The Edda, Volume 1 | Page 8

son, and that is no worse than one would expect."
Tyr. "Frey is the best of all the bold riders of Asgard."
There is little doubt that Njörd was once a God of higher importance
than he is in the Edda, where he is overshadowed by his son. Grimm's
suggestion that he and the goddess Nerthus, mentioned by Tacitus,
were brother and sister, is supported by the line in _Lokasenna_; it is an
isolated reference, and the Goddess has left no other traces in
Scandinavian mythology. They were the deities, probably agricultural,
of an earlier age, whose adoption by the later Northmen was explained
by the story of the compact between Aesir and Vanir. Then their places
were usurped by Frey and Freyja, who were possibly created out of
epithets originally applied to the older pair; Njörd was retained with
lessened importance, Nerthus passed out altogether. 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. Njörd has an epithet, "the wealthy," which may have

survived from his earlier connexion with the soil. In that case, it would
explain why, in Snorri and elsewhere, he is God of the sea and ships,
once the province of the ocean-goddess Gefion; the transference is a
natural one to an age whose wealth came from the sea.
In spite of their origin, Frey and Freyja become to all intents and
purposes Aesir. Frey is to be one of the chief combatants at Ragnarök,
with the fire-giant Surt for his antagonist, and a story is told to explain
his defeat: he fell in love with Gerd, a giant-maid, and sacrificed his
sword to get her; hence he is weaponless at the last fight. Loki alludes
to this episode in _Lokasenna_: "With gold didst thou buy Gymi's
daughter, and gavest thy sword for her; but when Muspell's sons ride
over Myrkwood, thou shalt not know with what to fight, unhappy one."
The story is told in full in _Skirnisför_.
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; and Snorri says the giants bargained for her as the
price for building Valhalla, but were outwitted. Sir G.W. Dasent
notices in the folk-tales the eagerness of trolls and giants to learn the
details of the agricultural processes, and this is probably the clue to the
desire of the Frost-Giants in the Edda for the possession of Freyja.
Idunn, the wife of Bragi, and a purely Norse creation, seems to be a
double of Freyja; she, too, according to Snorri, is carried away by the
giants and rescued by Loki. The golden apples which she is to keep till
Ragnarök remind us of those which Frey offered to Gerd; and the gift
of eternal youth, of which they are the symbols, would be appropriate
enough to Freyja as an agricultural deity.
The great necklace Brising, stolen by Loki and won back in fight by
Heimdal (according to the tenth-century Skalds Thjodulf and Ulf
Uggason), is Freyja's property. On this ground, she has been identified

with the heroine of Svipdag and Menglad, a poem undoubtedly old,
though it has only come down in paper MSS. It is in two parts, the first
telling how Svipdag aroused the Sibyl Groa, his mother, to give him
spells to guard him on his journey; the second describing his crossing
the wall of fire which surrounded his fated bride Menglad. If Menglad
is really Freyja, the "Necklace-glad," it is a curious coincidence that
one poem connects the waverlowe, or ring of fire, with Frey also; for
his bride Gerd is protected in the same way, though his servant Skirni
goes through it in his place:
Skirni. "Give me the horse that will bear me through the dark magic
waverlowe, and the sword that fights of itself against the giant-race."
Frey. "I give thee the horse that will bear thee through the dark magic
waverlowe, and the sword that will fight of itself if he is bold who
bears it." (_Skirnisför_.)
The connexion of