Editing Vanir (section)

==Scholarly reception==
===Historicists and structuralists===
Much of the discussion among scholars on the topic of the Vanir has historically been on the question of whether the Vanir are the reflection of a purported historic meeting between different peoples in the ancient past (''historicists'') or an extension of [[Proto-Indo-European mythology]] where such a narrative may have existed for complex social reasons (''structuralists'') among the early Indo-European peoples, and thereafter spread to their descendants. Notable proponents of the historicist position include [[Karl Helm]], [[Ernst Alfred Philippson]], [[Lotte Motz]], and Lotte Headegger, whereas notable proponents of the structuralist view include [[Georges Dumézil]], [[Jan de Vries (philologist)|Jan de Vries]], and [[Gabriel Turville-Petre]]. The structuralist view has generally gained the most support among academics, although with caveats, including among [[Jens Peter Schjødt]], [[Margaret Clunies Ross]], and [[Thomas DuBois]].{{sfn|Schjødt|2014|p=20}}{{efn|For additional discussion on this topic, see {{harvnb|Dumézil|1959}}, {{harvnb|Dumézil|1973}}, and {{harvnb|Tolley|2011|p=22}}.}}

Like the Vanr goddess Freyja, the Vanir as a group are not attested outside Scandinavia. Traditionally, following ''Völuspá'' and the ''Prose Edda'', scholarship on the Vanir has focused on the Æsir–Vanir War, its possible basis in a war between peoples, and whether the Vanir originated as the deities of a distinct people. Some scholars have doubted that they were known outside Scandinavia; however, there is evidence that the god Freyr is the same god as the Germanic deity [[Yngvi|Ing]] (reconstructed as [[Proto-Germanic]] ''*Ingwaz''), and that, if so, he is attested as having been known among the [[Goths]].{{sfn|Grundy|1998|p=65}}

===Membership, elves, ship symbolism, "field of the dead", and ''vanitates''===
Hilda Ellis Davidson theorizes that all of the wives of the gods may have originally been members of the Vanir, noting that many of them appear to have originally been children of [[jötunn|jötnar]].{{sfn|Davidson|1988|p=121}} Davidson additionally notes that "it is the Vanir and Odin who seem to receive the most hostile treatment in Christian stories about mythological personages".{{sfn|Davidson|1969|p=132}}

Joseph S. Hopkins and Haukur Þorgeirsson, building on suggestions by archaeologist [[Ole Crumlin-Pedersen]] and others, link the Vanir to [[ship burial]] customs among the [[North Germanic peoples]], proposing an early Germanic model of a ship in a "field of the dead" that may be represented both by Freyja's afterlife field [[Fólkvangr]] and by the Old English [[Neorxnawang]] (the mysterious first element of which may be linked to the name of Freyja's father, Njörðr).{{sfn|Hopkins|Haukur|2011}}

[[Richard North (academic)|Richard North]] theorizes that glossing Latin ''vanitates'' ("vanities", "idols") for "gods" in [[Old English]] sources implies the existence of ''*uuani'' (a [[Linguistic reconstruction|reconstructed]] cognate to Old Norse ''Vanir'') in [[Deira]]n dialect and hence that the gods that [[Edwin of Northumbria]] and the northern Angles worshiped in pre-Christian [[Anglo-Saxon England]] were likely to have been the *''uuani''. He comments that they likely "shared not only the name but also the orgiastic character of the [Old Icelandic] ''Vanir''".{{sfn|North|1998|pp=177–178}}

[[Alaric Hall]] has equated the Vanir with the [[Elf|elves]].<ref>{{harvnb|Hall|2007|pp=26, 35–36}}; cited in {{harvnb|Tolley|2011|p=23}}.</ref>

===Rudolf Simek's "Vanir Obituary"===
In a 2010 piece building on an earlier proposal by [[Lotte Motz]], [[Rudolf Simek]] argues that ''vanir'' was originally nothing more than a general term for deities like ''æsir'', and that its employment as a name for a distinct group of deities was an invention of Snorri, whom he identifies as the author of the ''Prose Edda''. According to Simek, the Vanir are therefore "a figment of imagination from the 13th to 20th centuries". Simek states that he "believe[s] that these are not mistakes that we are dealing with here, but a deliberate invention on the part of Snorri".{{sfn|Simek|2010|p=18}}

Simek's argument receive some level of support from Frog and Jonathan Roper (2011), who analyze the small corpus of poetic usages of ''Vanir''. The authors suggest that this implies that ''vanir'' was a "suspended archaism" used as a metrical alternative to ''Æsir'' but with the caveat that "These observations should not, however, be considered to present a solution to the riddle of ''vanir''".{{sfn|Frog|Roper|2011|pp=30, 35–36}} In a collection of papers in honor of Simek, Frog (2021) states support for Simek's proposal.{{sfn|Frog|2021|pp=167–169}}

However, Simek's proposal has been rejected by several scholars, including Clive Tolley,{{sfn|Tolley|2011}} Leszek P. Słupecki,{{sfn|Słupecki|2011|p=13}} Jens Peter Schjødt,{{sfn|Schjødt|2016|p=22}} and Terry Gunnell.{{sfn|Gunnell|2018|pp=113–114}} Tolley argues that the term must have originated in historical usage, and that "it is something of a misrepresentation of the evidence to suggest that Snorri is the main source for the ''vanir''". Tolley continues:

: "the evidence affords opportunity to interpret the ''vanir'' as a class of beings with a cohesive functionality, as I have attempted to show. In turn, since this functionality can be shown to mirror concerns with a widespread occurrence within comparative religious studies, there is good reason for maintaining the importance of the ''vanir'' as a discrete group of divine beings. I would even venture to suggest that—far from being minor characters in the Norse pantheon, as Simek and others believe—the ''vanir'' are likely to have been involved in the most intimate and central aspects of human existence, as my analysis of their functions shows.
: It may well be for this very reason that Christian missionaries such as St.&nbsp;Óláfr were intent upon their eradication, leaving us so little information. If, as ''Vǫluspá'' intimates, the ''vanir'' were particularly the "sweet scent", the darlings, of women, there may have been even greater incentive for the new muscular and masculine Christianity to ensure their demise, as a cult fostered by the guardians of the home would be a serious threat to the spread of the new religion."{{sfn|Tolley|2011|pp=20–22}}

Słupecki argues that the Vanir remained distinct from the Æsir – except for Freyja and Freyr, whom he follows the ''Prose Edda'' in seeing as having been born after Njörðr became a hostage among the Æsir, and thus regards as Æsir – and therefore that [[Ragnarök]] "[has] no importance for their world".{{sfn|Słupecki|2011|p=11}}

According to Jens Peter Schjødt,
:"even if the term Vanir were not in existence in pagan times, it does not change substantially the fact that in pre-Christian Scandinavian mythology we deal with two groups of gods who sometimes overlap, whereas at other times they are clearly distinguished, just as to be expected in an anthropomorphic mythology. It would be wrong to look for coherence in any mythology. As I have considered in more detail elsewhere, what we can realistically hope to reconstruct is not a coherent mythological or theological system, as this seems to be more of an ideal dream among scholars who are strongly influenced by an older sort of theology, but rather a set of variants that may be part of a deep structure, although with internal contradictions among the various myth-complexes and various 'loose ends'. In the real world, among real people, such coherence is, as a general rule, absent."

Schjødt, in response to Simek's piece, says:
:"the conclusion, in relation to Simek's article would be, then, that even if he should be right about the Vanir, we would still be better off if we had a designation for the gods we have traditionally seen as belonging to the Vanir group. And perhaps ''Vanir'', then, in spite of all the uncertainties that accrue to it, would still be the most convenient term."{{sfn|Schjødt|2016|pp=31–32}}

Terry Gunnell proposes that the Vanir's
:"recurring patterns in the narratives nonetheless imply that in the oral traditions of Norway and Iceland, people seem to have viewed the religious activities connected with the 'Vanir' (with their center in Sweden) as having been different in nature to those encountered elsewhere. They also seem to have been envisioned closer connections between the Vanir and the landscape than existed between the Æsir and the natural environment."

Gunnell concludes that
:"this evidence lends weight to the argument that, in spite of recent arguments to the contrary, the religion associated with the Vanir and Æsir gods had a different nature and origin."{{sfn|Gunnell|2018|pp=113–114}}