Freyja

“ In her father's old mansion.'"
OF THE GOD FREY, AND THE GODDESS FREYJA.
25. "Njord had afterwards, at his residence at Noatun, two children, a son named Frey, and a daughter called Freyja, both of them beauteous and mighty. Frey is one of the most celebrated of the gods. He presides over rain and sunshine, and all the fruits of the earth, and should be invoked in order to obtain good harvests, and also for peace. He, moreover, dispenses wealth among men. Freyja is the most propitious of the goddesses; her abode in heaven is called Folkvang. ”

“ Just as twilight was falling, the chariot thundered into the courtyard.
When he saw Freyja’s robes and Freyja’s jewels, it never occurred to Thrym to doubt that it was really Freyja under the veil. He took the bride’s hand and led her to her seat, laughing exultantly and singing his boastful song:
“Much wealth have I! ”

“ We have already seen that when the days of the week received their Germanic names it was Frigg who was equated with the Roman Venus; but in the Scandinavian mythology it is Freyja, not Frigg, who is the goddess of love. Snorri describes Freyja as riding in a chariot drawn by two cats, 'and wheresoever she rides to battle, she has half the slain and Odin the other half.' This association of Freyja with Odin, which seems to imply that Frigg was almost on the point of being displaced by a rival goddess, also appears in the verse for which Hjalti Skeggjason was found guilty of blasphemy. ”

“ FREYR and FREYJA. The name of the deity who was the symbol of the sun—to mean Seminator, the Fructifier, Freyja—the symbolical representation of the moon—means the Seminated, the Fructified; the original sig. is that of glad, joyful, imparting gladness, beautous, lovely. FRIGGA, prop. FRIGG. Grimm has shown that the root of this word is, if not strictly syn., at least very nearly allied with that of the word Freyja, and explains it to mean the Free, the Beauteous, the Winsome. ”

“ Freyja is called by Snorri "the chief Goddess after Frigg," and the two are sometimes confused. Like her father and brother, she comes into connexion with the giants; she is the beautiful Goddess, and coveted by them. _Völuspa_ says that the Gods went into consultation to discuss "who had given the bride of Od (_i.e._, Freyja) to the giant race"; _Thrymskvida_ relates how the giant Thrym bargained for Freyja as the ransom for Thor's hammer, which he had hidden, and how Loki and Thor outwitted him ”

“ Now, though Frey was made king and schoolmaster of the light elves, and spent the greater part of his time with them in Alfheim, his sister Freyja remained in the city of Asgard, and had a palace built for her named Folkvang. In this palace there was one very beautiful hall, Sessrymnir—the "Roomy Seated"—where Freyja entertained her guests, and she had always plenty of them; for every one liked to look at her beautiful face, and listen to her enchanting music which was quite superior to anybody else's. ”

“ Others think, he says, that it was a man in the guise of a woman.
It has long since attracted the attention of mythologists that in this narrative there are found two names, Otharus and Syritha, which seem to refer to the myth concerning Freyja. Otharus is no doubt a Latinised form of Ottar, and, as is well known, the only one who had this name in the mythology is, as stated, Freyja's lover and husband. Syritha, on the other hand, may be a Latinised form of Freyja's epithet Syr, in which Saxo presumably supposed he had found an abbreviated form of Syri (Siri, Sigrid) . ”

“ The Edda gives Njörd a giant-bride, Skadi, who was admitted among the Gods in atonement for the slaying of her father Thiazi; she is little more than a name. Frey and Freyja have other marks of agricultural deities, besides their relationship. Nothing is said about Frey's changing shape, but Freyja possesses a hawk-dress which Loki borrows when he wishes to change his form; and, according to Snorri, Frey was sacrificed to for the crops. ”

“ The multiplicity of forms under which essentially the same divinity presents itself in history and in popular belief may be illustrated by the mother-goddess of the Teutons. As Freyja she is the female counterpart of Freyr; as Nerthus of Freyr’s northern doublet, Njordr. When Wodan largely absorbs the elemental functions, she becomes his wife, as Frîja or Frigg. Through her association with the heaven-gods, she is herself a heaven-as well as an earth-goddess [366] , the Eostre of Bede [367] , as well as the Erce of the Anglo-Saxon ploughing charm [368] . ”

“ It is of no slight mythological interest to learn that zealous men among the Swedes hoped to be able to inspire the old doctrine with new life by adopting among the gods Freyja's husband, the most brilliant of the ancient mythic heroes and the one most celebrated by the skalds. ”

“ He feels that his life is stained with a spot that cannot be removed, and he is unwilling to appear with it among other men. In the mythology it is left to Njord himself to liberate his son. In another passage (Hist., 266, 267) Saxo says that King Fridlevus (Njord) liberated a princely youth who had been robbed by a giant. In the mythology this youth can hardly be anyone else than the young Frey, the son of the liberator. Erik afterwards marries Gunvara.
Among the poetical paraphrases from heathen times are found some which refer to Frey's and Freyja's captivity among the giants. ”

“ It has already been pointed out that after his marriage with Gunvara-Freyja, Erik-Svipdag appears in Saxo as Frotho-Frey's right hand, ready to help and a trusted man in all things. Among other things the task is also imposed on him to ask, on behalf of Frotho, for the hand of a young maid whose father in the mythology doubtless was a giant. He is described as a deceitful, treacherous being, hostile to the gods, as a person who had laid a plan with his daughter as a bait to deceive Frotho and win Gunvara for himself. ”

“ Völuspa answers this question, as we know, in the affirmative. The event threatening to the gods and to the existence of the world once happened that the goddess of fertility and love came into the power of the giants. Then all the high-holy powers assembled to consider "who had mixed the air with corruption and given Od's maid to the race of giants." But none of our Icelandic mythic records mentions how and by whom Freyja was liberated from the hands of the powers of frost. Under the name [Pg 773] Svipdag our hero is mentioned only in Grogalder and Fjölsvinnsmal ”

“ This follows from the fact that it was he who liberated Freyja, the sister of the god of the harvests, from the power of the frost-giants (see Nos. 96-102) . Lif and Leifthraser were accordingly already at that time transferred to Mimer's grove. This ought to have occurred before the earth and her inhabitants were afflicted by physical and moral evil, while there still could be found undefiled men to be saved for the world to come; and we here find that the mythology, so far as the records make it possible for us to investigate the matter, has logically met this claim of poetic justice. ”

“ Voluspo, 27) keeps watch against the coming of the giants. In this stanza the two functions of Heimdall—as father of mankind (cf. Voluspo, 1 and note, and Rigsthula, introductory prose and note) and as warder of the gods—seem both to be mentioned, but the second line in the manuscripts is apparently in bad shape, and in the editions is more or less conjectural.
14. Folkvang (“Field of the Folk”) : here is situated Freyja’s [91] hall, Sessrymnir (“Rich in Seats”) . Freyja, the sister of Freyr, is the fairest of the goddesses, and the most kindly disposed to mankind, especially to lovers. ”

“ Snorri gives a list of fourteen Aesir or Gods (Odin, Thor, Baldr, Njörd, Frey, Tyr, Bragi, Heimdal, Höd, Vidar, Vali, Ullr, Forseti, Loki) , and adds Hoeni in another list, all the fifteen occurring in the poems; and sixteen Goddesses (Asynjor) , the majority of whom are merely personified epithets, occurring nowhere else. Of the sixteen, Frigg, Gefion, Freyja and Saga (really an epithet only) are Goddesses in the poems, and Fulla is Frigg's handmaid. ”

“ In the mythology, as shall be shown hereafter, Orvendel the brave was Thor's "sworn" man, and fought with him against giants before the hostility sprang up between Ivalde's sons and the Asa-gods. In the Orentel saga Yse also regards Orentel as his "thrall." The latter emancipates himself from his thraldom with gold. Perhaps this ransom is a reference to the gold which Freyja's tears gave as a ransom for Svipdag.
Orentel's father is called Eigel, king in Trier. In [Pg 839] Vilkinasaga we find the archer Egil, Volund's brother, mentioned by the name-variation Eigill. ”

“ Possibly, as Finn Magnusen long ago suggested, there is something lost after stanza 24, but it was not the custom of the Eddic poets to supply transitions which their hearers could generally be counted on to understand. The story referred to in stanzas 25–26 (both quoted by Snorri) is that of the rebuilding of Asgarth after its destruction by the Wanes. The gods employed a giant as builder, who demanded as his reward the sun and moon, and the goddess Freyja for his wife. ”

“ She lends a very favourable ear to those who sue to her for assistance. It is from her name that women of birth and fortune are called in our language Freyjor. She is very fond of love ditties, and all lovers would do well to invoke her. ”

“ As Freya was also considered goddess of fecundity, she was sometimes represented as riding about with her brother Frey in the chariot drawn by the golden-bristled boar, scattering, with lavish hands, fruits and flowers to gladden the hearts of all mankind. ”

“ Freya, no longer an omnipotent goddess, but a frightened wife, trembled before his wrath, and begged the dwarfs to help her. And when one of them—the most hideous of all—promised that he would prevent the statue from speaking if Freya would but deign to smile upon him, the queen of the gods, who had no dread of ugly things, and whose heart was full of love and of pity, smiled her gentle smile on the piteous little creature who had never known looks of anything but horror and disgust from any of the deathless gods. ”

“ Being goddess of beauty, Freya, naturally, was very fond of the toilet, of glittering adornments, and of precious jewels. One day, while she was in Svart-alfa-heim, the underground kingdom, she saw four dwarfs fashioning the most wonderful necklace she had ever seen. Almost beside herself with longing to possess this treasure, which was called Brisinga-men, and was an emblem of the stars, or of the fruitfulness of the earth, Freya implored the dwarfs to give it to her ”

“ The Northern people were wont to invoke Freya not only for success in love, prosperity, and increase, but also, at times, for aid and protection. This she vouchsafed to all who served her truly, as appeared in the story of Ottar and Angantyr, two men who, after disputing for some time concerning their rights to a certain piece of property, laid their quarrel before the Thing. That popular assembly decreed that the man who could prove that he had the longest line of noble ancestors should be declared the winner, and a special day was appointed to investigate the genealogy of each claimant. ”

“ This peaceful occasion was the last on which I saw all these people assembled together; the charmingly fresh and resolute Freya, the innocently round-eyed old Nelson, Jasper, keen, long limbed, lean faced, admirably self-contained, in his manner, because inconceivably happy under the eyes of his Freya; all three tall, fair, and blue-eyed in varied shades, and amongst them the swarthy, arrogant, black-haired Dutchman, shorter nearly by a head, and so much thicker than any of them that he seemed to be a creature capable of inflating itself, a grotesque specimen of mankind from some other planet. ”

“ Dame Grumble's gift to the little princess had made a thousand good friends for him, it seemed. King Silversword looked at him with eyes of gratitude; Queen Silverland could not praise him enough. The Little Princess Silverstar took much pleasure in the tales that Freyo told her of the North Wind and the Apple Tree. Before many days had passed, Freyo had become the child's favorite courtier, and was a favorite of the whole Court likewise. The noble lords vowed that Freyo had wisdom beyond his years and vied with one another to do him kindnesses. ”

“ Freya was Doña Constanza perpetuated across the centuries, taking on a new form. She was born of the union of a German and an Italian, just like this other one.... But the chaste empress was now smiling in her nudeness, satisfied with being simply Freya. Marital infidelity, persecution and poverty had been the result of her first existence when she was tranquil and virtuous.
"Now I know the truth," Doña Constanza would say with a sweetly immodest smile. "Only love exists; all the rest is illusion. Kiss me, Ferragut!... I have returned to life in order to recompense you. ”

“ For it was not as a minister of healing she faced him, but as a Valkyria of battle, armored in pride. Like spears she threw her words at him.
“As soon would I that you were a coward as a churl! Churl’s blood—Rolf’s blood—that must be what it is! Freya’s stock would have struck the words from his lips though he were thrice a jarl. Now better be a coward than a clod, too base to know it when you are insulted.” ”