Vidar

The Silent God of Vengeance

Domain: Vengeance & Rebirth
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Element: Earth
Relics of Power: Indestructible Boot

Speak with Vidar

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Norse & Germanic peoples

Region

Scandinavia & northern Europe

Period

Viking Age, 8th–11th c.

The gods of Asgard were worshipped by the Norse peoples of Scandinavia and by the Germanic tribes, especially during the Viking Age. Warriors sought to die in battle to reach Odin's Valhalla, and the myths were preserved in the Icelandic Eddas. The cult declined with the region's Christianization around the year 1000.

The Norse celebrated blóts, seasonal sacrifices with feasts of meat and mead, such as the Yule of the winter solstice. The great temple at Uppsala, in Sweden, hosted every nine years one of the largest sacrificial festivals of the Viking world.

At a glance

Víðarr, the “silent god”, is the son of Odin and the giantess Gríðr. The tradition preserved about him is short, but the sources agree on the essentials: he appears in no crisis before the end and is held in reserve for Ragnarök. When the wolf Fenrir swallows Odin, Víðarr kills it and avenges his father. The texts differ on how the wolf dies: the Völuspá speaks of a sword driven into its heart; the Vafþrúðnismál and Snorri speak of tearing apart its jaws. Víðarr is among the few gods who survive Surtr's fire and afterwards dwell on the plain of Iðavöllr. In the sources read here there is no secure cult, temple or image of him.

10 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The thick boot, silence, the forest and raw strength

Family

Parents

OdinGríðr

Siblings

Váli

Vidar

Genealogy according to Völuspá 54/55; Vafþrúðnismál 51–53; Grímnismál 17; Lokasenna 10; Edda em Prosa, Gylfaginning 29, 51, 53; Skáldskaparmál (Víðarskenningar; relato de Thor e Geirröðr)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anonymous, Völuspá (Old Norse text). read
Anonymous, Vafþrúðnismál (Old Norse text). read
Anonymous, Grímnismál (Old Norse text). read
Anonymous, Lokasenna (Old Norse text). read
Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning (Old Norse text). read
Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál (Old Norse text). read
Anonymous, The Poetic Edda, translation by Henry Adams Bellows (Project Gutenberg 73533). read
Anonymous, The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson, translation by Benjamin Thorpe (Project Gutenberg 14726). read
Snorri Sturluson, The Younger Edda, translation by Rasmus B. Anderson (Project Gutenberg 18947). read

Studies

Georges Dumézil, Le dieu Scandinave Vidarr. Revue de l'histoire des religions, tomo 168, n. 1, 1965. open

Name and epithets

The Old Norse form of the name is Víðarr (also written Viðarr), which Portuguese and English render as Vidar. The Eddic sources name him, but none of them explains the name.

In the ancient sources

Poetic Edda, Völuspá, anonymous poem, preserved in the Codex Regius and the Hauksbók, both medieval. Víðarr, “mighty son of Sigfather”, thrusts his sword into the heart of the giant's son.

The myths

A god kept for the end. The notice on Víðarr in the Gylfaginning has four sentences: he is the silent áss, he has a thick shoe, he is strong, nearly as much as Thor, and from him the gods receive great help in all hards…

Worship and archaeology

The passages gathered here describe Víðarr in poems and in mythological prose. None of them records a rite, a sacrifice or a feast dedicated to him, and this study does not read place-names as testimony of cult.

How the god was depicted

What the sources offer is an attribute, the shoe, and a gesture, the foot on the wolf's jaw. The Gylfaginning speaks of a thick shoe; the Skáldskaparmál calls him owner of the iron shoe; the Völuspá adds the sword.

What scholars debate

Sword, hands or jaws. The Völuspá shows a sword driven into the wolf's heart; the Vafþrúðnismál speaks of cold jaws; the Gylfaginning describes the foot on the lower jaw and the hand on the upper.

After antiquity

Georges Dumézil's article, “Le dieu Scandinave Vidarr”, published in 1965 in the Revue de l'histoire des religions, is an open scholarly reading of the material.

Did you know?

The notice on Víðarr in the Gylfaginning has four short sentences and comes right after that of Höðr, the blind áss, and before that of Váli.

Codex relic

Indestructible Boot. A boot made from every scrap of leather discarded by men, able to trample the beast of the end.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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