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Freya’s cultural popularity witnessed a resurgence with the rise of Germanic nationalism in the nineteenth century. She was mentioned in the Danish national anthem, “Der er et yndigt land” (“There is a Lovely Land”) by Adam Oehlenschläger, which read “it is called old Denmark and it is Freya’s hall.” [8] She also appeared as a character in Richard Wagner’s epic operatic cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The work was a seminal artistic production of the nineteenth century and a rallying cry for German nationalism across Western and Northern Europe. Thus was Freya saved from an unwanted marriage to the hill giant. The gods also gained a fortress, albeit rather treacherously, and a new foal. While Loki was in the form of a mare, Svadilfari successfully impregnated him with Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse that eventually became Odin’s mighty steed. Freya’s occupying this role amongst the gods is stated directly in the Ynglinga Saga, and indirect hints are dropped elsewhere in the Eddas and sagas. For example, in one tale, we’re informed that Freya possesses falcon plumes that allow their bearer to shift his or her shape into that of a falcon. [6] Freya had many epithets, and was known as the Gefn (“the giver”), Hörn (“flaxen,” probably in reference to her flaxen hair), Mardöll (“sea shaker”), Sýr (“sow,” a creature that stood for fertility much like Freya herself) and Valfreyja (“lady of the slain”). Thea's favorite thing to do on Thursday mornings is to teach young fairies how to dance a fairy jig.
Freya ( Old Norse Freyja, “Lady”) is one of the preeminent goddesses in Norse mythology. She’s a member of the Vanir tribe of deities, but became an honorary member of the Aesir gods after the Aesir-Vanir War. Her father is Njord. Her mother is unknown, but could be Nerthus. Freyr is her brother. Her husband, named Odr in late Old Norse literature, is certainly none other than Odin, and, accordingly, Freya is ultimately identical with Odin’s wife Frigg (see below for a discussion of this). Much was uncertain about the identities of Freya and Odr. It was likely that Freya was another version of Frigg (Odin’s wife), and as such it appears that Odr may have actually been Odin. The deities’ various names and identities reflected linguistic, cultural, and mythological differences among the Germanic groups that told stories of these gods and goddesses. The Norse mythology that reemerged in modern times was not canonical in the sense that an authoritative version of it did not exist. Rather, separate traditions existed simultaneously, and mythic sources such as the Poetic Edda often transposed these different traditions onto one another. Family TreeFreya’s brother (and possible twin) was Freyr, a god associated with wealth, prosperity, healthful weather, and male virility. He was often depicted with the phallus that was typical of fertility gods. Sturluson, Snorri. “Gylfaginning.” Prose Edda. Translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. Internet Sacred Text Archive. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre04.htm. Narinder Dhami was born in Wolverhampton, England on November 15, 1958. She received a degree in English from Birmingham University in 1980. After having taught in primary and secondary schools for several years she began to write full-time. Dhami has published many retellings of popular Disney stories and wrote the Animal Stars and Babes series, the latter about young British girls of Asian origin. She lives in Cambridge, England with her husband and cats.
If nothing else, the story of Thrym’s theft of Mjölnir showcased how jealousy Freya guarded her own reputation. “Most lustful indeed should I look to all If I journeyed with thee to the giants’ home,” she claimed in her anger. Nevertheless, Freya was known for her promiscuity, a reputation she earned by using both her beauty and her sex as weapons. As we’ve noted above, the Migration Period goddess who later became Freya was the wife of the god who later became Odin. While somewhat veiled, this is ultimately still the case in Old Norse literature. Freya’s husband is named Óðr, a name which is virtually identical to that of Óðinn (the Old Norse form of “Odin”). Óðr means “ecstasy, inspiration, furor.” Óðinn is simply the word óðr with the masculine definite article (- inn) added onto the end. The two names come from the same word and have the same meaning. Óðr is an obscure and seldom-mentioned character in Old Norse literature. The one passage that tells us anything about his personality or deeds – anything beyond merely listing his name in connection with Freya – comes from the Prose Edda, which states that Óðr is often away on long journeys, and that Freya can often be found weeping tears of red gold over his absence. [11] Many of the surviving tales involving Odin have him traveling far and wide throughout the Nine Worlds, to the point that he’s probably more often away from Asgard than within it. Many of Odin’s numerous bynames allude to his wanderings or are names he assumed to disguise his identity while abroad. Thus, it’s hard to see Freya’s husband as anything but an only nominally distinct extension of Odin. One of the principal deities of the Norse pantheon, the lovely and enchanting Freya was a goddess of blessings, love, lust, and fertility. A member of the Vanir tribe of deities, Freya shared her people’s penchant for the magical arts of divination. It was Freya who introduced the gods to seidr, a form of magic that allowed practitioners to know and change the future. As with most Norse gods and goddesses, little was known of Freya’s childhood and early development. In the Ynglinga Saga, a book of the Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson, Freya was presented as a leading deity of the Vanir and a player in the Aesir-Vanir War. She was the wife of Odr, with whom she had the daughters Hnoss and Gersemi, who “were so very beautiful, that afterwards the most precious jewels were called by their names.” [3]
Freya is famous for her fondness of love, fertility, beauty, and fine material possessions – and, because of these predilections, she’s considered to be something of the “party girl” of the Aesir. In one of the Eddic poems, for example, Loki accuses Freya (probably accurately) of having slept with all of the gods and elves, including her brother. [1] She’s certainly a passionate seeker after pleasures and thrills, but she’s a lot more than only that. Freya is the archetype of the völva, a professional or semiprofessional practitioner of seidr, the most organized form of Norse magic. It was she who first brought this art to the gods, [2] and, by extension, to humans as well. Given her expertise in controlling and manipulating the desires, health, and prosperity of others, she’s a being whose knowledge and power are almost without equal. The Sörla þáttr was a smear piece designed to discredit the Norse pagan religion and to degrade Freya as a whore. Nevertheless, the piece spoke to an aspect of Freya that had been hinted at in older Norse sources. In the Lokasenna from the Poetic Edda, Loki accused Freya of having slept with all the gods and jötnar:
One literary portrait of such a woman comes to us from the medieval Old English epic poem Beowulf, which recounts the deeds of King Hroðgar and his warband in the land that we today know as Denmark. The name of Hroðgar’s queen, Wealhþeow, is almost certainly the Old English equivalent of the Proto-Germanic title that Tacitus latinised as “veleda.” [9] Wealhþeow’s “domestic” actions in the poem – which are, properly understood, enactments of the liquor ritual described above – are indispensable for the upkeep of the unity of the warband and its power structures. The poem, despite its Christian veneer, “hint[s] at the queen’s oracular powers… The Hrothgar/Wealhtheow association as presented in the poem is an echo of an earlier more robust and vigorous politico-theological conception.” [10] While the late Old Norse literary sources that form the basis of our current knowledge of pre-Christian Germanic religion present Freya and Frigg as being at least nominally distinct goddesses, the similarities between them run deep. Their differences, however, are superficial and can be satisfactorily explained by consulting the history and evolution of the common Germanic goddess whom the Norse were in the process of splitting into Freya and Frigg sometime shortly before the conversion of Scandinavia and Iceland to Christianity (around the year 1000 CE). Sue Bentley was born in Northampton, England. She worked in a library after completing her education and began writing for children once her own began school. Bentley is the author of the Magic Kitten, Magic Puppy, and S Club series and lives in Northamptonshire. Seidr is a form of pre-Christian Norse magic and shamanism that involved discerning the course of fate and working within its structure to bring about change, often by symbolically weaving new events into being. [3] This power could potentially be put to any use imaginable, and examples that cover virtually the entire range of the human condition can be found in Old Norse literature. Grímnismál.” Poetic Edda. Translated by Henry Adams Bellows. Internet Sacred Text Archive. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe06.htm.See, for example: Grimm, Jacob. 1882. Teutonic Mythology, Volume 1. Translated by James Steven Stallybrass. p. 302.
Heide, Eldar. 2006. Spinning Seiðr. In Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes and Interactions. Edited by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. p. 166. In the Viking Age, the völva was an itinerant seeress and sorceress who traveled from town to town performing commissioned acts of seidr in exchange for lodging, food, and often other forms of compensation as well. Like other northern Eurasian shamans, her social status was highly ambiguous – she was by turns exalted, feared, longed for, propitiated, celebrated, and scorned. [4] The names of the two goddesses are also particularly interesting in this regard. Freyja, “Lady,” is a title rather than a true name. It’s a cognate of the modern German word Frau, which is used in much the same way as the English title “Mrs.” In the Viking Age, Scandinavian and Icelandic aristocratic women were sometimes called freyjur, the plural of freyja. [19]“Frigg,” meanwhile, comes from an ancient root that means “beloved.” [20] Frigg’s name therefore links her to love and desire, precisely the areas of life over which Freya presides. Here again we can discern the ultimate reducibility of both goddesses to one another: one’s name is identical to the other’s attributes, and the other name is a generic title rather than a unique name.
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And straightway the hammer Mjöllnir was raised aloft; he paid the wright’s wage, and not with the sun and the moon. [5] Poetic Edda. Translated by Henry Adams Bellows. Internet Sacred Text Archive. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe11.htm.
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