These four deities are only documented in a few Scandinavian texts. They aren’t depicted as taking an active role in the world, and there is no evidence that they were worshipped at all in pre-Christian times. Nor are they widely worshipped in Heathenry today. It’s not even clear whether they are four separate gods, or double names for a single pair of gods, or even hypostases (aspects or personalities) of Odin. Yet they play crucial roles in the creation of the universe and of mankind, and in the world after Ragnarok.
Vili and Vé
According to Gylfaginning 7-10, Borr has three sons, Odin, Vili, and Vé or Véi. They are the ones who slay Ymir and shape the cosmos out of his body; they are also the ones who shape the first humans out of pieces of wood. Vǫluspá 3 agrees that Borr’s sons shape the earth, but later names Odin, Hoenir and Lóðurr as the three gods who shape the first humans (17-18). Snorri Sturluson knew the Vǫluspá, and quotes it several times in the Prose Edda, and thus it seems odd that he would contradict it without comment.
The simplest way of resolving the contradiction would be to assume that Hoenir and Lóðurr are the same as Vili and Vé. They may not be, but there is little evidence either way.
VIli and Vé in Medieval Germanic Heroic Literature
The only other myth we have that involves Vili and Vé is the story that they divided Odin’s possessions and shared Frigg between them during Odin’s long absence, but Odin resumed his husbandship on his return (Ynglinga saga 3). Loki alludes to this in Lokasenna 26 when he taunts Frigg: “you, Viðrir’s wife, did not hinder Vili and Vé, but took them both into your embrace.”
We shouldn’t read this as “infidelity”; Frigg is the embodiment of sovereignty, and she is married to whomever is the ruler of the Æsir. In Snorri’s euhemerized story in Ynglinga saga, Odin leaves Vili and Vé in charge of his kingdom in Turkey, while he and the other gods travel northward and set up their kingdom in Sweden.
While Snorri’s attempt to humanize the gods isn’t accepted by heathens today, his story might point to the idea that Vili and Vé are somehow set aside from the rest of the Æsir.
The Alliterative Pattern in Migration Age Genealogies
Many Migration Age Germanic genealogies follow the tradition of maintaining alliteration of names through the generations, such as Cerdic—Cynric—Ceawlin—Cuthwine—Ceolwold—Cenraed (the ruling dynasty of Wessex; see Ellis, The Road to Hel, pp. 142-145).
In one variation of this pattern, all siblings in the latest generation bear alliterating names; perhaps the best-known examples are in Beowulf, where Healfdene begets Hrothgar, Heorogar, and Halga, and the Nibelungs, where Gjúki/Gibicho begets Gunnarr/Gunther, Guttorm, and Guðrún.
You also see this even in the beginning of the Germania when Tacitus says the Germanic tribes had a myth about their origins that they all descended from the three sons of Mannus and were the Ingaevones, the Herminones, and the Istaevones (“Herminones” would have been pronounced with a soft “h” sound like “Irminones” so it would have alliterated with the other two). (Tacitus, Germania)
If we follow this pattern and walk this back through Proto-Germanic, the triad of Odin, Vili and Vé may have originally alliterated, something like *Woðanaz, *Wiljon and *Wihaz.
Vili
The name Vili is usually translated as “will,” but the Old Norse word can mean “desire” and also “joy; delight.” Edgar Polomé, however, derived Vili’s name from Proto-Germanic *Wigwilaz, a priestly name or title meaning something like “he who consecrates” (“Germanic Religion,” pp. 90-91). This may be related to the name Wiwila on the now-lost Veblungsnes runic inscription, which was the carver’s personal name.
Vé
The name Vé is often translated as “Holiness,” but this isn’t precise: Proto-Indo-European culture had two different concepts of what we now usually lump together as “holiness,” one meaning “filled with power” and the other meaning “set apart, inviolate.” For instance, in Greek, hieros means “filled with power,” while hagios means “set apart”; in Latin, sanctus is “filled with power” and sacer is “set apart” (and our word sacrosanct means something that is both).
And in Germanic, things that are “holy” (Proto-Germanic *hailagaz) are whole, complete, blessed, but acting in the world, while things that are “wih” (Proto-Germanic *wihaz) are inviolate, set apart from Midgard for the use of the gods (Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, pp. 449-452; Polomé, “Old Norse Religious Terminology,” pp. 654-657; “Germanic Religion,” p. 88). Vé’s name thus suggests that he is somehow “set apart.”
Vé in Old Norse can mean “priest” (although goði is the more usual word), and it is used in the plural, véar, to mean all the gods (Hymiskviða 39). Its more usual meaning is “sanctuary, temple; mansion,” and its Old English cognate weoh can mean “idol” (e.g. in Maxims I 132, ed. Krapp and Dobbie, The Exeter Book, p. 161) as well as “temple”. The root occurs in many place names (Viborg in Denmark, Visby in Sweden, Wye in England, etc.) and personal names (Védis, Vémundr, Vésteinn, Weohstan, etc.).
Hoenir
Snorri Sturluson (Skáldskaparmál 15) says that Hoenir may be called “Odin’s table-companion,” “Odin’s comrade,” or “Odin’s confidant.” He also lists three kennings that are now quite obscure; Hoenir may be called “the swift Ás,” “long-foot,” and “mud-king” or “marsh-king,” presumably alluding to myths that have been lost. The Sǫgubrot, a fragment of a saga about the kings of Sweden and Denmark, calls him “the most timid of the Æsir”—but since the same source calls Heimdall “the dullest of the Æsir,” we may doubt whether it should be taken literally (transl. Waggoner, Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok, p. 50).
His name is hard to interpret; it may be derived from the same root as a bird’s name. The chicken is one possibility (cf. ON hani, “rooster,” hæna “hen”).57 Alternately, his name may be derived from roots meaning “swan,” or else “stork; heron,” ultimately going back to Proto-Indo-European *kan-, “to sing.” Indeed, an identity with the heron would fit the kennings “long-foot” and “mud-king,” and it may be relevant that the black heron is known in Swedish dialect as “Odin’s swallow,” odensvala (Sayers, “Soundboxes of the Divine”). Odin himself may have transformed into a heron, which might suggest that Hoenir is a hypostasis of Odin.
Georges Dumézil, on the other hand, tried to derive Hoenir’s name from an Indo-European root meaning “to sharpen”; Hoenir would be the “sharpener of the wits,” in keeping with Dumézil’s interpretation of Hoenir as a god of silent wisdom (quoted in Polomé, “Some Comments on Vǫluspá 17-18,” pp. 32-33).
Two myths feature the trio of Odin, Hoenir and Loki, although Hoenir isn’t depicted as speaking or doing anything in these tales. The first is the origin of the Rhinegold treasure, told in the Vǫlsunga saga and the opening prose of Reginsmál, which begins when the three gods are traveling along a stream and encounter Óttarr, whom Loki kills and for whom the gods must pay weregild. The second appearance of the three gods is the kidnapping of Idunna; the story begins when the three gods encounter the jotun Thjazi in eagle-form. The telling of this myth in the skaldic poem Haustlǫng includes the kennings “Hoenir’s friend” and “trier of Hoenir’s mind” for Loki. The triad appears again in a Faeroese ballad, Loka Táttur (transl. Waggoner, in Collazo, Blood Unbound, pp. 184-193), in which Odin, Hoenir, and Loki take turns saving a boy from a giant; Odin and Hoenir hide the boy temporarily, but only Loki solves the problem permanently by trapping and killing the giant.
There are two other myths where Hoenir plays a significant role. The first is the creation of mankind in the Vǫluspá.
Three of the Æsir, described as ǫflgir ok ástkir, “powerful and beloved,” come to the coast, where they find Askr and Embla, “Ash” and (probably) “Elm.” The three gods shape the trees into humans: Odin gives them ǫndr (the breath of life),
Hoenir gives them óðr (wod, inspiration), and Lóðurr gives them lá and litu góda, roughly meaning “physical appearance.”
In Gylfaginning 9, the sons of Borr give the first men ǫnd ok líf (spirit and life), vit ok hroering (wit and movement, or possibly wit and emotion), and ásjóna, málit ok heyrn ok sjón (appearance, speech and hearing and sight). If we assume that these sons of Borr are equivalent to Odin, Hoenir and Lóðurr, then Hoenir is presumably the one who gives vit ok hroering, which one could equate with óðr.
The second myth is the story of the peace settlement between the Æsir and Vanir, in which the two sides exchange hostages. Snorri’s Edda (Gylfaginning 22) tells how Njord was sent to the Æsir in exchange for Hoenir. Ynglinga saga 4 adds much more detail: The Vanir send Njord and his son Freyr, as well as Kvasir, to the Æsir, who send Hoenir and Mimir to the Vanir. Hoenir is described as tall and fair, and the Vanir make him a chieftain, but he turns out to be unable or unwilling to give advice whenever the wise Mimir is not present. Feeling defrauded, the Vanir cut off Mimir’s head and return it to the Æsir. Oddly, they don’t harm Hoenir at all, although he is the one who turns out to be less than useful to them.
In general, the appearances of Hoenir depict him as a passive god; he rarely acts or speaks. Yet not only is he the giver of wod and wit to humanity at the beginning of the world; after the end of the world at Ragnarok, Hoenir will cast the hlautvið, “sacrificial blood-wood,” and act as a diviner for the Gods (Vǫluspá 63). Clearly he knows more than he lets show in the surviving myths; his silence, like that of Frigg who knows all ørlǫg but says nothing, may be a token of deep wisdom. As befits his title of “Odin’s confidant,” he seems to share in Odin’s wod and his rune-knowledge.
Sayers calls him “a mouthpiece, through which wisdom, originating elsewhere in the suprahuman world, is communicated” (“Soundboxes of the Divine,” p. 61). Like Víðarr, the “silent Ás,” we might think of Hoenir as a god who is “kept in reserve” for the work of bringing the new world to birth, through whom the might of the old Gods will live on.
Lóðurr
The lore we have on Hoenir is sparse, but far greater than what we know about Lóðurr.
The only mention of this god is in Vǫluspá 18; as the three gods shape the first men, Lóðurr gives them lá and litu góda, both roughly meaning “physical appearance” (see the discussion below). The text states that Askr and Embla lack lá, læti, and litu góða; Lóðurr isn’t specifically stated to give them læti, which also has to do with physical appearance, but the implication is that this is one of his gifts as well.
Aside from a few kennings that aren’t very informative (such as “Lóðurr’s friend” for Odin), the other possible mention of Lóðurr, is the sixth-century Nordendorf fibula, which was found near present-day Augsburg in south Germany and was discussed in Chapter 11. The inscription lists two personal names (awa and leubwini, perhaps the owner and the giver of the fibula) and three gods: logaflore wodan wigiflonar.
The last two are easy: Wodan is the Continental form of the name Odin, and Wigiþonar is almost certainly “Consecration-Thonar,” i.e. Thor). The name of Logaþore is more difficult to explain, but it’s often equated with Lóðurr.
That’s the evidence; what do we do with it?
A common position, espoused by Ursula Dronke among others in recent times (The Poetic Edda, vol. 2, p. 125), has been that Lóðurr is the same as Loki.
This identification would let the Odin–Hoenir-Loki triad that journeys through the worlds in several myths match the Odin–Hoenir-Lóðurr triad that journeys to the sea-coast and shapes the first humans.
At least in Icelandic rímur (long ballad-like poems) from the 14th and 15th century, Lóðurr is used as an alternate name for Loki. While it’s not certain whether this identification goes back to pre-Christian thought, there’s no reason to reject it out of hand, since the rímur poets sometimes knew old traditions that were not recorded elsewhere (Haukur Þorgeirsson, “Lokrur, Lóðurr and Late Evidence,” pp. 37-40).
Turville-Petre (Myth and Religion of the North, p. 144) points out that Odin is called both “Lóðurr’s friend” and “Lopt’s [Loki’s] friend” in skaldic poetry, and he suggests that this parallelism supports the idea that Lóðurr and Loki are the same.
Other scholars have pointed out that the name Loki, or Lokki as he is known in the Faroes and east Scandinavia, fits a common pattern for Icelandic nicknames, such as Bokki for Bǫðvarr, Stebbi for Stefán, Magga for Margrét, and so on. Thus the name Loki or Lokki could be a nickname form of Lóðurr (Liberman, “Snorri and Saxo on Útgarðaloki,” p. 128-132, although he is skeptical). Other supporters of this idea have pointed to the similarity between Logaþore, Lóðurr, and the Old English word logðor, logeðer, meaning “plotting mischief, wily, crafty,” and certainly a good word to describe Loki.
Still others have related the names Lóðurr and Logaþore to Middle High German luoder, “bait”; the names would thus mean something like “seducer, tempter.”
Older attempts to link Lóðurr with Loki interpret Lóðurr’s name as having to do with fire; one possibility is a derivation from Proto-Germanic *lohaðoraz, meaning something like “he who forces his way with fire” (Polomé, “Some Comments on Vǫluspá,” p. 36).
In folklore from Brabant in the Netherlands, Lodder is a sort of fiery ghost or will-o’-the-wisp, and some have seen Lodder as related to Lóðurr and, by extension, to Loki (see Liberman, “Snorri and Saxo on Útgarðaloki,” pp. 129, although he is skeptical).
While this is all tempting evidence, there are problems with the idea that Loki and Lóðurr are one and the same.
As mentioned above, Anatoly Liberman finds various linguistic problems with the attempts to relate the names of Loki and Lóðurr. If we assume that Hoenir and Lóðurr are the sons of Borr and Bestla and brothers of Odin, this creates a genealogical contradiction, since Loki is elsewhere said to be the blood-brother of Odin (Lokasenna 9) but the son of Farbauti and Laufey. (Of course, this leaves open the question of how literally we should take the genealogies of the gods, but that’s another matter.)
Edgar Polomé has argued that the similarities between Lóðurr’s name and various words for “trickster,” “bait,” etc. are probably chance associations between unrelated words. Instead, Polomé looks at the gifts that Lóðurr gives to the first humans, lá, læti, and litir góða, as the best clues we have to Lóðurr’s nature. Litir góða is “good colors,” “good complexion.” (A few scholars have preferred to read the phrase with a short /o/, making it litir goða, “the appearances of gods.”)
Læti means “manners, bearing, mannerisms, attitudes,” very much like the word ásjona (appearance), the gift of Borr’s third son in the Prose Edda account (Polomé, “Some Comments on Voluspá,” p. 38). Litr and læti refer to physical appearance, but they had a spiritual dimension as well in that they seem to be part of the hamr or hame, the non-material shape of the soul. The parallel phrases víxla hǫmum, “to change one’s hamr,” and víxla litum, “to change one’s complexion,” both mean “to shapeshift.”
Like main and hamingja, litr and læti could evidently be loaned from one person to another; in Grípisspá (37, 39), Sigurd is said to take on Gunnar’s litr and læti when he goes to win Brynhild for Gunnar. Lá is trickier to translate; the word can mean “sea,” and some have interpreted it in this context as “blood.” Polomé suggests on comparative linguistic grounds that it could mean “complexion, appearance,” but he prefers the meaning “hair”—bearing in mind that hair was a sign of physical strength and power (Polomé, pp. 39-40).
Thus Lóðurr endowed humanity not only with its physical appearance, but with the parts of the soul-complex involved with form, growth, and soul-strength. If we assume that Lóðurr is equivalent to the third son of Borr in Gylfaginning, he also gave the powers of speech, hearing and sight to the first humans.
Polomé goes on to derive Lóðurr’s name from a hypothetical Old Norse *Loðverr, meaning something like “man of growth.” There is evidence from Swedish place names for a goddess or other wight named Loðkona, “woman of growth.” Whether Lóðkona was once seen as Lóðurr’s consort, or whether the name refers to someone else entirely, is not known and probably not knowable, but at least the name parallels the reconstructed *Loðverr.
The same root meaning “growth” appears in Old English leōdan and cognates, meaning “to grow.” In Old Norse it appears in the adjective loðinn, “hairy, shaggy, grassy,” which would fit with Lóðurr’s gift of lá, if we interpret lá as “hair.”
If Polomé’s interpretation is correct, Lóðurr’s name would ultimately derive from the same Indo-European root (*leudh-, “to mount up, to grow”) as the name of the Roman Liber, a deity of growth and generation later identified with Dionysus (Polomé, “Some Comments on Voluspá,” pp. 40-41). The same Indo-European root also gave rise to words for “people” (e.g. OE leōd, ON ljóðr, modern German Leute), which might strengthen our understanding of Lóðurr as a co-creator of mankind.
This leaves unanswered the question of who “Logaðore” is on the Nordendorf fibula.
Logaðore might be Loki, or a different deity, or not a god at all, but an epithet applied to the other two gods. Since Christianity was still making inroads in the region, it’s possible that the brooch was made for a Christian, as a charm to resist the “sorcery” of the old Gods, making the inscription read “Woden and Wigi-Thonar are deceivers!” (Taggart, How Thor Lost His Thunder, pp. 32-33)
If we assume that Vili and Vé are the same gods as Hoenir and Lóðurr, then Hoenir might be equated with Vili and Lóðurr with Vé, as Laure Lynch has argued (Odhroerir, pp. 17-18). On the other hand, Hoenir seems to be vé in the sense of “inviolate”: filled with might, but set apart from the world of men, awaiting his proper time to act.
That would leave Lóðurr to be equivalent to Vili. Perhaps we might see Lóðurr’s gift of lifeforce and main as equivalent to the body’s will to live.
The kenning vilja byrgi for a human body, either “will’s fortress” or, possibly, “Vili’s fortress,” is preserved in Ynglingatal (Ynglinga saga 7); since Lóðurr is most closely associated with shaping the physical body and life-force of humans, this may be another reason to identify him with Vili.
But Heathens today should draw their own conclusions.