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 as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

, the sister-wife of Njörðr is the unnamed twin sister and wife of the god Njörðr, with whom he is described as having had the (likewise incestuous) twin children Freyr and Freyja. This shadowy goddess is attested to in the '' Poetic Edda'' poem '' Lokasenna'', recorded in the 13th century by an unknown source, and the '' Heimskringla'' book ''

Ynglinga saga ''Ynglinga saga'' ( ) is a Kings' sagas, Kings' saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelanders, Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It is the first section of his ''Heimskringla''. It was first translated into Engl ...

'', 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, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

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 to live among the Æsir. 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 Æsir, goddess associated with bowhunting, skiing, winter, and mountains. Skaði is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 1 ...

in the ''Poetic Edda'' poem '' Skírnismál''. In his first-century work ''

Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...

'',

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. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

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 Saxo Grammaticus (), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author ...

's 12th-century work '' Gesta Danorum''.

Textual background

In a euhemerized account of the gods in ''

'' chapter 4,

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 Æsir, god in Norse mythology. He is the son of Fárbauti (a jötunn) and Laufey (mythology), Laufey (a goddess), and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. Loki is married to the goddess Sigyn and they have two sons, Narfi (son of Lo ...

also states that Njörðr had Freyr by his sister:

In contrast, in the '' Gylfaginning'' section of his ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...

'', after telling the story of Njörðr's unhappy marriage to

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''. 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 In Norse mythology, the Æsir–Vanir War was a conflict between two groups of deities that ultimately resulted in the unification of the Æsir and the Vanir into a single Pantheon (religion), pantheon. The war is an important event in Norse mytho ...

; 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 formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

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.

, '' 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 ''

'' 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 deity, or more likely that they were a married twin pair, parallel to Freyr and Freyja. Georges Dumézil pointed out that in

' '' Gesta Danorum'', the hero Hadingus' 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 kennings and in the '' Nafnaþulur'' that were later appended to the ''Prose Edda''; other divine pairs with similarly differentiated names in the Old Norse corpus are Ullr and Ullin and Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn, and the

Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

Phol and Volla may also be a pair.Joseph S. Hopkins
"Goddesses Unknown I: Njǫrun and the Sister-Wife of Njǫrðr"
'' RMN Newsletter'' 5 (2012) 39–44; note 5, p. 43.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sister wife of Njordr Vanir Norse goddesses