In
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern per ...
, the sister-wife of Njörðr is the unnamed wife and sister of the god
Njörðr
In Norse mythology, Njörðr (Old Norse: ) is a god among the Vanir. Njörðr, father of the deities Freyr and Freyja by his unnamed sister, was in an ill-fated marriage with the goddess Skaði, lives in Nóatún and is associated with the ...
, with whom he is described as having had the (likewise incestuous) twin children
Freyr and
Freyja
In Norse paganism, Freyja (Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chario ...
. This shadowy goddess is attested in the ''
Poetic Edda
The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...
'' poem ''
Lokasenna'', recorded in the 13th century by an unknown source, and the ''
Heimskringla
''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derive ...
'' book ''
Ynglinga saga
''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his '' Heimskringla''. It was first translated into English and published in 1 ...
'', a
euhemerized account of the Norse gods composed by
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...
also in the 13th century but based on earlier traditional material. The figure receives no further mention in
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...
texts.
The situation is further complicated in that narratives describing the birth of Freyr and Freyja contradictorily cite the birth of the siblings occurring either after or before Njörðr left
Vanaheimr
In Norse cosmology, Vanaheimr (Old Norse for 'home of the Vanir'Byock (2005:158).) is a location associated with the Vanir, a group of gods themselves associated with fertility, wisdom, and the ability to see the future.
Vanaheimr is attested in ...
to live among the
Æsir
The Æsir (Old Norse: ) are the gods of the principal pantheon in Norse religion. They include Odin, Frigg, Höðr, Thor, and Baldr. The second Norse pantheon is the Vanir. In Norse mythology, the two pantheons wage war against each other, ...
. In addition, Freyr is referred to as the "son" of Njörðr and the goddess
Skaði
In Norse mythology, Skaði (; Old Norse: ; sometimes anglicized as Skadi, Skade, or Skathi) is a jötunn and goddess associated with bowhunting, skiing, winter, and mountains. Skaði is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th cent ...
in the ''Poetic Edda'' poem ''
Skírnismál
''Skírnismál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Skírnir') is one of the poems of the '' Poetic Edda''. It is preserved in the 13th-century manuscripts Codex Regius and AM 748 I 4to but may have been originally composed in the early 10th century. Many ...
''.
In his first-century work ''
Germania
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north-c ...
'',
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
describes rituals surrounding a deity by the name of
Nerthus, a theonym that is
etymologically ancestral to Old Norse ''Njörðr''. However, the figure described by Tacitus is female. Based on this scholars have suggested a Proto-Germanic hermaphroditic deity or a gender aspectual pair (similar to Freyja and Freyr), identified the obscure Old Norse goddess name
Njörun as a potential name for the otherwise unnamed goddess, and in some cases identified a potential reflex of a narrative about Njörðr and his sister-wife in
Saxo Grammaticus's 12th-century work ''
Gesta Danorum
''Gesta Danorum'' ("Deeds of the Danes") is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th-century author Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Literate", literally "the Grammarian"). It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark an ...
''.
Textual background
In a
euhemerized account of the gods in ''
Ynglinga saga
''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his '' Heimskringla''. It was first translated into English and published in 1 ...
'' chapter 4,
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...
characterizes Freyr and Freyja as the offspring of Njörðr by his unnamed sister, to whom he was married by Vanic custom:
In the
Eddic poem ''
Lokasenna'',
Loki
Loki is a god in Norse mythology. According to some sources, Loki is the son of Fárbauti (a jötunn) and Laufey (mentioned as a goddess), and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. Loki is married to Sigyn and they have two sons, Narfi ...
also states that Njörðr had Freyr by his sister:
In contrast, in the ''
Gylfaginning
''Gylfaginning'' (Old Norse: 'The Beguiling of Gylfi' or 'The Deluding of Gylfi'; c. 20,000 words; 13th century Old Norse pronunciation ) is the first part of the 13th century ''Prose Edda'' after the Prologue. The ''Gylfaginning'' deals with t ...
'' section of his ''
Prose Edda
The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been ...
'', after telling the story of Njörðr's unhappy marriage to
Skaði
In Norse mythology, Skaði (; Old Norse: ; sometimes anglicized as Skadi, Skade, or Skathi) is a jötunn and goddess associated with bowhunting, skiing, winter, and mountains. Skaði is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th cent ...
that occurred after he came to live among the Æsir, Snorri states that Freyr and Freyja were born after that; Freyr is also presented as the son of Njörðr and Skaði in the Eddic poem ''
Skírnismál
''Skírnismál'' (Old Norse: 'The Lay of Skírnir') is one of the poems of the '' Poetic Edda''. It is preserved in the 13th-century manuscripts Codex Regius and AM 748 I 4to but may have been originally composed in the early 10th century. Many ...
''. However, in ''Ynglinga saga'' Freyr, and presumably Freyja, accompanies Njörðr when he comes to live with the Æsir as a hostage after the
Æsir–Vanir War; and ''Lokasenna'' alludes to Freyja having been "surprised" in Vanic incest with her brother.
Scholarly interpretation
Scholars since
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of t ...
have regarded the chronology in ''Ynglinga saga'' as more likely to be original and taken Freyr and Freyja as having been therefore born to Njörðr by an unmentioned Vanic wife.
Jacob Grimm
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of t ...
, '' Teutonic Mythology'', 4th ed. tr. James Steven Stallybrass, Volume 1 London: George Bell, 1882, , note 1, p. 219: "Niörðr and Nerthus were ''brother and sister'', and joint parents of Freyr and Freyja". Jan de Vries suggested a remnant of ancient Indo-European custom. Since
Nerthus in Tacitus' late-1st century ''
Germania
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north-c ...
'' is an earth goddess, ''terra mater'' (mother earth), but her name is etymologically identical to his, the suggestion is that there was originally a
hermaphroditic
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes.
Many taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have s ...
deity, or more likely that they were a married twin pair, parallel to Freyr and Freyja.
Georges Dumézil
Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 189811 October 1986) was a French philologist, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and mythology. He was a professor at Istanbul University, École pratique d ...
pointed out that in
Saxo Grammaticus' ''
Gesta Danorum
''Gesta Danorum'' ("Deeds of the Danes") is a patriotic work of Danish history, by the 12th-century author Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Literate", literally "the Grammarian"). It is the most ambitious literary undertaking of medieval Denmark an ...
'', the hero
Hadingus
Hadingus was one of the earliest legendary Danish kings according to Saxo Grammaticus' ''Gesta Danorum'', where he has a detailed biography. Georges Dumézil and others have argued that Hadingus was partially modelled on the god Njörðr.
'' ...
' life closely parallels Njörðr's, including a relationship with his foster-sister Harthgrepa followed by marriage to a princess who chooses him by his feet, as Skaði does in ''Gylfaginning''. Grimm suggested that Freyja was thought of as the daughter of the female Nerthus and Freyr as the son of the male Njörðr. It is possible that the goddess' name survives in the uncharacterized
Njörun who appears in some skaldic
kenning
A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English ...
s and in the ''
Nafnaþulur
''Nafnaþulur'' (Old Norse: ) is a subsection of the ''Prose Edda
The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland d ...
'' that were later appended to the ''Prose Edda''; other divine pairs with similarly differentiated names in the Old Norse corpus are
Ullr
In Norse mythology, Ullr (Old Norse: ) is a god associated with archery. Although literary attestations of Ullr are sparse, evidence including relatively ancient place-name evidence from Scandinavia suggests that he was a major god in earlier ...
and
Ullin and
Fjörgyn and
Fjörgynn, and the
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old Hig ...
Phol and
Volla may also be a pair.
[Joseph S. Hopkins]
"Goddesses Unknown I: Njǫrun and the Sister-Wife of Njǫrðr"
''RMN Newsletter
''RMN Newsletter'' is a peer-reviewed and open access academic journal published on a bi-annual basis by the University of Helsinki’s Department of Folklore Studies."About". ''RMN Newsletter''. University of Helsinki website. Online/ref> Publi ...
'' 5 (2012) 39–44; note 5, p. 43.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sister wife of Njordr
Vanir
Norse goddesses
Incest in mythology