Anses And Wanes

"Out of the east, the morning behind them, rode the Anses into the world."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 557.

If I understand what he is doing, Poul Anderson here imaginatively re-creates earlier stages of Northern European mythology.

The Anses (Aesir) entered the world, riding across the sky, arrows darkening the air, battle horns enraging men. (We might call them demons in another mythology.) The Wanes (Vanir) fought back: Froh on his bull with the Living Sword; Naerdha in her flying ship with the Ax of the Tree, casting eagles, white star on her brow. Northern and southern eotans (giants) said that this war of the gods would clear the way for them but Wotan's birds heard and warned him while Mim's head heard and warned Froh so the gods made peace, intermarried, hanged him, drowned her, mingled blood, then built defensive walls of wood in the North and of stones in the South - although Leokaz the Thief of the Anses was half eotan and "...longed for the old wild years..." (p. 558).

We then read a tale of Leokaz's misdeeds. This excursion into mythology covers four pages and I have begun to appreciate its power only by trying to summarize it.