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Beings in Old Nordic religion, later folklore and modern Heathenry

Landvættir ("land spirits" or "land wights") are spirits of the land in Old Nordic religion, later folk belief and modern Heathenry. They are closely associated with specific locations and their wellbeing is presented as being required for the land they inhabit to be fruitful. In Old Norse sources, they are depicted as being potentially harmful and capable of driving away unwanted individuals and capable of being frightened through human actions such as usage of carved figureheads on ships or níðstangs. Good relationships between humans and landvættir were believed to be fostered through acts like leaving out food for them however upon the establishment of the church, the practice was labelled heretical and explicitly forbidden in the Norwegian Gulating law codes. Landvættir have been variously connected by scholars to other beings believed to inhabit the land such as elves, dwarfs and landdísir, with which they were potentially identified at different points in history. Their belief and veneration has been revived in the modern period as part of the practice of modern Heathens.

Vættr can be translated as "wight" or "being" and is derived from Proto West Germanic '*wihti' from from Proto Indo European: '*wekti' ("cause, sake, thing"), from Proto Indo European "*wekʷ " ("to say, tell"). It is thus cognate with and its descendants or and Modern English "wight". It is further cognate with , Wicht, Wicht and is the ancestor of vätte, vætte and
As a compound, land vættir has been variously translated as "guardian spirits of a country", "land spirits", "landwights" or "nature spirits".

In Landnámabók, one account describes a bergbúi ("rock dweller") making an agreement with a man named Björn, who had few goats after fleeing from a lava flow. After this, a billy goat appears and has many children with his nanny goats, making him rich from all the livestock he owned. It describes that landvættir could be seen with Björn by those who had second sight. It has been proposed that in this context, bergbúar are synonymous with landvættr, supported by the idea that landvættir live in stones, mountains and hills. It has been further suggested that in return, Björn may have been expected to make food offerings, as is recorded as being performed by women for landvættir in Heimslýsing ok Helgifrœði, a homily found in the Hauksbók. In this account, the women take food to stone piles or flat stones, hoping that in return the landvættir would make them prosperous.

The Norwegian Gulating laws, written in the latter half of the 13th century, made illegal the belief that howes, wooded areas and waterfalls, were inhabited by landvættir, considering it a heresy and belonging to the heathen religion. Similarly, the author of the homily Heimslýsing ok Helgifrœði states that the willingness of some women to give offerings to landvættir results from their stupidity.

Landvættir have been discussed in relation to landdísasteinar (landdísir stones). These are stones in northwestern Iceland that were described as having been respected as late as the 19th century, with it being seen as inappropriate to mow grass or let children play near them. The term landdísiris not attested in Old Norse sources but can be reconstructed from the term landdísasteinar, where they were likely believed to dwell. Based on this living in rocks, it has been proposed that they are closely connected to landvættir and it has been noted that other beings in Germanic folklore are believed to live in these places too such as elves and dwarfs. Relationships between people and landvættir have been further linked to a wider pattern of people in the same cultural context worshipping and receiving advice from spirits living in waterfalls, woods, and rocks at which they would make offerings. This is attested in Landnámabok, which records settlers giving offerings to a waterfall and a holy grove. Beyond this, Þorvalds þáttr viðfǫrla and Kristni saga recount a tale in which an Icelandic farmer named Koðrán has a partnership with a spirit living in a stone referred to as a spámaðr or ármaðr which is eventually driven away when a bishop sprinkles the stone in which it lived with holy water. It has been noted that the being is likely modelled on landvættir and bergbúar, closely resembling their portrayals in other sources. Some scholars have suggested that landvættir are chthonic and spirits of the dead, but others have interpreted them as nature spirits, since they sometimes live in land that has never been populated. It has been argued that in early 12th century Iceland, álfar and landvættir were conceived of as distinct beings, with landvættir living in fells and hills, and elves being more similar to gods. The account of a blót being made to elves living in a hill in Kormaks saga, according to this proposition, would be an early stage in the merging of the two beings. The folklorish representation of elves would be a result of this later conflation, seen in later saga material like Norna Gests þáttr, Hrólfs saga kraka and Þiðriks saga.

Landvættir have been argued to not have had any role in Nordic mythology as they are not mentioned in any Eddic material.

Jörmundur Ingi Hansen, former High Priest of the Ásatrúarfélagið, said that landvættir are "spirits and they in some way control the safety of the land, the fertility of the land, and so on." According to him, they are "tied to a spot in the landscape, to a huge rock, to a mountain, or to a specially beautiful place" and that place can be recognized by being more beautiful than "just a few yards away."

The four beings identified as the landvættir of Iceland are depicted on the Icelandic coat of arms, on the obverse of the Icelandic króna coins, and the team crest of Iceland's national football teams.