Aegir was a giant of the sea, sometimes counted among the gods because he hosted the Aesir at his hall for great feasts (the Lokasenna takes place at one such feast). He was the husband of Ran (treated next), and they had nine daughters, the nine waves of the sea. He was the great brewer of ale; Thor and Týr had once gone to him to fetch a great cauldron capable of brewing ale for all the gods — the journey is the matter of the Hymiskviða — and the cauldron-ale was thereafter the standard provision at Aegir's feasts. He was personified, as the sea was, with both kindly and dangerous aspects: the giver of fish and of safe passage, but also the destroyer of ships.
Before thisSif
Next on the wallRan
Curator’s note
What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay
Hymiskviða (the cauldron-quest); Lokasenna (its prose-introduction sets the feast at Aegir's); Skáldskaparmál 33. Aegir was, technically, a giant rather than one of the Aesir, but his role as host to the gods placed him in honorary divine company in many narratives.
Kin in the sources
Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.
- Consort ofRan
He was the husband of Ran (treated next), and they had nine daughters, the nine waves of the sea.
Companion ofThorThor and Týr had once gone to him to fetch a great cauldron
Companion ofTýrThor and Týr had once gone to him to fetch a great cauldron
Parent ofHeimdallrHe had been born of nine mothers (in some accounts the nine daughters of the sea-god Aegir, in others nine giantesses)
When the sources speak
Dated witnesses for The Norse and Germanic Gods. A date marks when the evidence was written down, not when the belief began. The whole timeline
- 2nd–1st millennia BCE
- Indo-European language dispersals and regional Bronze Age cultures provide a remote comparative background, not a recoverable common canon.
- c. 500 BCE–1 CE
- Iron Age material culture, names, sanctuaries, and classical ethnography offer early but external evidence for Celtic and Germanic religions.
- 1st–4th centuries CE
- Roman inscriptions and provincial cults preserve many Celtic, Germanic, and local divine names.
- 4th–8th centuries CE
- Migration-period and early medieval conversion transform ritual institutions while heroic traditions continue.
- 8th–11th centuries CE
- Viking Age poetry, runic evidence, archaeology, and Scandinavian conversion form the core context of Norse myth.
- 9th–12th centuries CE
- Slavic, Baltic, and Finnic traditions enter chronicles and missionary accounts, often through hostile observers.
- 11th–14th centuries CE
- Irish, Welsh, and Icelandic manuscripts preserve major narrative corpora in Christian literary environments.
- 12th–16th centuries CE
- Saxo, saga compilers, Baltic chroniclers, and later antiquarians systematize or reinterpret older material.