There are two things to note here, first that Loki is the "burden of Sigyn's arms" and second that "the powers eye in his bonds" - a very unusual locution. Clearly we are meant to look ahead to when Loki is bound. Moreover, Loki is about to be trapped into an action that will hand Idunn over to the "illegitimate" embrace of a giant, for the benefit of the gods' enemies generally, in contrast to the legal bond between Loki and his Asynia wife.
Further, since we know that the loosing of Loki will precipitate Ragnarok, we are not surprised that the gods are keeping a close eye on him as he is bound under the earth. (There, Sigyn's arms are burdened with the bowl of poison that keeps Loki from suffering further; a poison arranged by Thiazi's daughter.)
A final comment on binding brings us back to Loki's attempt to bring about an accord with Skadi. Binding himself to the nanny-goat, he creates what medieval folk tales called a himph-hamph. As I mentioned in the section of folktale parallels, there are several types of tale that match this sort of story: AT 559 (Dungbeetle), 571 (All stick together), and 1642 (The good bargain). The Thompson Motif Index also has a similar category: motif H341 (Suitor test: making the princess laugh), includes H341.1 (people sticking together). There are several different kinds of story like this, but the commonality is that in all cases everyone gets stuck together in embarrassing, preferably obscene, positions. Usually but not always, the idea is to make a woman laugh.[412]
The Njord-Skadi story is often described as a burlesque, but behind the humour is something serious, as is often the way. That helps to explain why Loki chose the stunt he did to amuse Thiazi's daughter, and might also look forward to Skadi's prophecy to Loki about his eventual fate. She knows that he will be bound and that while he may be kidding around about binding now, eventually it will come true in grim earnest.
Chapter 22
Conclusion
Having read through this book, I hope you will understand why I wrote this book as a series of questions. There is much we just don't know, and will never know, about Norse mythology. And there is much about the Njord-Skadi myth that is mysterious.
We needn’t imagine, however, that the myth simply runs through our fingers when we try to grasp it. There is a solid core of story, as narrated by Snorri and Thjodolf, and that remains to be interpreted and re-interpreted. Someone has suggested that the two deities were the prototype of a bicoastal relationship, which is certainly a post-Jet Age idea.
It is unknown to us how this myth was received in the day, although we can try to guess at what Thjodolf and Snorri were getting at. Among other things, both aimed to flatter with references to giant ancestry, which suggests that the modern view of gods = good and giants = bad is overly simplified and certainly post-Christian. In fact, Norwegian royalty in general tended to be proud of their giant background, and so did their relatives the Earls of Orkney.
The myth also brings forward Njord's role as mediator, since he goes so far in the interests of peace to actually marry a giantess. (So does Freyr, but that is through choice, whereas Njord has to take one for the team, so to speak.) This speaks to his role as hostage among the Aesir, and the giants if Loki is to be believed. (Loki may have been referring to his marriage, now I think about it, implying that Skadi and her friends humiliated Njord beyond bearing. It makes as much sense as that Njord might have been a hostage cementing peace with the giants.)
As I mentioned in the introduction, the myth in general inverts many genres, which tells us a lot about what an audience would have expected in a story back then. Njord (and Baldr) are placed in a passive role as much as Idunn was, while their wooer who has forced her way into hostile territory is a giantess come to Asgard, not a hero exploring giant-world and hoping for sex with a beautiful giant-maiden. Also, the gods murdered Thiazi, starting the blood-feud that brings Skadi to Asgard, while she appeals to the legal formula of atonement and compensation, bringing a very civilized sense of law despite being a woman and a giant.
Later, after their marriage, the reversals continue. Although Ian William Miller says there doesn't seem to have been a settled pattern for where young couples lived after marriage, they would normally settle down near one partner's family. Njord and Skadi begin with a compromise; either nine nights at each place, or nine and three. (The 9+3 indicates a serious power imbalance, with Skadi being able to dictate the terms.) The two divorce, which was not uncommon, but Skadi remains a goddess, and you have to wonder if one of the purposes of the myth was to explain how a giantess had the run of Asgard.
The Thiazi half of the myth is the more conventional one, being a typical story of a giant stealing or (in this case, kidnapping) something/one from the Aesir, and being killed for his pains. Loki's twisting and turning as he is pulled between god and giant halves (and betrays both) is a feature in many myths. The magical, powerful and rich Thiazi is not that unusual among giants, as I have shown; there are other wise and powerful giants. The only thing that's missing is any sense of Idunn as a person. Unlike Freyja in Thrym, who gets to give her opinion on marrying a giant, Idunn is never heard from, and it is not uncommon even in quite modern books to see her kidnap described as a theft, as if she were mere property.
Jan de Vries described the stealing of the apples as an Odinic myth, no doubt thinking of the theft of the mead. I can see the parallel, but there is very little of Odin in this story, and no Thor. (The story might have ended differently if he had been there.) The main actors are Thiazi, Loki, Skadi and Njord. Odin and Hoenir have walk-on parts, and Idunn is more acted-on than actor.
This myth, like Lks, has suffered from being relegated because of its humorous elements and inversions. Presumably all Norse myth has to be tragic to be taken seriously. As with the ancient Greek comedies, sometimes it is when an author is being funny that they are being most serious. Humour aside, it has been argued that any story with so many fairy-tale elements in it could not be a "real" myth. This too has been chipped away at throughout the last century, as many myths have been revealed to be made up of such elements, and indeed it is sometimes very hard to draw a line between the two genres.
The other barrier to this myth being taken seriously is the dismissive "it's a nature myth", with all the baggage that implies. First, nature myths are seen as cute, but out-dated, explanations of natural phenomena, no longer necessary now that we have science. Second, nature myths are seen as simple, just-so stories that are devoid of depth. I hope that in my section on theory I have shown just how many areas of human experience this "nature-myth" encompasses. (It is significant that nature myths are often collected in children's literature, another genre that attracts a lot of condescension.)
I freely admit that the "nature-myth" tag raises my own hackles, and I also bristle at the word "fertility". It seems too often to be a catch-all term that has little meaning. Writing a book about a myth involving the Vanir was always going to be a challenge for me. A statement that the Njord - Skadi myth is about the link between fertility and death, because the Vanir are fertile, while the giants represent winter and sterility, seems to me full of assumptions that should be carefully examined. Still, without such unfounded generalizations, I and many others would never have been spurred to write.
At bottom, this myth is about a marriage, even if it is a marriage that didn't work out. This is the part that brings Njord, who doesn't really do a lot in this myth, into focus, because this isn't his first marriage. He had a wife, who was also his sister, which the Aesir (and most readers and listeners) considered too close a relationship. So Njord had to give up his first wife.
His second, Skadi, was far more distant. The Aesir may have had family ties to the jotunns, but not the Vanir. They were taking no chances with Njord this time. From one extreme to the other, and neither one lasted. You can imagine the uses this story could be put to as marriage advice to young people. In Skadi's case: looks aren't everything, and a husband chosen by your family is a better bet than one you choose yourself.
The myth of Njord and Skadi seem
s to have been well-known, since it inspired both the "complaints" in the story of Hadingus, and the love-at-first-sight motif of Kormak's saga. They were probably proverbial as the couple that didn't get on, which in a society that freely granted divorce is not surprising. Everyone hearing the story could probably think of a parallel case in their own lives.
I began this book thinking that I had found a myth without a moral, but when carefully examined, this myth has several to its credit. But apart from its didactic, obvious meaning, the assumptions built into the story, both the ones that are upheld and those that are burlesqued, tell us a great deal about the mythic universe of the ancient Norse, and how that universe reflected their own lives.
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