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Linda Chapman has written over 50 children's fiction books, including the following series: My Secret Unicorn, Stardust, Not Quite a Mermaid, and Unicorn School. She lives in Leicestershire with her husband and daughters.
Loki discovered that Mjölnir had been claimed by Thrym, who demanded Freya be given to him in exchange for it. When Loki approached Freya with the news, she reacted with such fury that the palace of the gods shook on its foundations and her torc, Brísingamen, fell to the ground: 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:The Ynglinga saga also claimed that Freya introduced the gods to the practice of seidr, the soothsaying art that foretold the destruction of the gods. According to the saga, Freya was said to be the last of the gods—this claim appeared nowhere else in Norse tradition, however. Freya, the Helpful Poetic Edda. Translated by Henry Adams Bellows. Internet Sacred Text Archive. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe11.htm.
Freya presides over the afterlife realm Folkvang. According to one Old Norse poem, she chooses half of the warriors slain in battle to dwell there. (See Death and the Afterlife.) The word for “Friday” in Germanic languages (including English) is named after Frija, [18] the Proto-Germanic goddess who is the foremother of Freya and Frigg. None of the other Germanic peoples seem to have spoken of Frija as if she were two goddesses; this approach is unique to the Norse sources. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that in the Norse sources we find a confusion as to which goddess this day should have as its namesake. Both Freyjudagr (from Freyja) and Frjádagr (from Frigg) are used. 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. Freyja and Frigg are similarly accused of infidelity to their (apparently common) husband. Alongside the several mentions of Freya’s loose sexual practices can be placed the words of the medieval Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus, who relates that Frigg slept with a slave on at least one occasion. [12] In Lokasenna and the Ynglinga Saga, Odin was once exiled from Asgard, leaving his brothers Vili and Ve in command. In addition to presiding over the realm, they also regularly slept with Frigg until Odin’s return. [13] [14] Many scholars have tried to differentiate between Freya and Frigg by asserting that the former is more promiscuous and less steadfast than the latter, [15] but these tales suggest otherwise.Enright, Michael J. 1996. Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age. Thea's favorite thing to do on Thursday mornings is to teach young fairies how to dance a fairy jig. 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. 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] During the so-called Völkerwanderung or “Migration Period”– roughly 400-800 CE, and thus the period that immediately preceded the Viking Age – the figure who would later become the völva held a much more institutionally necessary and universally acclaimed role among the Germanic tribes. One of the core societal institutions of the period was the warband, a tightly organized military society presided over by a chieftain and his wife. The wife of the warband’s leader, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, held the title of veleda, and her role in the warband was to foretell the outcome of a suggested plan of action by means of divination and to influence that outcome by means of more active magic, as well as to serve a special cup of liquor that was a powerful symbol of both temporal and spiritual power in the warband’s periodic ritual feasts. [7] [8]
And straightway the hammer Mjöllnir was raised aloft; he paid the wright’s wage, and not with the sun and the moon. [5] Freya’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. 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 TreeDaisy Meadows is the pseudonym used for the four writers of the Rainbow Magic children's series: Narinder Dhami, Sue Bentley, Linda Chapman, and Sue Mongredien. Rainbow Magic features differing groups of fairies as main characters, including the Jewel fairies, Weather fairies, Pet fairies, Petal fairies, and Sporty fairies. Sturluson, Snorri. “Ynglinga Saga.” Heimskringla. Translated by Samuel Laing. Internet Sacred Text Archive. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/02ynglga.htm. Sturluson, Snorri. “Gylfaginning.” Prose Edda. Translated by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. Internet Sacred Text Archive. https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre04.htm. Clearly, then, the two are ultimately the same goddess. Why, then, are they presented as nominally distinct in the late Old Norse sources? Unfortunately, no one really knows. Frigg is depicted as a völva herself. Once again in Lokasenna, after Loki slanders Frigg for her infidelity, Freya warns him that Frigg knows the fate of all beings, an intimation of her ability to perform seidr. [16] Frigg’s weaving activities are likely an allusion to this role as well. And, as it turns out, Freya is not the only goddess to own a set of bird-of-prey feathers for shapeshifting – Frigg is also in possession of one. [17]
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