alright so the aesir right

they are getting sick and tired of not murdering anybody
like
that is what you do when you are an aesir
you murder all the time
giants mostly
but really whatever you can get ahold of

so it is just bad luck that on this particular day
this dude Gullveig shows up
i have no fucking clue who this guy is honestly
other than he is one of the Vanir
who are like the bizarro justice league
to the aesir’s justice league
i think i talked about this before

anyway Odin is like WELCOME TO MY HALL GULLVEIG
HOPE YOU LIKE GETTING STABBED AND SET ON FIRE
and gullveig is like actually i like it fine
and after he is done getting burned to death
he just stands up and is like try again dipshits
so they try again
and then they try a third time
and by this point it becomes pretty clear
that nothing is getting accomplished
so they are like alright dude you can leave
i guess
unless there’s some other way we can murder you?
and gullveig is like no not really
peace
thanks for the stab wounds

so gullveig goes back to the vanir
who already kind of hate the aesir
cause you know
bizarro
and he’s like guess where i just got stabbed and set on fire
and the other vanir are like THE HALLS OF THE AESIR?
and gullveig is like bingo
and the vanir are like MOTHERFUCKING WARTIME UP THE HELL RIGHT NOW

so then there’s a war
and the aesir are pretty confident they can win this shit
in fact odin doesn’t even bother to throw his spear AT the dudes fighting
he just kind of chucks it over their heads
just so that everyone will know he has a spear or something?
anyway that turns out to be a mistake
because the vanir are every bit as strong as the aesir
in fact both sides are so evenly matched
that the war goes on FOR FUCKING EVER
everyone raping the shit out of everybody else’s fields
salting the women
whatever

basically after a while everyone is like ok whoa now
why are we spending all this time murdering each other
and then getting resurrected probably and just doing it again
when there are GIANTS
over in JOTUNHEIM
not getting murdered AT ALL

so they make a truce
and in order to cement the truce
they exchange hostages
the vanir give the aesir Frey and Freyja
Frey being the god of fertility or something
and Freyja being the goddess of like
love
and other icky stuff

meanwhile the aesir are like hrm
who are the most useless people we have?
oh i know
let’s give them this dude Hoenir
and then also this super wise sage Mimir
now together these two dudes are actually pretty great
Hoenir is an awesome leader and general
and Mimir is just an all around super wise dude
you may recall that he has a well somewhere
but eventually the Vanir figure out
that Hoenir is TOTALLY DEPENDENT ON MIMIR
for opinions
like if mimir is not around
hoenir will just be like well shit i dunno
leading the vanir to believe that Hoenir is just some kind of like
illusion or something
which honestly he probably is
i mean the text is not clear here
but i’ve never fucking heard of any Hoenir
who is this guy

so the vanir solve the problem in the best way they know how
they cut off mimir’s head
and mail it to odin
and odin is like fuck what now
oh i know
i’ll have this head REANIMATED
so that it can tell me SECRETS
and this is exactly what he does
and it actually works
adding yet another thing
to the list of bizarre shit
odin does for secrets

meanwhile the aesir don’t chop of Frey’s head
OR Freyja’s head
in fact they treat them really well
and let them have a seat on the council
which basically means that the Vanir won the war
because they get to disagree with EVERYTHING the aesir council says
meanwhile the hostages the aesir gave the vanir
are either headless
or have no opinions

so the moral of the story is
when you lose a war
try and give your enemy some really sweet hostages
and then decapitate all the ones they give you
but probably most of you will probably not win any wars
sorry to say
so i guess just try to apply this moral
to the next time you lose at kickball or monopoly or whatever

the end