Njord and Skadi

by Sheena McGrath

  He points out that the ability of people to relocate to their own farm would depend on how much land was available, which would require an active land market. Unfortunately, we don't know anything about this, either how Icelandic markets operated or what the demographics were. Miller does say that it is possible that the amount of land available was shrinking, which would squeeze young couples that might otherwise set up on their own.[32] The sagas exhibit a great deal of variation, however, as people work out all sorts of solutions to the problem of accommodating a new household.

  Of course, deities aren't subject to these sorts of pressures, and both Njord and Skadi had homes of their own already. (Skadi and Freyja being among the few Norse goddesses who have a home of their own, along with Frigga, Saga and possibly Gefjon.) So the visits back and forth might have seemed like a reasonable solution. For deities, and people, keeping close to your kin made sense, and newlyweds expected to be able to call on their respective families for support.

  The difference between Njord and Skadi, and their homes, has been discussed in the section on Theories. One idea, however, deserves comment here. John Lindow puts forward the idea that the nine nights Freyr has to wait before he can be with Gerdr was meant to echo the nights Njord and Skadi spent together. In that reading, Freyr's affair with Gerdr (see their chapter) was as doomed as that of his father and his giant-bride. The poem, after all, ends on a note of separation, just as Njord and Skadi go their separate ways, and Freyr is not made any better by the news that Gerdr will meet him - the poem ends with him lamenting over the delay.[33]

  Note also that he does not choose their meeting-place, she does, just as Njord goes to Thrymheim first, and spends more time there than at home, if we follow Dillman. Gerdr's words are significant, too: she names Barri, and says: "and after nine nights, there to the son of Niord/ Gerdr will grant love"[34]. Once again the giant aett is setting the terms.

  Chapter 4

  The Main Characters

  Njörðr

  The third asa is he who is called Njord. He dwells in Noatun, which is in heaven. He rules the course of the wind[35] and checks the fury of the sea and of fire. He is invoked by seafarers and by fishermen. He is so rich and wealthy that he can give broad lands and abundance to those who call on him for them. He was fostered in Vanaheim, but the vans gave him as a hostage to the gods, and received in his stead as an asa-hostage the god whose name is Honer. He established peace between the gods and vans.

  (Gylf 23, Dasent)

  Chapter 23 of Gylf is probably the best summary answer to the question "who is Njord?” The rest of that chapter is concerned with his failed marriage to Skadi, which is his major myth. Chapter 24 tells us that "afterward" he begat two children in Noatun, Freyr and Freya. This has caused much speculation as to who their mother was, especially since it seems unlikely that it was Skadi. Hkr says he had them before he went to Asgard, which seems more likely.

  In the Poetic Edda, however, Skr refers to her as Frey's "mother". Most understand this as referring to her role as his step-mother. Njord gets several mentions as Frey's father, in the prologue and stanzas 38, 39, and 41, the latter using "son of Njord" as a kenning for Freyr. Similarly, in Thrymskvida, Freya is referred to as "the daughter of Njord" (22).

  Vaf has a stanza describing Njord, as the giant Vafthrudnir matches his knowledge of lore against Odin's. The god asks the giant where Njord came from, and how he came to be among the Aesir:

  'Tell me this tenth thing, since all the fate of the gods

  you, Vafthrudnir, know,

  from where Niord came to the sons of the Aesir,

  he rules over very many temples and sanctuaries

  and he was not raised among the Aesir.'

  Vafthrudnir replies:

  "In Vanaheim the wise Powers made him

  and gave him as hostage to the gods;

  at the doom of men he will come back

  home among the wise Vanir."

  (Larrington's trans. 38-9)

  So we know that Njord had an active cult, and that he was one of the Vanir (see chapter on the Vanir for more on them). We also know that he goes back to his people at the apocalypse. Grimnismal describes Njord's residence:

  'Noatun is the eleventh, where Niord has

  a hall made for himself,

  the prince of men, lacking in malice,

  rules over the high-timbered temple.'

  (Grim. 16)

  Lks also gives us some information about Njord, although of a somewhat doubtful nature. Loki has been insulting Freya, and her father steps in, saying:

  'That's harmless, if, besides a husband, a woman has

  a lover or someone else;

  what is surprising is a pervert god coming in here

  who has borne children.'

  Loki said:

  'Be silent, Niord, from here you were

  sent east as hostage to the gods;

  the daughters of Hymir used you as a pisspot

  and pissed in your mouth.'

  Niord said:

  'That was my reward, when I, from far away,

  was sent as hostage to the gods,

  that I fathered that son, whom no one hates

  and is thought the prince of the Aesir.'

  Loki said:

  'Stop now, Niord, keep some moderation!

  I won't keep it secret any longer:

  with your sister you got that son,

  though you'd expect him to be worse than he is.'

  (Lok. 34-6)

  The fact that Njord was married to his sister appears in Hkr as well, where we are told that he wed his sister and they had Freyr and Freya, but that when Njord came to live with the Aesir, they forbade such marriages. As for Hymir's daughters, they are generally assumed to be rivers running into the ocean, although some translations have Njord sent as a hostage to the giants as well, which implies that giantesses humiliated him while he was there. (See the chapter "Why is Njord so passive?" for more on this.)

  (Hymir appears in two myths, both involving Thor. In Thrym he goes fishing with Thor, who hauls up the Midgard-Serpent until Hymir panics and cuts the line. The other story, Hyrmskvida, turns out less happily for Hymir, as Thor and Tyr steals his cauldron so Aegir can brew ale in it. Neither poem mentions any daughters.)

  The statement in Vaf 39 that Njord will return home at Ragnarok is one of the biggest teases in Norse myth - up there with the battle between Heimdall and Loki.

  “In ragnarök (aldarrök means simply ‘doom of the age’) he (=Njörðr) will return home”. This statement explains why, in the battle on the field of Vigriðr where ragnarök culminates, Njörðr does not appear at all. He obviously has nothing to do there and, when the world of the Æsir must collapse, he can return home, free of his obligation to stay in Ásgarðr as a hostage.[36]

  Słupecki also thinks that Snorri considered Freyr to have been born after Njord came to Asgard. In those circumstances, even though Freyr was of the Vanir line, he fought and died at Ragnarok just like all the other Aesir gods.[37] This could possibly mean that only the world of the Aesir is destroyed - that the Vanir survive, along with their home. And of course, there's Hoenir, who stays on in Vanaheim, while Njord returns there, so that both can outlive the attack of the giants.

  The late poem Solarljod also mentions Njord, saying he had nine daughters:

  Here are runes

  which have engraven

  Niörd´s daughters nine,

  Radvör the eldest,

  and the youngest Kreppvör,

  and their seven sisters.

  (Sol. 79) [38]

  The "nine sisters" seems to be a reference to waves, just as Heimdall was the son of nine sisters, often identified as Aegir's daughters, the waves of the sea.[39] There is a list of Aegir's daughters in the Prose Edda, and Hynd give the names of Heimdall's mothers, all giantess-names. (Simek is dubious about this[40], but Lindow thinks there may have been two different traditions about them.[41])

  Neither l
ist mentions Radvör and Kreppvör; perhaps yet another tradition produced Njord's daughters, although they're not mentioned anywhere else.

  In Skáldskaparmál we are given kennings for Njord:

  " How should one periphrase Njördr? By calling him God of the Vanir, or Kinsman of the Vanir, or Wane, Father of Freyr and Freyja, God of Wealth-Bestowal."

  (Byock: Chap. 13)

  Snorri goes on to quote a verse by Thórdr Sjáreksson about the marriage of Njord and Skadi:

  Gudrun became herself her sons’ slayer; the wise god-bride [Skadi] could not love the Van; Kialar [Odin] trained horses well; Hamdir is said not to have held back in swordplay. (Faulkes's trans.)

  The verse is interesting because Gudrun sent Hamdir into battle, and thus became the slayer of her son, which implies a connection between the other two verses - that Odin seduced Skadi after she married Njord.[42] (Kialar being one of Odin's many names.) The first story in Skld is that of Thiazi's death and Skadi's vengeance, including her choosing Njord by his feet. He is also mentioned as the father of Frey and Freya, and in various kennings for "warrior".

  In Hkr Njord appears in three of the stories. The main one is the Ys, which gives us the euhemerized version, telling the story as if Odin and Njord were simply outstanding men rather than gods. In the Ys version of the Aesir - Vanir war, the Aesir were the aggressors, but the Vanir fought back, and the two armies ravaged each other's lands, and neither side could win a lasting victory. This being so, they met and established peace, exchanging hostages. The Vanir gave Njord the Wealthy and his son Frey in exchange for Hoenir. (See the chapter on Hoenir.) The Vanir also sent Kvasir, their wisest man, in exchange for Mimir, "a man of great understanding"[43].

  The Vanir appointed Hoenir and Mimir to their councils, but Hoenir would not speak without Mimir, so the Vanir cut Mimir's head off and sent it back to the Aesir, thinking that they had been tricked. The Aesir, for their part, made Njord and Frey sacrificial priests, diar, although Njord had to give up his wife because she was also his sister, and the Aesir forbade such unions.

  Ys goes on to tell us that Njord married Skadi, but they separated and she went on to marry Odin and have many sons. Later, Odin died, and Njord was king after him,

  Niord of Noatun then took the rule over the Swedes and upheld the sacrifices; then the Swedes called him Drott (or Sovereign) and he then took scot from them. In his days there was peace, and the seasons were so good that the Swedes believed that Niord had power over the crops and the well-being of mankind. In his days most of the diar (or priests) died and all were burned, and afterwards they sacrificed to them. Niord died in his bed; he also had himself marked for Odin before his death. The Swedes burned him and wept much by his grave.[44]

  Frey took over afterward, and he was a popular king as well, fortunate in the weather and wealth.

  Of the other two stories that mention Njord, the Saga of Hakon the Good describes the Yule celebrations, including drinking toasts, first to Odin for victory and power for the king, then toasts to Frey and Njord, for good harvests and peace (ch. 14). A kenning for a sailor in the same saga is "Njörðr-of-roller-horses" (ch. 28).

  Finally, in the Saga of Harold Graycloak, Njord is used as a kenning for "warrior" in a verse by Einarr skálaglamm called Vellekla ("Lack of Gold").

  Egils saga also has a reference to Njord, in a verse composed by Egil praising Arnbjorn, who gives out the wealth Njord and Freyr bestowed on him generously. Clearly Njord's power to enrich his worshippers was on people's minds.

  Apparently even into the 18th and 19th centuries people were still giving Njord credit for good catches. In an account collected by a folklorist in Norway, we're told:

  The old people (the people of old times) always had good luck when they went fishing. One night, old Gunnhild Reinsnos (born in 1746) and Johannes Reinsnos were fishing in Sjosavatn. They had brought a torch and were fishing with live bait. The fish were biting on the hooks, and not much time passed before Gunnhild had enough fish to boil for all week. So she rolled the line around the rod and said: "Thanks to you, Njor, for this time."[45]

  Not quite the king of the Swedes or one of the great gods, but still bringing plenty to the people.

  Etymology, or Was Njord a Goddess?

  So now that we've established that Njord was a god of sailors and fishermen, who fathered two children, and married two women, would you believe that he was originally an earth-goddess? This may seem like an extremely odd question. But, even casual research on Njord will bring up this topic and variants on it time and again:

  It may be that Skadi was originally a god, while her consort, Njord, was a goddess, whose sex changed because the name appeared to be masculine.

  (Turville-Petre)

  ...but also by the linguistic identity of the name Njordr with prot-Gmc *Nerthuz Nerthus, an earth goddess, for whom Tacitus describes a cult as taking place on an island in the Baltic in the first century A.D. The change of sex from Nerthus to Njordr can presumably be explained by the fact that with *Nerthuz either a hermaphrodite deity was meant, or else, more likely a divine brother and sister (like Freyr and Freyja).

  (Simek)

  In any case, the story of Skadi's compensation makes some kind of historical sense, given the sex change Njordr himself almost certainly underwent.

  (Lindow)

  The name Njördhr is said by some scholars to be an Old Norse equivalent of the (possibly) female Nerthus, the German fertility Goddess mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania, who was also connected with islands. Maybe this is the twin sister left behind in Vanaheim. Or perhaps, as some have thought, Njördhr was once a Goddess who somehow underwent a sex change through the years. The other alternative is that the fertility Goddess of the Germans was really a God all the time.

  (Karlsdottir)

  After reading all this you might be excused for assuming that Njord had originally been a goddess, or at least had a twin who was a goddess. Some have even gone so far as to trace this feminine tinge to the lack of any active participation in the few myths he's mentioned in, and assume that his marriage to Skadi is a carnivalesque riot of gender inversion.

  Some of you, who are not entirely familiar with Norse myth, may be wondering who this Nerthus is who apparently shares Njord's name. The chapter on Njord's sister deals with Nerthus at greater length, including the question of whether she is the mysterious sister that Njord was with before he joined the Aesir.

  Briefly, however, Nerthus seems to be a north Germanic or south Danish goddess (Tacitus calls her Terra Mater) who was worshipped in the form of an idol, which every so often went on pilgrimage in a wagon to "visit" her worshippers. The wagon was enclosed, however, since no mortal could see the goddess and live. We have these details from the Roman writer Tacitus, who recorded them in his Germania, written in the first century A.D. This is the only mention of Nerthus that we have, and how or if she is connected to Njord is not obvious, since Tacitus does not mention him, and the Eddic and skaldic sources do not mention her.

  However, the identification of Njord and Nerthus is more contentious that it might at first seem. While we know that Tacitus mentioned her along with many other Germanic deities otherwise unknown, like Tamfana and the Alcis, Tacitus' own work has not survived, and we have only copies made much later. As Lotte Motz says about the manuscripts:

  There are in fact reasons why the equation Nerthus-Njordr should be questioned. Nerthus, i.e., nertum, is only one of the several forms transmitted by the manuscripts: the others are necthum, neithum, herthum, Neherthum, Verthum. The variant nertum was chose by Grimm because it corresponds to Njordr.[46]

  Grimm is pretty up-front about this:

  if the idea of Thor's mother at the same time passes into that of the thundergod, it exactly parallels and confirms a female Nerthus (Goth. Nairđus, gen. Nairđaus) by the side of the masculine Niorđr (Nerthus), just as Freyja goes with Freyr.[47]

  (He is referring her to the Fjorgyn - Fjorgynn question, the first being a by-na
me of the earth-goddess Jord, and the second the name of Frigg's father. Fjorgyn's son was a common kenning for Thor, and some have seen Fjorgynn as connected to the name of the Baltic thunder-god, Perkunas. This would suggest that Frigg's father was another thunder-god, or perhaps Grimm is suggesting that he was Thor.)

  Another problem in identifying Nerthus and Njord is that while an idol of Nerthus did travel round in a wagon, we don't know of Njord doing the same, although the cult of Freyr had a similar custom:

  In Sweden it was Freyr, son of Niordr, whose curtained car went round the country in spring, with the people all praying and holding feasts; but Freyr is altogether like his father, and he again like his namesake the goddess Nerthus.[48]

  John McKinnell offers a way out of the confusion, however, pointing out that the "readings shared by the best manuscripts...are thought likely to be correct." These manuscripts come in three groups (or stemma, to be technical), and the best of group X read Neithum, group Y, Nerhtum, and group Z, Nertum. McKinnell points out that the Italian scribes we owe these manuscripts to were unlikely to introduce a "th" sound since Italian itself usually goes the other way (e.g. Tomasso for Thomas, Teodorico for Theodore). He figures that Nerthum is probably more correct therefore than Nertum, and that it could represent a grammatically masculine Nerthus or neuter Nertum.[49] (If Njordr were derived from Nerthus, it would go: Nerthus > *Njarduz (breaking) > *Njorduz (u-mutation) > Njordr (syncope).[50])

  Nerthus/Njordr has usually been construed as connected to Old Irish *nert, "strength", giving us something like "the Powerful One". McKinnell suggests that Njord ("Strength"?) and Freyr ("Lord") might well be associated with political authority. Since both gods are divine ancestors of royal lines, this is an interesting idea.

  Polomé, on the other hand, insists that they are two separate derivations, and two separate deities:

  a) Nerthus and Njordr are two separate divine entities, whatever similarity their names show; as Dumézil (1959) had already recognized, the latter is a sea god [which also explains his particular wealth], and the former is typically a fertility goddess; b) in spite of the similarity of their names, they reflect different derivations: Njordr belongs to the root *ner- "plunge and emerge" with the suffix *-tu- Nerthus is rather to be linked to Celtic *nerto-.