Frigg

Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wetland halls of Fensalir. In wider Germanic mythology, she is known in Old High German as , in Langobardic as , in Old English as , in Old Frisian as ''Frīa'', and in Old Saxon as , all ultimately stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym *''Frijjō''. Nearly all sources portray her as the wife of the god Odin.

In Old High German and Old Norse sources, she is specifically connected with Fulla, but she is also associated with the goddesses Lofn, Hlín, Gná, and ambiguously with the Earth, otherwise personified as an apparently separate entity Jörð (Old Norse: 'Earth'). The children of Frigg and Odin include the gleaming god Baldr.

The English weekday name Friday (ultimately meaning 'Frigg's Day') bears her name. After Christianization, the mention of Frigg continued to occur in Scandinavian folklore. During modern times, Frigg has appeared in popular culture, has been the subject of art and receives veneration in Germanic Neopaganism.

Name and origin

Etymology

The theonyms ''Frigg'' (Old Norse), ''Frīja'' (Old High German), ''Frīg'' (Old English), ''Frīa'' (Old Frisian), and ''Frī'' (Old Saxon) are cognates. They stem from the Proto-Germanic feminine noun ''*Frijjō'', which emerged as a substantivized feminine of the adjective *''frijaz'' ('free') via Holtzmann's law. In a clan-based societal system, the meaning 'free' arose from the meaning 'related'. The name is indeed etymologically close to the Sanskrit ''priyā'' and the Avestan ''fryā'' ('own, dear, beloved'), all ultimately descending from the Proto-Indo-European stem *''priH-o-'', denoting 'one's own, beloved'. The Proto-Germanic verb ''*frijōnan'' ('to love'), as well as the nouns *''frijōndz'' ('friend') and *''friþuz'' or *''frijađwō'' ('friendship, peace') are also related.

An -a suffix has been sometimes applied by modern editors to denote femininity, resulting in the form ''Frigga''.See for example . This spelling also serves the purpose of distancing the goddess from the English word ''frig''. Several place names refer to Frigg in what are now Norway and Sweden, although her name is altogether absent in recorded place names in Denmark.

Origin of Frigg

The connection with and possible earlier identification of the goddess Freyja with Frigg in the Proto-Germanic period (Frigg and Freyja origin hypothesis) is a matter of scholarly debate. Like the name of the group of gods to which Freyja belongs, the Vanir, the name ''Freyja'' is not attested outside of Scandinavia. This is in contrast to the name of the goddess ''Frigg'', who is attested as a goddess common among the Germanic peoples, and whose name is reconstructed as Proto-Germanic *''Frijjō''. Evidence does not exist for the existence of a common Germanic goddess from which Old Norse ''Freyja'' descends, but scholars have commented that this may simply be due to the scarcity of surviving sources.

Regarding a Freyja–Frigg common origin hypothesis, scholar Stephan Grundy comments that "the problem of whether Frigg or Freyja may have been a single goddess originally is a difficult one, made more so by the scantiness of pre-Viking Age references to Germanic goddesses, and the diverse quality of the sources. The best that can be done is to survey the arguments for and against their identity, and to see how well each can be supported."

Origin of ''Friday''

The English weekday name ''Friday'' comes from Old English ''Frīġedæġ'', meaning 'day of Frig'. It is cognate with Old Frisian ''Frīadei'' (≈ ''Fri(g)endei''), Middle Dutch ''Vridach'', and Old High German ''Frîatac'', which was borrowed into Old Norse as ''Frjádagr''. All of these terms derive from Late Proto-Germanic *''Frijjōdag'' ('Day of Frijjō'), a calque of Latin ''Veneris dies'' ('Day of Venus'; cf. modern Italian ''venerdì'', French ''vendredi'', Spanish ''viernes'').

Attestations

''Origo Gentis Langobardorum'' and ''Historia Langobardorum''

The 7th-century '' Origo Gentis Langobardorum'', and Paul the Deacon's 8th-century ''Historia Langobardorum'' derived from it, recount a founding myth of the Langobards, a Germanic people who ruled a region of what is now Italy (see Lombardy). According to this legend, a "small people" known as the ''Winnili'' were ruled by a woman named Gambara who had two sons, Ybor and Agio. The Vandals, ruled by Ambri and Assi, came to the Winnili with their army and demanded that they pay them tribute or prepare for war. Ybor, Agio, and their mother Gambara rejected their demands for tribute. Ambra and Assi then asked the god Godan for victory over the Winnili, to which Godan responded (in the longer version in the ''Origo''): "Whom I shall first see when at sunrise, to them will I give the victory."

Meanwhile, Ybor and Agio called upon Frea, Godan's wife. Frea counseled them that "at sunrise the Winnil should come, and that their women, with their hair let down around the face in the likeness of a beard should also come with their husbands". At sunrise, Frea turned Godan's bed around to face east and woke him. Godan saw the Winnili, including their whiskered women, and asked "who are those Long-beards?" Frea responded to Godan, "As you have given them a name, give them also the victory". Godan did so, "so that they should defend themselves according to his counsel and obtain the victory". Thenceforth the Winnili were known as the ''Langobards'' (Langobardic "long-beards").

Second Merseburg Incantation

A 10th-century manuscript found in what is now Merseburg, Germany, features an invocation known as the Second Merseburg Incantation. The incantation calls upon various continental Germanic gods, including Old High German Frija and a goddess associated with her— Volla, to assist in healing a horse:

''Poetic Edda''

In the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled during the 13th century from earlier traditional material, Frigg is mentioned in the poems ''Völuspá'', ''Vafþrúðnismál'', the prose of ''Grímnismál'', ''Lokasenna'', and ''Oddrúnargrátr''.

Frigg receives three mentions in the ''Poetic Edda'' poem ''Völuspá''. In the first mention the poem recounts that Frigg wept for the death of her son Baldr in Fensalir. Later in the poem, when the future death of Odin is foretold, Odin is referred to as the "beloved of Frigg" and his future death is referred to as the "second grief of Frigg". Like the reference to Frigg weeping in Fensalir earlier in the poem, the implied "first grief" is a reference to the grief she felt upon the death of her son, Baldr.See, for example, .

Frigg plays a prominent role in the prose introduction to the poem, ''Grímnismál''. The introduction recounts that two sons of king Hrauðungr, Agnar (age 10) and Geirröðr (age 8), once sailed out with a trailing line to catch small fish, but wind drove them out into the ocean and, during the darkness of night, their boat wrecked. The brothers went ashore, where they met a crofter. They stayed on the croft for one winter, during which the couple separately fostered the two children: the old woman fostered Agnar and the old man fostered Geirröðr. Upon the arrival of spring, the old man brought them a ship. The old couple took the boys to the shore, and the old man took Geirröðr aside and spoke to him. The boys entered the boat and a breeze came.

The boat returned to the harbor of their father. Geirröðr, forward in the ship, jumped to shore and pushed the boat, containing his brother, out and said "go where an evil spirit may get thee." Away went the ship and Geirröðr walked to a house, where he was greeted with joy; while the boys were gone, their father had died, and now Geirröðr was king. He "became a splendid man." The scene switches to Odin and Frigg sitting in Hliðskjálf, "look nginto all the worlds." Odin says: "'Seest thou Agnar, thy foster-son, where he is getting children a giantess ld_Norse_''gȳgi''.html"_;"title="gȳgi.html"_;"title="ld_Norse_''gȳgi">ld_Norse_''gȳgi''">gȳgi.html"_;"title="ld_Norse_''gȳgi">ld_Norse_''gȳgi''in_a_cave?_while_Geirröd,_my_foster_son,_is_a_king_residing_in_his_country.'_Frigg_answered,_'He_is_so_inhospitable_that_he_tortures_his_guests,_if_he_thinks_that_too_many_come.'"

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