Who Were the Norse Gods?

Short answer

The Norse gods were a pantheon of deities headed by Odin, the Allfather, god of war, poetry, and wisdom. The principal gods were Odin, Thor (the thunder-god), Freyr and Freyja (the fertility twins), Tyr (the god of war and law), Baldr (the beautiful god killed by his brother Höðr), and Loki (the trickster, more an enemy of the gods than one of them). They were known collectively as the æsir, and they lived in Asgard, one of the nine worlds of the Norse cosmos. For a fuller treatment, see the Norse mythology and religion; for the great battle that ends their world, see what was Ragnarok.

Odin

Odin (Old Norse Óðinn) was the chief of the Norse gods, the Allfather. He was the god of war, of death, of poetry, of magic, of wisdom, and of the runes. He was the lord of Valhalla, the great hall in which the warriors who died in battle would feast until the day of Ragnarok. He was a wandering god, traveling through the nine worlds in search of wisdom, and his self-sacrifice on Yggdrasil, the world tree, was the means by which he obtained the knowledge of the runes. He was accompanied by two ravens, Huginn and Muninn (“Thought” and “Memory”), who flew out into the world each day and brought back news; by two wolves, Geri and Freki, who sat at his feet in Valhalla; and by the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, the fastest steed in the Norse cosmos.

Odin was a complex and ambiguous figure. He was the patron of kings and of poets, but he was also a god of death, of the gallows, and of the practice of seiðr, a kind of magic that was looked on with suspicion in Norse society. His name gives the English word “Wednesday” (Woden’s day). The cult of Odin was particularly important in the royal houses of the Norse world.

Thor

Thor (Old Norse Þórr) was the most popular god of the Viking Age, the patron of the common people, and the defender of the world of gods and humans against the giants. He was the son of Odin and the giantess Jörð (the Earth), and his name gives the English word “Thursday” (Thor’s day). His weapon was the hammer Mjöllnir, with which he smashed the heads of the giants and the trolls, and his chariot, drawn by the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, produced the thunder of his flight through the sky.

Thor was a god of strength and of simple virtues. He protected the farmers and the sailors, and his presence was a guarantee of fertility and good harvests. The worship of Thor was particularly important in the rural areas of Scandinavia, and his cult survived longest in the Norse world. The place-name element -thor (as in Thorsby, Thorsmork) is one of the most common in Scandinavian onomastics.

Freyr and Freyja

Freyr and Freyja were the twin deities of fertility, prosperity, and peace. Freyr (Old Norse Freyr, “Lord”) was the lord of the earth’s fruits, of sunshine, of human and animal fertility, and of fine weather. His symbol was the ship Skíðblaðnir, his chariot was drawn by the boar Gullinbursti, and his sacred animal was the boar. Freyr was the patron of the Swedish royal house, the Ynglings, and his cult was particularly important in Sweden. He gave his name to the word “Friday” in English.

Freyja (Old Norse Freyja, “Lady”) was the goddess of love, of beauty, of fertility, and of the magic known as seiðr. She received half of those who died in battle, the other half going to Odin in Valhalla, and she wept gold tears when she was sad. Her chariot was drawn by cats, and she had a cloak of falcon feathers that allowed her to fly. The word “Friday” in English is also named for Freyja.

Tyr

Tyr (Old Norse Týr) was the god of war and of the legal oath. He was the bravest of the gods, and the only one who dared to feed the wolf Fenrir, even when the wolf bit off his right hand in the binding. Tyr was the patron of the warrior, of the judge, and of the formal oath. He was a single-handed god, and his loss of the right hand to Fenrir was a permanent mark of his willingness to make the necessary sacrifice. The word “Tuesday” in English is named for Tyr (Tiw in Old English).

Baldr

Baldr (Old Norse Baldr) was the most beautiful and beloved of the gods. He was the son of Odin and Frigg, and his hall was Breiðablik, the brightest of the heavenly dwellings. He was a god of light, of beauty, and of joy, and his death, according to the Völuspá, was the first sign of the coming of Ragnarok. He was killed by a mistletoe dart, the only thing in the world that could harm him, thrown by his blind brother Höðr at the instigation of Loki. His death is one of the great tragic moments in Norse myth, and the attempt of the gods to retrieve him from the realm of Hel is the subject of one of the most famous poems in the Poetic Edda.

Loki

Loki (Old Norse Loki) was the trickster of Norse myth, a giant by birth but raised among the gods. He was the father of Fenrir the wolf, Jörmungandr the world-serpent, and Hel the death-goddess, and his treachery was responsible for the death of Baldr. Loki was eventually bound by the gods, who fixed him to a rock with the entrails of his son, and a serpent was placed over his head to drip venom into his face. At Ragnarok, he would break free and lead the forces of chaos against the gods.

Other gods

The Norse pantheon included many other deities. Heimdall was the watchman of the gods, stationed at the bridge Bifröst, who would blow the Gjallarhorn to announce the beginning of Ragnarok. Bragi was the god of poetry, and Idunn kept the apples of youth that kept the gods from aging. Frigg was the wife of Odin and the mother of Baldr, and she was a powerful seer. The vanir, a second group of gods, included Freyr, Freyja, and Njörd, and they were associated with fertility, the sea, and magic.