Thor.
Mani
Mimir , MIME
- God of wisdom, his head rests at the bottom of a brook.
Modi
- Other wire of Thor.
- Father of Chick.
Chick
Odin , Othin, Wotan Wodan
- Chief of the Adzes. Creator of the men, father of Thor. He is the god of the victory, wisdom, the fury, the poetic inspiration, sorcery…
- Goddess of the storm, goddess of died for the sailors. Woman of Aegir, mother of new vaguenesses and grandmother of Heimdall.
Rind
- Girl of Odin, goddess of poetry.
Sæming
- Goddess of the sportsmen, marries Nep and mother of Chick and Vigrid
Sif , Jarnsaxa
- Giant, woman of Thor, mother of Modi and Magni. Mother of Ull of a preceding union. It has a gilded hair (that Loki will cross to him) and represents the fertility. It with the capacity to take the shape of a swan and would have the gift of prophecy.
- Woman of Loki, goddess of fidelity. It passes its life to relieve the sufferings of her husband.
Sjofn siofn
- Goddess of passion.
- Woman of Ull and woman of Njord, the god of the sea. It forever agreed to live with its spouse. It is a giantess of Jötunheim, mother of the Valves Freyr and Freyja, but is considered in spite of just like a ESA.
- Goddess of the sun, sister of Mani. She is continued permanently by the wolf Skoll.
Snotra
- Maidservant of Frigg, goddess of the knowledge and the self-control.
Syn
- Girl of Sif, goddess of the right, guardian of the main door.
Thor , Þórr, Thunar, Donar, To give
- God of the thunder, wire of Odin and the giantess Jördh (ground). He is the husband of Sif and the father of Modi (courage), of Magni (the force) and of Thrudhr (strength). He is the god of the force and the war within the meaning of combat. He is also a god of the fertility and marriage.
- goddess of strength, girl of Thor which married Hod, the brother of Baldr
Týr , Tiw, Tiwaz, Ziu, Cyo, Irmin
- God of the War, the Justice and the assembly of the people in the Scandinavian religion. Its name means god and is written with the rune of power tyr : ᛏ.
- Wire of Sif, god of the winter and the archers, owner of the oaths and martial arts.
- Wire of Odin and Rind.
- Goddess of the marriage and the pacts. She punishes the perjuries.
Vidar
- Wire of Odin and the Grid giantess, called to avenge death for his/her father during the Ragnarök.
Vigrid, Vergrée
- wire of Nep and Sæming, brother of Chick, god of poetries, it married Saga and was the best friend of Ull.
- Brother of Odin, Co-creator of the men. It is undoubtedly about a hypostasis of Odin itself.
Vé
- Brother of Odin, undoubtedly also a hypostasis.
VOR
- Goddess of the contracts and the oaths. Undoubtedly a hypostasis of VAr.
The Valves
Freyja , Freja , Freya
- Goddess of the beauty and the love, the erotism, poetry, girl of Njord and Skadi, sister of Freyr. She is charged to accommodate half of the warriors fallen to the combat in her personal market, other half going to Odin.
Freyr , Ing, Yngvi, Ingunar, Saxnot, Frea, Fro, Phol, Fricco, Frey
- God of the life, the fruitfulness and chief of the Valves. Wire of Njord and Skadi, brother of Freyja. Its name means lord . He married Gerd and had of her Yngvi.
Gerd , Gerda
- giant, wife of Freyr and mother of Yngvi
Hönir , Hœnir
- Wire of Bor and Bestla, brother of Odin and Lothur. It was one of the first beings to be appeared and helped his brothers to kill the giant Ymir whose dispersion of the body allowed the formation of the Earth. Thereafter, it conferred the intelligence on the first human Ask and Embla resulting from dead tree trunks. Sent to Vanaheim in pledge of peace at the time of the end of the war between the Gods, Hönir wrongfully presented as a wise chief exasperated so much the Valves which the latter sliced the neck of Mimir, which was used for to him to advise.
Hrund
- god of the life after death and the bill hooks, wire of Freyja and Odur. It ressuscita his father then from went away in Nifhleim, where a giant killed it.
Lothur , Lytir
- Wire of Bor and Bestla, grandson of Buri and brother of Odin and Hönir. It joined his brothers in order to put a term at the race of the giants, taking part in the cutting-up of Ymir whose corpse made it possible to constitute the Earth. Discovering tree trunks died on a strike, Lothur gave them the directions, while Odin granted the life and Hönir the intelligence. From these two beings, Ask the ash and Embla the elm descended the race from human installed to Midgard.
- Goddess-mother of the family of the Valves associated with the fertility with the grounds, former wife and sister of Njord. Object of an enthusiastic worship on behalf of the peasants, it walks in a tank drawn by two heifers, bovines promising of abundance. It forms with Njord a couple parèdre, i.e. forming two faces of the same unit as it is the case of their children Freyja and Freyr.
- Former major god, principal family member of the Valves. God of abundance, the wind, the sea. After having been that of Nerthus, he is the husband of Skadi, the goddess of the sea, and the father of Freyr and Freyja. He chairs like all his parentelle the abundance of the fruits of nature, dealing more particularly with the seamen circle. At the end of the war between Adzes and Valves, it left with his children towards Ásgard, but the Adzes rejecting the marriages between blood relations, they required of him to separate from his wife. It Maria thereafter with Skadi, without their union not being happy, one preferring the sea and the other, mountains. It forms with Nerthus a couple parèdre, i.e. forming two faces of the same unit as it is the case of their children Freyja and Freyr.
Odur , Odr , Oder
- God of corns, husband of Freyja and enemy of Nep. Father of the god Hrund, out of the family of the asynes (or Adzes), this god of the Scandinavian Pantheon was killed by accident by the divine squirrel Rastok, of a blow of an enormous nut on the head. Ressuscity thanks to Hrund, it became nothing any more but one shade, sowing happiness. After Ragnarok, it solidified and made the corn ground fertile.
Yngvi
- God of the murders, the corpses, blood and the killers, it married a girl of Ran, the Ariana siren. With the Ragnarök, its amante Hel charged it with killing his/her father Freyr.
The Nornes
The Scandinavian literature does not make it possible to say clearly if these three women, governing the Destin, are goddesses, giants, or be separate, or hypostases of the goddess Frigg. We will regard them as goddesses with whole share, but we will not classify them among the Ases or the Vanes. In certain articles, they would be at the base of powerful giants.
These female creatures would have left the sea little time after the Gods started to exist. They are known to chair the destiny of the men and to direct them without pity. They direct also those of the Scandinavian Gods because the latter do not have, not more than the men, the capacity to conceal itself with the destiny. For example, they will save the life of Gudrun, widow of the hero Sigurd with an only aim which she sees her illegitimate children put at dead (Passage of Gudrunarhvöt: Exhortation of Gudrun). These three Nornes, of the name of Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, lived close to the tree Yggdrasil and ensured its survival thanks to spring water of Urdarbrunn.
Urd : Destiny in becoming, last.
Verdandi : Destiny present.
Skuld : Destiny to come, future.
Certain elves, dwarves or goddesses are sometimes also called Nornes when they are used as agents of the destiny.
Other creatures of the Pantheon
Only the creatures will be quoted here whose names are known and who play an active role in the Scandinavian Mythologie. For more general information on these creatures, to see the various associated articles.
Giant
The giant or Troll S are the fathers, cousins and enemies of the Ases and the Vanes. Certain giants are sometimes regarded as gods. We will quote here only the giants really considered as such by the former Scandinavian people.
- Its body, cut up by Odin and its brothers, was used to manufacture the world of human the Midgard.
Surt , Surtr, Surtur .
- Giant of fire, king of Muspellheim. Co-creator of the 9 worlds, it will destroy them using his sword of fire at the end of the Ragnarök.
The Elf S
Although these creatures were very liked Scandinaves, few names of elves passed to the posterity, excluded those of some Valkyrie S. In the optics of the evangelization of the Scandinavian people, the Chrétiens assimilated the elves with the angels.
Dwarf
Also called “alfes black”. These skilful craftsmen, more or less malefic, left more traces in the texts than the common elves.
Monsters
The monsters have an important place in Scandinavian mythology. They are in general gigantic animals, the wolves or the snake-dragons.
Wolves
- Garm, wolfhound of the Hells
- Hati, wolf continuing Mani permanently, the god of the moon.
- Skoll, wolf continuing Ground permanently, the goddess of the sun.
- Geri, wolf of Odin, it takes part in the banquet of the Gods while remaining with the foot of its Master.
- Freki, second wolf of Odin, it eats the remainders of the meal of its Master in company of Geri. (Geri and Freki also go on the battle fields to devour the corpses.)
Snakes and dragons
-
giant Fáfnir, transformed into dragon, guard of the gold of the the Rhine.
- Jörmungand, snake of Midgard, wire of Loki.
- Nídhögg, snake corroding Yggdrasil.
- Loki was also locked up in a cave under the oozing mouth of venom of a snake after having pushed Höd to kill Baldr.
Other creatures
-
Audhumla, the original cow.
- Hugin and Munin, corbels of Odin.
- Ratatosk, the squirrel of Yggdrasil.
- Sleipnir, horse with eight legs of Odin.
Heroes
Sources
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