Aesir Europe In Germanic mythology, the two races of the gods were the aesir and vanir . Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) thought that aesir derived from the word Asia, making Thor a grandson of Priam of Troy and Odin his descendant in the twentieth generation. The vanir were originally inhabitants of the land on the Don River, ‘formerly called Vanaquisl’. Although this interpretation of Scandinavian tradition receives no support today, it is not unlikely that the vanir were late arrivals from Asia Minor and that their initial rivalry with the aesir represents an accommodation within the earlier mythology. Odin was chief of ...