His name appears to vary; he has a Wikipedia article under the name Tjaetsieålmaj, meaning "men of the water" or Thjathjeolmai (singular). According to the article he controlled lakes and rivers, and in Sami mythology he gave people fortune when fishing.[363]
As I have pointed out above, Skadi certainly seems like a Sami woman, skiing and using a bow. When she appears in Asgard, however, she is taking on yet another role that the Norse gendered masculine: avenger. There were, at least in literature and probably oral lore, precedents, the skjolmær or shield-maiden, and the baugrygr, or ring-lady. (Although, Mundal points out, in real life, the ring-lady would not be expected to actually take up arms against those who had slain her kin.[364]) The fact that she behaves like a Sami tells us that we shouldn't expect conventional behaviour from her, so naturally, coming from a society with such differing expectations of the sexes, she behaves in the most masculine manner possible.
To add to this, we have examples of short-term relationships entered into (by Norse men and gods) when they were away from home. Rigsthula is one example, with Rigr taking the husband's place for three nights each place he stays, and Orvar-Odds saga is another, with the hero entering into a limited-term marriage with an Irish princess. There is information about a similar custom amongst the Sami, but it all comes from after the Reformation. Mundal suggests that if a similar custom existed during medieval times, and the Norse knew of it, then the offer of a husband for Skadi takes on a new meaning.
In real life, this was probably not an accommodation offered to women, which underscores Skadi's masculine role here. (And in turn forces the gods into a feminine role.) The fact that she chooses by feet is also significant, because in IE myth emphasis on feet or legs usually stresses the sexual nature of the hero.[365] Mundal goes further and speculates that the Norse gods had their faces covered, which would have suggested bridal veils as well as hiding one's face from shame. This strongly suggests the transvestite Thor in Thrym, pretending not very successfully to be Freyja.[366]
The story of the Norwegian king Harald Fairhair's marriage is especially interesting, since the Christian Snorri asserts that it was caused by magic. Harald went on progress one winter in Uppsala, and while he was at a Yule banquet, he got word that a Finn wished to speak to him outside. At first Harald refused, but then the Finn asked again, this time with a more personal message, and the king and some of his men went to him.
When they got to the Finnish king's hall, his daughter Snjófríðr poured mead for Harald, who immediately fell violently for her. She turned him down, however, saying that he could only have her after they were married. Harald did so, and they had four children. Then Snjófríðr died, and her body, it seemed, did not change. King Harald sat by her for three winters, waiting for her to revive.
Finally, Thorleif the Wise persuaded Harald to have the body moved, and when it was, the decay was evident; odours of corruption came from it, as well as "all kinds of worms and adders, frogs and toads and vipers" came out of it. Snjófríðr was burned (hurriedly), and Harald "swore off his folly".[367]
There are similarities here with the Freyr-Gerdr story, with both Freyr and Harald being helplessly love-struck on the instant, and both women holding them off. In addition, Snorri gets very moralistic about both, seeing both Harald and Freyr as brought low by a woman, so to speak. McKinnell thinks that the story of Harald and Snjófríðr has its parallel also in the story of Njord and Skadi, as both women travel to alien lands to seek a husband.[368] (And Snjófríðr is also a Sami, which is considered akin to the giants.) He also relates it to the Summer King - Winter Bride pattern (see Theories) and says the spell that keeps Harald in mourning is a way of keeping him in the realm of death and cold.[369]
Snorri copied this story nearly word for word from an older text, the Norwegian saga of kings from around 1190 called Ágrip afNóregskonunga sǫgum. Both in Ágrip and in Snorri’s text, Haralds saga hárfagra, Snæfríðr’s father is spoken of as a finnr, ‘a Sami.’ But Snorri—or a later scribe—put in the chapter heading: Frá Svása jǫtni, ‘About the giant Svási.’[370] So the Snæfríðr story fits into two patterns - the offer of a mate, as in the Skadi story, and the temporary liaisons between a hero and a giant's beautiful daughter. (Note the description in Hst of Thiazi as a "mountain-Finn".)
King Nórr: Uniting Norway
There was a king named Fornjotr. He ruled over the land which is called Finland and Kvenland, that lies to the east of the gulf which goes toward Gandvik. That is called Helsinga Bay. Fornjotr had three sons. One was called "Ocean" [Hlerr], whom we call "Sea" [Ægir], one "Flame" [Logi], and the third Kari. Kari was father of "Frost" [Frosti], who was father of "Snow the Old" [Snaer]. His son was called "January" [Thorri]. He had two sons, one called Nor and the other Gor. His daughter was called "February" [Goi]. "January" was a great sacrificer. He sacrificed each year at mid- winter, and they called that the "January sacrifice" [Thorrablot]. The month took its name from that. It happened one winter at the January sacrifice that "February" disappeared. A search party went after her, but she was not found. And when a month had passed, "January" performed a sacrifice, sacrificing for this: that they might learn where "February" had come to rest. They called that the "February sacrifice." But still they knew no more about her. Three winters later, the brothers made a vow that they would search for her, and they divided the search in this fashion: Nor would search on land, and Gor would search the out-skerries and islands. He travelled by ship.
(Lincoln's trans, from Orkneying saga 1. 1-24)[371]
This story appears in three different forms: Orkneying saga, and two texts from Flt: Hvertsu Noregr bygdist and Fundinn Noregr. All three agree that Norway was united long before Harald Fairhair, by a mythical king Nórr.
As the story tell us, Nórr travelled across the land seeking his sister, on skis and shooting game to feed himself. His brother, Gor, went by sea, presumably living on fish and searching the Danish straits. They finally met near Sogn, and although they had not found their sister, they shared out the territory they had explored between them, Nórr taking the land and Gor the sea. They did not abandon their search completely, and Nórr finally found her, prisoner of King Hrolf of Bjarg. Nórr fought a duel with Hrolf, but it was inconclusive, and they decided to settle the matter by marrying each other's sisters. Norr went on to be the first king of Norway, which was named for him.
This story takes a different tack from the Njord - Skadi story, as in it the land is shown as peaceable, where people can exchange relatives to make households and families. By contrast, the sea world of Goi is turbulent and warlike, with no women aboard ship, of course. The sea wins out, however, as Nor's realm allows for so many descendants that the kingdom has to be parcelled out in smaller and smaller pieces among them, and these petty kingdoms vanish from the story. Gor's two sons (no mother mentioned, but presumably there was one) become violent sea-kings, ancestors of the earls of Orkney.
Nor and Gor came from the north originally, their ancestors being the rulers of Finland and Kvenland. As they searched, Nor conquered the Lappar, and all of Norway. When Nor found his sister, she was with Hrolf, son of King Svaði in the mountain of Dovri. Nor, of course, married Hrolf's sister, Hadda. Mundal sees a parallel between Svási and Svaði, both kings connected to the mountain of Dovri, who marry their daughters to the conqueror.[372] No one in the story of Nor is said to be Sami, but the fact that Nor, Gor and Goi (February) have ancestors called January, Snow, and Frost seems to point to the Sami and the giants.
Mundal thinks that the parallels with the Sami were deliberate propaganda. It may have been important to the Norwegians to say that all the peoples of Norway were willing participants in the uniting of the country, even the Sami. At any rate, it gives us an origin story for the earls of Mœrir and the earls of Orkneys, starting from the north of Norway, possibly from the giants or Sami, through Halfdan the Old to Rognavald, who became earl of Møre under Harald Fairhair (yes, him again) and whose brother, nep
hew and two of his sons became the first earls of Orkney. (See Orkneying saga chs. 3 and 4, as well as the Historia Norvegiae and Hkr and also the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland.) The significant thing here is that Møre is in the far north of Norway, a fitting place for a family that traced its descent to that same region.
Chapter 16
Why is Njord so passive?
Njord doesn’t have a lot of myth. So it seems strange that in the only one in which he features as a main character, he does so little. In contrast to the active, vengeful Skadi he is passive, even allowing Odin to marry him to a giantess without so much as a murmur. The only thing he does is complain that he doesn’t like living in Thrymheim. (Of course, we don’t know who initiated divorce proceedings.)
His passivity, along with the fact that Skadi chooses him in what is normally a Cinderella-type bride show, has led some to assume he too is taking a feminine role. In fact, many people seem to feel that Njord is somewhat less than entirely manly. The similarity of the names Njord and Nerthus has led many to theorize a connection between the god and goddess, assuming that Njord was originally the goddess Nerthus or else bisexual. They point to the masculine form of Skadi’s name to prove it, assuming that she was Nerthus’ husband before a sex-change. As Turville-Petre puts it:
The form of Skadi’s name is typically masculine, but it is doubtful whether any great significance should be attached to this. The masculine forms Skuta, Sturla decline as feminine, and were probably originally nicknames. 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. If so, much remains to be explained. Why should a god, Skadi, with a masculine name, be allowed to turn into a goddess?[373]
When I first read this, I thought it was rather sexist, as if being a god was a promotion but a goddess the opposite. However, when you consider the amount of emotional investment men had back then in not being sexually passive or womanly – most of Lks consists of Loki accusing various gods of just that – you can see his point.
The Njord – Nerthus identity is a tenuous one, resting merely on the similarity of name. We might as well assume that Frey and Freyja are the same deity. Brother and sister, now, maybe. When Loki accused Freyja of having slept with all the males around, including her brother, he seemed pretty clear that they weren’t the same person. The charge was incest, not onanism, same as his broadside against Njord. It isn’t always worth taking Loki’s word for things, but you can imagine the slurs he would have come out with had he felt that Njord and Frey were half-female.
Loki brings up another instance of Njord’s passivity. He says that when Njord was sent as a hostage, the daughters of the giant Hymir urinated in his mouth. This is often explained away as the daughters of a sea-being, the rivers, emptying into the sea, but it still doesn’t sound good. Perhaps we are supposed to imagine a puny Njord faced with enormous giantesses, as in several of Thor’s adventures, where he is portrayed sleeping in the thumb of a giant’s glove, or cowering with Tyr in a cooking-pot.
One creditable attempt to grasp the nettle appears online on a blog called “A Heathen Blog”, in an article called “Njörd’s Honor”.[374] It is written in defence of Njord, but it faces up to the charges against him, and makes a credible attempt to refute them.[375]
Unfortunately, I cannot find that article, which seems to have vanished even beyond the power of the Wayback Machine, so I will construct my own defence of Njord, starting with the first encounter between the Aesir and the Vanir, which led to war. The few references we have to the war don't tell us what role Njord played in it, but we have to assume that as an important member of the Vanir aett, he was involved. (In Hkr 4, we are told that Njord and Frey are the most outstanding of the Vanir.)
Still, Njord's role as a hostage, his ability to calm storms, still winds, and put out fires on ships, and the fact that when he ruled as king of the Swedes, it was an era of peace and plenty, suggest that war was not exactly his main focus. Perhaps we have to assume that either he was too old for fighting, or else that he simply was more interested in peace and well-being.
None of this tells us anything about Njord's honour, of course, but perhaps place-name evidence can help us out here. There are numerous attestations of places named for Njord around the coast of Norway and inland Sweden (although the latter may be named for Nerthus - see Simek.[376]). Stefan Brink, in his survey, finds "around a dozen" places with Njord- names in Norway, all in the south, and about sixteen named for *Niærþer in Sweden.[377] (Brink thinks that *Niærþer may have been a goddess, although he also suggests that this may be because the Swedish names were assumed to be connected to Nerthus, and so were recorded that way.)[378]
This ties in with Lieberman's assertion that the Icelanders would never have tolerated a story in which Njord abased himself the way that Loki did[379]. There are no places named for Loki, after all. A society that put such great emphasis on manliness would not have accepted a god who was believed to have behaved in an effeminate or dishonourable fashion. We have to remember that Lks is not Gospel, and also that all the gods and goddesses get a mauling in it. If Thor could survive accusations of cowardice and cuckoldry, then presumably Njord could come out of Loki's accusations without too much damage to his reputation. After all, every other source speaks respectfully of him, calling him "prince of men" (Grim. 16), and both him and Frey are called the "best of men “in Hkr.
Perhaps it's best to accept that people had a rather different view of godhood back then, which could accommodate weaknesses and foibles as well as strengths. Another line of defence here is suggested by Andy James, who says:
As Óðinn, at least, knows, Njörðr will return to Vanaheimafter Ragnarök, while Loki will be destroyed (Vafðrúnismál 39, 4-6). As to the claim about Hymir's daughters, one starts to wonder whether Loki really is crazy, as Freyja has just suggested. No myth survives that could be twisted, even by Loki, into this accusation. It has often been suggested that Loki may be referring to rivers flowing into the sea, which is of course Njörðr's special domain, but if so his mental processes are shown as bizarre to the point of insanity. Njörðr ignores the last claim completely, pointing out only that although sent to the gods as a hostage, he differs from Loki in being manly, and the father of the heroic Freyr.
And perhaps that is the best way to understand it. Loki has finally gone way too far, throwing wild accusations about and simply lying when he cannot twist what is already known to discredit a god or goddess. After all, we don't know that Tyr had a wife, or that Gefjon prostituted herself for a jewel, or that Idunn slept with her brother's slayer. It may be that all these are inventions. Meulengracht Sorensen thinks that all these accusations may be nid - in which case they don't need to be truthful, merely shameful. And of course if Loki's motive was to provoke the Aesir into violating sanctuary and attacking him, the grosser the insult the better. Truth doesn't come into it.
So in all, while Njord's role in the myths may still be a fairly quiet one, I think we can acquit him of being totally abased, however tempting it may be to assume the worst about the somewhat kinky Vanir. It may well be that Loki was insulting him precisely because of his peaceable nature and role as mediator; letting others treat you extremely badly indicates good nature taken to excess. It also may have been another side-blow at his marriage to Skadi - insinuating that Njord lets giantesses push him around, and that his status as a hostage allowed Odin to put him in the humiliating position of Baldr-substitute.
Either of these would be insulting, so we have to hand it to Loki for wrapping them both up into one pithy insult. Loki does this throughout the poem, taking shots at various goddesses for adultery, either with him or another, knowing that the aggrieved husband cannot strike back at him.[380] So if Njord is passive here, so are all the others, even Thor, who despite his threats does not give Loki the thrashing he says he will.
Njord and Idunn
The only other character in this story t
hat is as much acted on as Njord is Idunn. In a way Njord in the second half answers to Idunn in the first half, both pawns in other people’s games. Thiazi stealing Idunn has its counterpart in Skadi demanding a husband from the Aesir, and getting one. Neither Idunn nor Njord are given any say in the matter. Both also end up with a giant as the result of a trick – Loki tricks Idunn into coming with him by telling her he can show her some apples that compare to hers, while Njord is one of the gods who participates in the foot show. Skadi, of course, was aiming for Baldr, and no doubt Njord did not expect to be chosen. (If you follow Clunies Ross’s argument that Odin contrived the whole thing to prevent Skadi marrying Baldr, we have to assume that Njord was fooled just as much as Skadi was.[381])
There are many parallels between Njord and Idunn. Both are associated with fertility. With Idunn this connection is so strong that popular books often make her an honorary Van, as if her function usurped her other affiliations. If we assume that Thiazi desired Idunn for her apples of immortality, symbolic of the reproductive cycle, then we can also assume that when Skadi wanted to marry, she planned to have children with her husband. Thus Njord would be fulfilling the same function that Thiazi planned for Idunn, that of perpetuating the giant lineage. (Which raises the question: what would the status of their children have been?
Both are the objects of the giants’ quests. Thiazi subcontracts his, so to speak, forcing Loki to do his dirty work for him. Skadi, on the other hand, goes to Asgard herself in search of compensation, which includes a husband. In neither case do they get what they want – Thiazi loses Idunn and his life, Skadi is hardly married before she’s divorced. What’s interesting is that neither Njord nor Idunn get any say in the matter.
Njord and Skadi Page 21
