Finally, both Njord and Idunn had to spend time among the giants as either kidnap victim or hostage, if Loki is to be believed. Hst is silent about how Idunn spent her time among the giants, but we know that Njord was humiliated by giantesses and presumably was not happy. I think we can assume that like him, Idunn was pining for home.
Chapter 17
What is a Hostage?
In his book Hostages in the Middle Ages, Kosto lays out what he considers the definition of a hostage, as distinct from what we would think of as a hostage now. It consists of five elements[382]:
guarantor of an agreement
not subject to ransom
a third party
actually or potentially subject to loss of physical liberty
given rather than taken
You can see that medieval hostages were quite different from what we imagine today. These days we think of those schoolgirls taken by Boko Haram, or sailors or oil-rig workers kidnapped by Somali pirates and held to ransom. (This isn't to say that similar things didn't happen in early times, just that the institution of hostages was something different from these sorts of violent acts.)
Njord's status as hostage certainly fits four out of the five criteria above, although I'm not sure about his standing as a third party. If he were involved in the war against the Aesir, he would be an interested party.
He definitely fits the first requirement and the fifth; however, as he and his son were given freely to the Aesir as part of an agreement between the two parties after they realized that neither side would win the war between them. As a guarantor of a peace agreement, he was naturally not subject to ransom. How much he was confined is an open question - if we assume that Noatun is in Asgard, then that limits his mobility, although he did go to Thrymheim with Skadi. (We also know that he returns to Vanaheimat Ragnarök, so we have to assume that the deal between the two sides has expired then, or Njord feels that it has.) Although there were cases of people offering themselves as hostages conditionally, Henry II, for example, offered himself as hostage for the customs that were granted to the burghers of Namur, no one imagined that he was going into captivity.[383]
High-status prisoners in medieval and renaissance times did not share the privations that poorer people did. When you think of, for example, Mary Stuart in captivity, remember that her household consisted of fifty servants, which the English queen paid for. Another good example is Manuel II, a fourteenth-century Byzantine prince who was definitely a hostage, but not lacking for comforts.
Njord, according to the account in Hkr, seems to have been a hostage after the Roman model. In the early days, the Romans took hostages after or instead of battles, but as the empire grew, they adopted the practice of taking princely hostages at a young age and educating them in Roman ways. The British king Togidubnus was one such, in what was an odd sort of catch-and-release program that the Romans used to build up a network of client-kings. (The other main purpose of hostages, of course, was to demonstrate Roman might; Cleopatra and possibly Boudicca killed themselves to avoid just that fate.)
We know that when Njord went to live among the Aesir he had to give up his wife, since brother-sister marriage was not allowed among the Aesir; that seems a lot to swallow in the name of peace, but it does seem to be part of an assimilation process that also saw both Njord and Freyr being given priesthoods and being included in the Aesir's councils, just as Hoenir and Mimir were among the Vanir. (If we accept Clunies-Ross' idea that Njord was the "forced card" in the bridegroom line-up, then you could argue that the Aesir took the acculturation so far as to push Njord into another marriage.)
Another point to emphasize is that all four, or five if you count Kvasir, went freely. That is the difference between hostage-giving and hostage-taking. When Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates, that was hostage-taking, and all too familiar to us. (Although his haughty demeanour and repeated claims to consideration as a Roman make you wonder why they didn't dump him overboard. Presumably they just kept thinking of the ransom.) Kosto, on the other hand, thinks that the institution of hostages depended on the hostage acting as a form of surety, and undertaking this willingly.
The whole idea of hostage as surety fits well with Njord in more ways than one. First because all four hostages acted as a guarantee of good behaviour by Ases and Vans, and second because of the peculiar legal status it involved. Suretyship involved an odd combination of real and personal surety, since:
Hostages have been understood as a mixture of the two: they are people, but from a legal standpoint they are treated as things (not unlike slaves).[384]
When we consider the Skadi - Njord myth, with Njord and the other gods having to appear barefoot and with faces covered before Skadi, and the loss of status involved, we have to think that he was being treated in the same equivocal fashion - as a bargaining chip in a settlement, both person and thing. Further, Lindow and Mundal argue that all the gods in the line-up are being treated this way.
The use of hostages to increase one's power and prestige did not cease with the Romans, and:
strong unifying forces are discernible wherever a competent warlord set out to lead his co-ruling nobles into successive cycles of campaigning and the subsequent distribution of conquered land and the wider spoils of war (slaves, women, hostages, treasure, tributes, armaments)...[385]
Which raises the question of whether, when the Vanir decided to throw in Kvasir as a third hostage besides the agreed-upon two each, they were acknowledging a superior power, or showing how generous they could be with their own. The equal distribution of Aesir and Vanir hostages would have signalled both the truce that ended the war, and carefully left both parties with equal prestige, since both got two hostages.
The contrast between Kvasir, whom the Vanir had freely given to the Aesir and who was supposed to be the "wisest" of men, and the silent Hoenir may have been the tipping point for the Vanir; the exchange was not equal after all, and their gesture of goodwill disrespected.
A final point, which Kosto illustrates with the story of William Marshal. He had been handed over by his father, John, to King Stephen to guarantee a truce during a siege. When Stephen's men found out that John Marshal had used the truce to build up his fortifications, they advised the king to kill young William. Stephen, furious, agreed, but finally could not bring himself to have the boy killed. This, as Kosto points out, rendered William useless as a hostage, and eventually Stephen released him. This was consistent with medieval practice; even in cases where someone stood surety for bail and would have been imprisoned if the person did not appear, the guarantor usually was fined rather than actually locked up.[386]
Dr. Beachcombing's blog points out how rarely a hostage was executed, even when the hostage-givers reneged. (Which is not to say it didn't happen, but the circumstances had to be right. Inter-religious hostilities during the Crusades often ended badly, and a story from Ireland where when Diarmait of Leinster welched on the deal for the second time his son paid the price.)[387] Dr. Beachcombing also instances both Catherine of Sforza and John Marshall boasting that they could have more children.[388] It might go some way to explaining why when the Vanir cut off Mimir's head, it didn't reactivate the war, as we would have expected.
In a situation like the one the two groups of gods faced, where there was no superior arbitrator to take their case to, and no reason to trust each other, the legal guarantee offered by hostage-exchange was the best they could hope for. That's not to say that both sides wouldn't try to game the system, either.[389] But if the Aesir wanted to focus on keeping the jotunar at bay, they didn't need another enemy tying up their resources in a war against a foe that also had a reproductive advantage, as well as being nearly their equal in wisdom, strength, and magic. So it was to their long-term advantage to swallow the insult offered Mimir, and, Odin-like, turn it to their advantage.
Chapter 18
Why did Skadi have to choose by their feet?
One of the odder features of this rather
odd myth is the choice of bridegroom by his feet. Naturally the audience for this story wouldn't have thought much to that sort of marriage, and you wonder what on earth possessed the Aesir to make the offer, and Skadi to accept it. And why feet?
The first thing you would think of when contemplating a line-up of barefoot gods is that they were either showing penitence or had been defeated.[390] In medieval times those were two common times for someone to appear barefooted before another, especially someone who could certainly afford shoes. Either condition would be pleasing to Skadi, who no doubt felt that the gods should be showing remorse for killing her father, and while we can't say that she defeated them, the fact that she had penetrated into Asgard and was negotiating terms with them was a victory of sorts. Lindow tells us that:
in the reconciliation effected in 1265 between the archbishop and city council of Cologne, the members of the latter and co-conspirators were made to face the archbishop in such garb [bareheaded, without belts, and barefoot] and to declare their sorrow over their actions.
Thus Skadi would be in the role of the authority figure, who would normally be male.
The other thing that modern Westerners might think of is fairy tales, and especially Cinderella. (Although there are Indian and Chinese versions of the Cinderella story, too.) I have already mentioned the Indian folktale in which a father and son choose their brides by their footsteps, only to find that the father has chosen the daughter and the son the mother. Stith Thompson's Motif Index has a category H365, "Bride test: size of feet". The main difference between Cinderella and Njord is that while the prince wanted her, Skadi had her eye on someone completely different. Regnilda, too, got Hadingus, which was the whole point of the trick in the first place. By comparison, Skadi's choice by feet (or lower legs) seems unmotivated; there's no reason why it should be feet rather than hands or anything else. I discuss this a bit in the section on folktale parallels, but I think that John Lindow is right; Cinderella bears only a superficial resemblance to Njord.
The other major parallel in Norse literature is equally unmotivated, except at the level of love at first sight. The skald Kormak falls for Steingerdr when he gets a glimpse of her bare feet, and immediately is inspired to make a verse about it. In a later paper, John Lindow revises his opinions about the bridegroom line-up and suggests that Skadi had a similar coup de foudre; having been struck with sudden "mad vanic love"[391] for a beautiful foot, she justifies it by saying it must be Baldr's - no one else could be so gorgeous. (One wonders if Njord was flattered or annoyed.) Skadi is a woman, and Kormak is a man, and the other victim of sudden love is a god: Freyr. When he sat in Odin's high-seat, he saw Gerdr raise her arms, and fell for her on the spot.
As Lindow points out, neither feet nor arms are innocent in Norse myth. Both Skadi and Gerdr are giants, and the first of the giants, Ymir, conceived more beings from between his feet and the sweat in his underarm.
Under the arm of the frost giant they say
A maid and lad grew together;
One foot on the other begat
The six-headed son of the giant.
(Vaf. 33)
(According to Snorri, the left armpit. He's good on those kind of details.) Lindow thinks that the gods were subtly underlining their superiority even as they acted contrite:
When Snorri wrote that Skaði was to choose on the basis of the feet and invited his readers or listeners to imagine a scene in which all the Æsir reveal their feet to her, then, Aurgelmir’s or Ymir’s monstrous, promiscuous, incestuous feet present themselves inevitably. The Æsir reminded Skaði of one of the many defects in her ancestry, and at the same time they showed that they had perfectly normal feet, without any sexual appetites whatever. To some extent, then, they would have mitigated the act of contrition I posited in my earlier piece on Skaði and would also have been mocking her.[392]
Later, when Loki taunted her in Lks, he may have been making the same point about giant sexuality being abnormal, to the point where Skadi would sleep with the people who killed her father.
As I have noted elsewhere, it is only the giants who can reproduce asexually like this, and although medieval Icelanders wouldn't have known that asexual reproduction is limited to simpler life-forms, they would have known that it was odd, and non-human. The Aesir and Vanir, who are closer to humans, reproduce the way that humans do. The versatility of the giants (since we have to assume that Thor and Odin got children on various giantesses the normal way) gives colour to Thor's justification of giant-bashing: if I didn't, there'd be no room for humans.[393] (Note also Clunies-Ross' interpretation of Vsp; she assumes that the gods created first the dwarves and then humans after their encounter with the three giant girls, presumably to fill up the world.[394]) We know from Freyja's reaction in Thrym and Skirnir's curses to Gerdr that the giants were considered sexually voracious, which gives point to Thor's words.
In fact, the creation of the first humans is an important example of the difference between gods and giants. Both Ymir's offspring and Askr and Embla are created in unusual ways, but there are significant differences. First, the gods start with actual matter, in the form of driftwood for humans, earth or stone for dwarves.
The giants start from scratch, so to speak, or at least from bodily fluids. Thus the giants' origin is entirely maculate; body heat, or sweat, brought them into being. It is up-close and couldn't be more personal. The humans, on the other hand, are created at a distance, and by some sort of magical process, one assumes, since Odin was involved. (It's also interesting that there are three gods, just as there were three giant-maidens; was Odin making the point that he didn't need his jotunn kin to populate the world?)
Once again, then, we see a distance being created between giants and gods, and the emphasis on feet a reminder of the sweaty, symbolically incestuous origin of the giants, which the Aesir reject. In an act of symbolic ju-jitsu, they take what would seem to be Skadi's triumph and try to turn it to their advantage.
A further possibility also focuses on physical difference, but this time between Aesir and Vanir. The Vanir are noted for their physical splendour: Freyr is the phallic god, enormously so, while his sister Freyja is so beautiful that both gods and giants desire her.[395] The Aesir are more notable for physical absence: Odin has one eye, Tyr one hand. (The story of Mimir illustrates this in a different way - after the Vanir behead him, he is reanimated by Odin, as a bodiless head that is a source of magical wisdom.) The contrast between the wise, bodiless head and the Vanir's association with the body, and especially the lower body, is pointed. Skadi chooses by selecting from the lower bodies of the gods on show - no wonder she didn't get Baldr.
Chapter 19
Why is Loki so vulgar?
When Skadi, disappointed in her choice of a husband, demanded that the gods make her laugh, everyone listening to the story must have thought, what will Loki do? The answer is simple, but rather shocking. He took a rope, tied one end to his testicles and the other to a nanny-goat’s beard, and played tug-of-war, shrieking in pain, until the rope broke, he fell into Skadi’s lap, and she laughed.
I think these days people would be offended, or a best bemused, by such bumpkin antics. The only thing I can think of that comes close is the scene is Huckleberry Finn where the Duke and Dauphin perform onstage naked and covered in paint. The outraged audience runs them out of town on a rail.
Loki, of course, hadn’t promised anyone a performance of Shakespeare, and nobody would have expected anything refined from him. But wasn’t he running the risk of offending an already angry and disappointed woman, who may well have felt that the Aesir had pulled a fast one?[396] The answer comes in four parts, and involves psychology, myth, and danger.
First of all, people seem to have had a more robust sense of humour back then. Even deities. After all, how long would you find it amusing to throw spears at Baldr? Five minutes? Most of the funny bits in the myths and sagas are pretty primitive. The Thor myths are a case in point – in one myth two giantesses t
ry to drown him by pissing a huge river for him to cross. And I suppose really that the old sense of humour hasn’t really gone away, it’s just moved to South Park and Jackass. If you put Loki’s antics on YouTube, it would probably get lots of hits.
Life was short and harsh back then, and perhaps the point of other people’s pain was that it wasn’t happening to you. Tragedy is when it happens to you, comedy when it happens to someone else. These days we prefer to watch pain and humiliation in the form of X-Factor and Pop Idol. But in the same way that they cheerfully watched torture, executions, and bear-baiting, medieval people seem to have found pain funny in a way we don’t now. The fairytale about the princess who never smiled until she saw an old woman slip and fall on ice seems shocking to most modern people.
Education, too, makes a difference. The sophisticated works of court skalds wouldn’t have meant much to most people, who wouldn’t have been able to unravel the kennings and involved wordplay. What circulated amongst the peasantry was a sort of lowest-common-denominator humour that probably reflected the earthy conditions of their own lives.
Second, Skadi laughed because of the way Loki was playing with status, gender and even the atonement the Aesir had promised Skadi. The most obvious thing is that the test of making the woman laugh is a suitor test - in theory, when Loki makes her laugh, it is a prelude to marrying her. The fact that the trick he uses involves binding himself and being painfully pulled along by a goat alludes to how Thiazi battered him into doing his will, and it implies that not only a powerful giant but also a nanny-goat can drag him around. Also, there was a medieval penalty for adultery, which John Lindow thinks, must have influenced this incident, in which:
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