Could the Norse gods have preserved the memory of real people who migrated into northern Europe from the Eurasian steppe?

In this episode of The Woden Files, we investigate the historical Alans, an Iranian speaking cavalry people who lived around the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Don River. After the Hunnic invasions shattered the political order of the steppe, Alan groups moved westward, entered Germanic territories, formed alliances with Gothic and other European peoples, and became connected with powerful ruling families across Europe.

The similarities become difficult to ignore when this history is compared with Snorri Sturluson’s account of Odin and the Æsir. Snorri described the Æsir as a migrating people from the East, placed Odin’s homeland near the Don region, and remembered their arrival in northern Europ ...