Landvættir ("land spirits" or "land wights") are spirits of the land in Old Nordic religion, later folk belief and modern Heathenry. They are closely associated with specific locations and their wellbeing is presented as being required for the land they inhabit to be fruitful. In Old Norse sources, they are depicted as being potentially harmful and capable of driving away unwanted individuals and capable of being frightened through human actions such as usage of carved figureheads on ships or níðstangs. Good relationships between humans and landvættir were believed to be fostered through acts like leaving out food for them. However upon the establishment of the church, the practice was labelled heretical and explicitly forbidden in the Norwegian Gulating law codes. Landvættir have been variously connected by scholars to other beings believed to inhabit the land such as elves, dwarfs and landdísir, with which they were potentially identified at different points in history. Their belief and veneration has been revived in the modern period as part of the practice of modern Heathens.
Name and etymology
Vættr (pl. Vættir) can be translated as "wight" or "being" and is derived from Proto-West Germanic '*wihti' from Proto-Germanic: *wihtiz from Proto-Indo-European: '*wekti' ("cause, sake, thing"), from Proto-Indo-European "*wekʷ-" ("to say, tell"). It is thus cognate with Old English: wiht and its descendants Middle English: wight or Middle English: wiȝt and Modern English "wight". It is further cognate with Scots: wicht, German: Wicht, Dutch: Wicht and is the ancestor of Swedish: vätte, Danish: vætte and Icelandic: vættur. As a compound, land-vættir has been variously translated as "guardian spirits of a country", "land-spirits", "landwights" or "nature spirits".
Medieval period
Offence through human actions
In Úlfljótslǫg, a law aiming to prevent upsetting landvættir:
Eyrbyggja saga depicts human waste as scaring elves, identified by some scholars as landvættir. In this account, Þórólfr Mostrarskegg sets aside a skerry that he names Dritsker ("Shit-skerry") so that they would not defile with their faeces Helgafell, which he held holy.
Harming and scaring humans Landvættir are often depicted as deeply connected to a particular place and as being willing and able to harm people who live there if the landvættir do not consider them welcome. Landnámabók for example describes how two brothers, Ingólf and Hjörleif, went to settle Iceland from Norway. Ingólf performed blóts often while his brother did not. Hjörleif was later killed by his thralls at Hjörleifshöfði which Ingólf attributes to his lack of adherence to heathen customs. Later, the book states that no one dared live where Hjörleif had settled because of the landvættir. Consistent with other accounts, this depicts Iceland as inhabited by landvættir and has been further argued to represent a belief that they might harm settlers if the appropriate ritual precautions were not carried out. Alternative suggestions have been made such as that the landvættir were angry because of the spilling of blood on the land they inhabited or that they had been frightened by it and so the land would not prosper. They further feature in saga literature, for example in the Heimskringla version of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar when they drive away a possible invasion from Harald Bluetooth:
After this, the man in whale-shape swims around Iceland and each time he reaches a new part he is driven away. First on the East side by a large dragon followed by snakes, toads and lizards who blew atter, or poison, at him, then on the North side by a great bird with many smaller birds, next in the West a large bull followed by beasts and other landvættir, and finally a huge bergrisi with an iron staff in the South followed by many other jötnar. It is unclear whether all these protective beings were considered landvættir, given that the bull is explicitly said to be followed by landvættir, however, the four figures are what most Icelanders understand by the term. It is further unclear if the imagery of these four beings is drawn from traditional lore, but scholars typically belief it is heavily influenced by Christian imagery of the Four Evangelists. It has been noted that in an account of this same event from Jómsvíkinga saga does not reference the magic-worker or the landvættir. Knýtlinga saga, however, retells the account from Heimskringla and refers to the beings instead as óvættir ("evil spirits"), consistent with it being told from a Danish perspective. In Egils saga, when in Norway, Egil Skallagrímsson erects a níðstöng, a horses head on a stake, as an insult to the landvættir. He curses them to not be able to find their dwellings until they have driven Erik Bloodaxe and Gunnhild from Norway. The two are forced to abandon Norway the next year, although the saga intentionally leaves the cause unclear.
Association with fertility
In Landnámabók, one account describes a bergbúi ("rock-dweller") making an agreement with a man named Björn, who had few goats after fleeing from a lava flow. After this, a billy goat appears and has many children with his nanny goats, making him rich from all the livestock he owned. It describes that landvættir could be seen with Björn by those who had second sight. It has been proposed that in this context, bergbúar are synonymous with landvættr, supported by the idea that landvættir live in stones, mountains and hills. It has been further suggested that in return, Björn may have been expected to make food offerings, as is recorded as being performed by women for landvættir in Heimslýsing ok Helgifrœði, a homily found in the Hauksbók. In this account, the women take food to stone piles or flat stones, hoping that in return the landvættir would make them prosperous.
Banning and criticism of belief and worship The Norwegian Gulating laws, written in the latter half of the 13th century, made illegal the belief that howes, wooded areas and waterfalls, were inhabited by landvættir, considering it a heresy and belonging to the heathen religion. Similarly, the author of the homily Heimslýsing ok Helgifrœði states that the willingness of some women to give offerings to landvættir results from their stupidity.
Further scholarship
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