Page "Vanir" Paragraph 34

Like the Vanr goddess Freyja, the Vanir as a group are not attested outside Scandinavia.

Traditionally, following Völuspá and Snorri Sturluson's account in the Prose Edda, scholarship on the Vanir has focused on the Æsir – Vanir War, its possible basis in a war between tribes, 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 Ing ( reconstructed as Proto-Germanic * Ingwaz ), and that, if so, he is attested as having been known among the Goths.

More recently, the view put forward by Georges Dumézil based on Indo-European parallels has dominated, wherein the Vanir, like the Æsir, derive from the pre-Germanic heritage of Germanic religion and embody the third of the three " functions " in his trifunctional hypothesis: chthonic and fertility deities.