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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7328477" data-attributes="member: 58172">Each clan of vættir has its own ‘realm’. The realm is both an area of the cosmos, as well as its own spirit world. Note, Old Norse has two words that are related but with distinct meanings. Heimr means ‘realm’, region, or world. Heima means ‘home’. Both have the sense of a place of habitation, but note the difference.The seven clans and their realms are as follows.• alfar − Alfheimr (celestial dome)• dvergar − Svartalfaheimr (underground)• vanir − Vanaheimr (fertile places)• jǫtnar − Jǫtunheimr (wilderness, cliffs, glaciers, waters)• æsir − Ásgarðr (world center linked by rainbow to clouds)• náir − Hel (underworld, collective grave)• mennskar − Miðgarðr (human civilization)These are seven realms. The Norse cosmology is more complex, but the above simplification is representative.Sæmundar Edda has two poems, Vafþrúðnismál and Vǫluspá, that mention the ‘nine realms’ of the cosmos (níu heimar). Neither lists them. From references in many poems, the nine are usually understood to be the seven realms of the seven kinds of nature spirits, plus the realms of ice and fire, respectively.• Niflheimr (realm of mist, arctic icecap in the north)• Muspelheimr (probably associated with Sahara Desert)Together they are nine.Among the realms of the seven kinds of nature spirits, one vættir can leave their own realm and emigrate to that of an other. The vættir of the new realm adopt the immigrant as one of them. For example, Loki is a jǫtnar who lives among the æsir, and is counted as an æsir. Similarly, certain human aristocratic families descend from a jǫtnar or an alfar, who became part of the human realm. And so on.These nature spirits relate to each other in the same way that Norse families do.</blockquote>

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