United States or Grenada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To this fate at last, came the worshippers of the great goddess Freyja, whom our forefathers adored as the goddess of love and plenty; and whose car was drawn by those animals which popular superstition has ever since assigned to the 'old witch' of our English villages.
With Odin came Frigga and the Valkyrjor with his ravens. Frey drove in a car drawn by the boar, Gullinbursti or Slidrugtanni. Heimdall rode the horse Gulltopp, and Freyja drove her cats. There were also many of the forest-giants and mountain-giants there. On the pile Odin laid the gold ring called Draupnir, giving it the property that every ninth night it produces eight rings of equal weight.
Looking up to the stars and heaven, they saw the footsteps of the gods marked out in the bright path of the Milky Way; and in the Bear they hailed the war-chariot of the warrior's god. The great goddesses, too, Frigga and Freyja, were thoroughly old-fashioned domestic divinities.
They went to see fair Freyja, spoke to her first of all these words: "Bind on the bridal veil, Freyja, we two must drive to Jötunheim." Angry then was Freyja; she panted, so that all the hall of the Aesir trembled, and the great Brising necklace fell: "Eager indeed for marriage wouldst thou think me, if I should drive with thee to Jötunheim."
Then the goats were driven out, urged forward in their harness; well must they run. Rocks were riven, the earth burned in name: Odin's son was driving into Jötunheim. Then spoke Thrym, lord of the Giants: "Stand up, giants, and strew the benches! They are bringing me now Freyja my bride, Njörd's daughter from Noatun. "Gold-horned kine run in the court, oxen all-black, the giant's delight.
They tracked Loki on that fair morning when he led Idun beyond the gates; they seized him and brought him into solemn council, and when he read in their haggard faces the deadly hate which flamed in all their hearts against his treachery, his courage failed, and he promised to bring Idun back to Asgard if the goddess Freyja would lend him her falcon guise.
Still less is known of Vidar and Vali, two sons of Odin, one of whom is to avenge Baldr's death, the other to slay the wolf after it has swallowed up the chief God at Ragnarök. Frigg, Odin's wife and the chief Goddess, daughter of Earth, is not very distinctly characterised, and is often confused with Freyja.
There at the very water's edge stood Odin himself, the ravens flying about his head, and on his majestic face a gloom that no sun would ever lighten again; and there was Frigg, the desolate mother whose son had already gone so far that he would never come back to her; there was Frey standing sad and stern in his chariot; there was Freyja, the goddess of love, from whose eyes fell a shining rain of tears; there, too, was Heimdal on his horse Goldtop; and around all these glorious ones from Asgard crowded the children of Jotunheim, grim mountain giants seamed with scars from Thor's hammer, and frost giants who saw in the death of Balder the coming of that long winter in which they should reign through all the worlds.
In England one of our commonest and prettiest insects is still called after her, but which belonged to Freyja, the heathen 'Lady', long before the western nations had learned to adore the name of the mother of Jesus. In modern Swedish, Friggerock, where the old goddess holds her own; but in Danish, Mariaerock, Our Lady's rock or spindle.
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.
Word Of The Day