Vanir

[ingemarn2000]

To ease it up I have choosen to give you also  the preliminary conclusion of my primary investigation. To see all you can read it in The Well Spring of the Goths (Amazon et al.)

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Ingemar



Conclusions of the examination of the fertility-cult and the cult of  Óðinn

After having performed the above examination it seems as I can conclude, that most of the gods have fallen into their proper places. The fertility-cult exhibits just those classical traits also found in the Meditrerranean area. It deals with the death of the sun when winter starts but the sun is partly kept alive by the moon-goddess reflecting the solar light. The opinion Balðr is not resurrected I mean to have proven to be false. He is reborn every year in may and  buried in november according to my analysis of Skírnismál. There is much suggesting that Balðr- at least what the name concerns- is a later amandment. Both his name and the one of his spouse – Baal and Nanna/Inanna are known in the orient. Forsete is often associated to Fosite's land, and is supposed to have come by sea with the Frisians. Concerning Nanna she is originally connected with Venus while Inanna is a moon-goddess. In this connection ÚllR is interesting. It is claimed by de Vries that his cult was actual around yule and was later replaced by the one of Óðinn. We know he is a ring-god. We also know that he is closely tied to the vanir in younger myth and in e.g. the Haddingr-saga he figures together with Sviþdagr, to whom he is also a foster-brother in Sif's marriage with Ivalde. Most indicies accordingly point in the direction he indeed is an old sun-god. According to Ohlmarks the connection with winter and scating is depending of a misinterpretation by Saxo.
 
Saxo Grammaticus has changed the sea-faring in a shield to a trip over the frozen sea with a rune-inscribed magical bone, in which one have beleived to see the Nordic scates.  Ull however is travelling on one bone, not two. . .  Ull's weapon is above all the bow with the sun-ray as an arrow; he is the asir of archery and an exellent archer, and so clever on skies that nobody can compete with him.(Ohlmarks, Fornnordiskt Lexikon).  

Balðr leads his fighters in the battle between summer and winter against his brother Höðr - his own dualistic half/twin-brother and ÚllR and Sviþdagr do the same in the story of  Haddingr.  Höðr sure has a certain rumour concerning the shooting of arrows of mistle-toe, and he rules in winter.  Besides it might be remembered, that north of the Polar circle the sun shines 24 hours a day  in winter- also when the perma-ice covers the sea, and ÚllR is confirmed in Sweden and Norway-not in Denmark.  Úllrs tree is the yew, being green all winter and is said to grow in the holy grove in 'Upsala'. The heaven-god ÚllR as the sun surely dies and is buried the 4/11 but still lives – of this the yew bears witness- and he also rules in winter, like Balðr, through his dualistic half and bane Sviþdagr. His name is translated as wulþus, the shining. ÚllR is tied to single combat and stallion-fighting and is regarded by some as a war-god. The stallions and the fighting fit well so good in the fertility-cult and with cultic fights. He simply has been replaced by Balðr when the cult of Óðinn arrived. This also explains why he takes the place of Óðinn during the civil war between asir and vanir. He is the predecessor of Balðr, being the son of the former sky-god, and so he is the only natural heir on the side of the vanir.

Some want to see ÚllR as the equivalent of Týr, but in this case I mean, in spite of also Týr being connected with single combat, that Heimdallr is a more probable predecessor of Týr. He  uses all his time to guard and protect the other gods from both Bifrost –the rainbow - and Biröst – the Milky way, and specially he protects the sun – Brisingamén – which he saves back into the care of the moon-goddess when Loki  has stolen it. He fights Loki in Ragnarök – the day versus night. He is not identical with Týr fighting Garm as Óðinn Fenrir –  and he also lacks the mutilation-characteristics of both Óðinn (one eye) and Týr (one hand). He is regarded as the one having taught the humans the art of writing, in spite of that the runes are ascribed to Óðinn, and runes were nessecary when writing. Dumézil claims that in certain cultures, like the Vedic, sometimes one single god included the functions of Mithra and Varuna. Why not so in the North before the arrival of the Continental cult of Óðinn? Most signs indicate that Heimdallr can have had these functions by us. Above earlier mentioned qualities he is also the creator of the three important groups of humans, he taught how to grow the land and he protects and keeps the hearth-fire. He cares and preserves according to some the tree of life- the world-tree, Ýggdrasil, he is the world-axis. In short he is allmighty. It is interesting that he by many interpretors is recognized in the rock-carvings equipped with buck-horns – the sword of Heimdallr. The last however is disputed and hence not surely confirmed. and rests on subjective interpretations of the sword mentioned in old Nordic literature.
This leaves the place as sun-god – the predecessor of Balðr – free to be taken by ÚllR quite in harmony with older interpretations of wulþus, the shining. If you regard the Trollhätte-bracteate where Týr loses his hand to the Fenriswolf you clearly see his two arms/hands marked as the sun and the moon, where the sun is the one indicating his function as ring-god. To this comes, quite in the sheme Dumézil, the leading god of plane two-Þórr- naturally into the picture as the god of thunder and growth, the one leading the fight against the chaos-forces –reses and rimþurses. Those who have seen (e.g. Ohlmarks) ÚllR and Þórr as the extended arms of Týr, and as his sons, and compared him to Tuisto, the two-arm god, maybe have a point. Tuisto is said to be earth-born and father of Mannus, father of three human tribes. Heimdallr is father of chiefs, free men and thralls. He is born by nine norns out of the depth of the earth and Vergelmer, in a similar way as Chronos was begotten by Uranos and Gaia. He definitely is a sky- and heavenly god. It is not claimed that he lost a hand or other part of his body, so even if there are many similarities with both Óðinn and Týr he is an own god comprising most of the functions of these both gods, and he is decidedly very old in the Scandinavian area.
If you disregard the probably in Scandinavia later name-forms Óðinn and Týr, and also the name Balðr, we can see a pantheon with Heimdallr as the leading heavenly god and god-king. Loki then should be the dark, dualistic side of Heimdallr. In the second plane we have ÚllR and Þórr as sun- and thunder/rain god as the leading asir and in plane three we have the vanir with Njorðr/Njärðr,Ingr/Ingun/ and later  replaced by he names Frejr/Freja. Shall we connect Skaði with the later Nanna? She is often mentioned in connection with ÚllR. Since the vanir-gods all the time also are sun- and moon-deities, as well as earth-deities, we have a complete Indo-European god's pantheon. We know, however, that Týr  was worshipped in Denmark. Skaði occurs in connection with suspected cult-places – Skedevi, Skede mosse et c. but we know nothing of the cult but, as mentioned, we suspect a connection with ÚllR. Concerning Nanna there is no cultic connection at all. Her only task seems to be to weep and to mourn Balðr which directly leads the thoughts to the mediterranean fertility-cultic milieu. There is however a clear parallel with the cult of Isis and Osiris, since Osiris was denied to return from the realm of the dead but had to stay down there with Isis, the earth- and moon-goddes - at his side. Since there already existed a sun god being re-borned every year the new cult of Balðr had problems to live up to the cult-saga, which is shown by the content of the cult of Ingr/Frejr. Balðr, as well as Frejr, is re-born every year no matter the myth of Balðr says the opposite. Balðr decidedly is a foreign bird, having happened to fly a little too far north. What then about the presumed cult of Gaut? He might originally have been seen as a creator-god and shaman-god in connection with the cult of ÚllR and Ingr and been one of the high old gods, but first later more actively been lifted forward by Gautic chiefs, claiming genealogy directly from him  and not just for their people in general. He and Týr might, of course, also have been aspects in a triad  of Heimdallr/Loki. There is a distinct possibility, however, that Gaut might have arrived in the period between Heimdallr and Óðinn – i.e. during the later half of the Bronze Age. This will be treated more thoroughly in a later section
 The conclusion in this stage is accordingly, that there is strong evidence the cult of Óðinn under this specific name is relatively  new in the Scandinavian area, and that the cult, accompanied by a sacrificial cycle of eight years, replaces an old cycle of nineteen years during the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period, and that the old name of Gaut is associated with the new name of Óðinn resulting in the double name Óðinn-Gaut. Under this name he replaces together with Týr the functions of Heimdallr and possibly Gaut. This leaves Heimdallr hanging in the air picturally spoken. Balðr most surely also arrives during this time. The fertility-cult is however not changed in it's functions but some names of gods are exchanged. The division into two high gods instead of one makes the figure of Óðinn more visible and frightening. It might, as have ben suggested, have been more tribal-connected, local gods of Odinistic character and been regarded as god-kings and fathers of the people. This is one of the possibilities for Gaut who possibly was a predecessor of Óðinn. The decisive for these possibilities is the general openness ,or more generally how opportune it was for a ruling group to claim this god as genealogical ancestor in order to base political power on this claim. Only when this happens it is possible to find hard evidence of a cult, since it affects the organization and the political developement of society.

 	  

Available archaeological confirmations seem to be unison in their judgement, that it is not until during the Roman Iron Age you can percept traces of this cult of Óðinn. Also the rule of Aun indicates a change of cultic habits in connection with the celebration of the  disthing in Gamla Uppsala being the regional, or claimed "national", sacrifice for the peoples of the later areas Attundaland, Fjärdrundaland och Tiundaland some time around 476 AD. This fits well with the later part of the presumed period, when the cultvariant of the god bearing the specific name Óðinn ought to have spread in all Scandinavia.
I shall however in the continuation of the book execute a closer archaeological examination in order to confirm the results above, and hence  see if this preliminary result will stand scrutiny.
The results above do however  not contradict the possibility Óðinn might have been worshipped under the name of Gaut and with another sacrificial cycle. This cult then has been quite hard to distinguish. The political power base of a ruling family generally has been that the ruler claimed to be child or ancestor of a god and also, as in the case of svía-konungr, the sun-king, as a re-born god. We now know that the cult of Ingr/Frejr, being base for the Inglings, in the present description has Balðr in the leading role but earlier, I mean, this role was ÚllR's. Around 4th of november the Nordic winter started after the moon-calender, and this day the sun-god was buried and turned over in the care of the moon-goddess. That is why the cult of ÚllR is mentioned around yule. The more official cult of Óðinn spread as a base of power for a warrior-hierarchy, as is remarked by Hedeager in her work of shamanism. This does not mean the fertility-gods were forsaken or abandoned, but it rather means a challenge towards those families traditionally basing their power claim on being reborn gods guaranteeing the fruitful earth, from families with an expansionistic power-politic and who, during the Migration Period, because of their mobility often did not dispose arable land. The fertility of the fields was however as important, but the methods to improve it might have been shifted in a shamanistic direction, even if probably shamanism all the time had been practised in one way or another. The shamanistic properties of Óðinn, however, are more clearly demonstrated than with other gods. In this connection it also may be considered probable that Hlíðskíalf-the high-seat- in reality is a hjallr for practising sejdr.
The question of the status of Gaut still is unsolved, but the possibility remains distinctively that he can have been an  earlier variant of Óðinn, connected with the cult of Ingr, and quite generally been regarded as the divine father of the people, and ancestor of the chiefs and who later has merged with the new name, like the theories of Höfler concerning Hörðr,  and with the new cycle.



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