In
Old Norse,
áss (or
ǫ́ss, ás, plural
æsir; feminine
ásynja, plural
ásynjur) is the term denoting a member of the principal
pantheon in the indigenous European religion known as
Norse paganism. This pantheon includes
Odin,
Frigg,
Thor,
Balder and
Tyr. The second pantheon comprises the
Vanir. In
Norse mythology, the two pantheons wage the
Æsir-Vanir War, which results in a unified pantheon.
The cognate term in
Old English is
ōs (plural
ēse) denoting a deity in
Anglo-Saxon paganism. The
Old High German is
ans, plural
ensî.
The
Gothic language had
ans- (based only on
Jordanes who glossed
anses with uncertain meaning, possibly 'demi-god' and presumably a Latinized form of actual plural
*anseis).
The reconstructed
Proto-Germanic form is
*ansuz (plural
*ansiwiz). The
a-rune was named after the æsir.
Unlike the Old English word
god (and Old Norse
goð), the term
ōs (
áss) was never adopted into Christian use and survived only in a secularized meaning of "pole, beam, stave, hill" or "yoke".