Wanes are mothers, wives, huntresses and witches.
Thus, to generalize, Wanes are feminine and earlier whereas Anses are masculine and later.
Leokaz crept into the South Land and gave the Iron Lords the key to the stone gate in exchange for the spear Summer's Bane. The Iron Lords enslaved and slaughtered in the Earthworld. One, Hoadh, rampaged northward to make alliance with the Frost Land eotans but, reaching the seashore and seeing Niaerdh, assaulted her on a reef where ships are now wrecked.
Since Froh, having gone to quicken life in spring, could neither help Niaerdh nor give her the bull Earthshaker, she changed her eldest son into a black stallion and rode to Ansaheim where Wotan lent her his never-missing spear and Tiwaz his Helm of Dread. Although the Iron Lords shielded Hoadh, Niaerdh cast the spear above their heads and struck Hoadh, whose blood flooded the lowlands.
On Midwinter Eve, Niaerdh bore Hoadh's nine sons and changed them into black hounds. Thonar of the Thunders reminded her that, if she and Froh remained apart, then all living things would die so, since then, she has returned to Froh in spring but withdrawn in autumn. Since Wotan needed his spear, Niaerdh sought it at sea, eventually finding it under the evening star. She leads the Wild Hunt.
Please read Poul Anderson's longer account in Time Patrol (New York, 2006), pp. 557-561. My purpose is to celebrate Anderson's mythopoeic imagination by highlighting the high points of the narrative.
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