Tag Archives: norse god

Njord

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Balder

Njord

Njord is the God of the wind and fertility as well as the sea and merchants at sea and therefore was invoked before setting out to sea on hunting and fishing expeditions. He is also known to have the ability to calm the waters as well as fire.

Njord, one of the Vanir gods, was first married to his sister Nerthus and had two children with her, Frey and Freya. His second wife was Skadi (Skade), a Giantess. When Skadi’s father was killed by the Aesir she was granted three “acts” of reparation one of which was to let her choose a husband from among the gods. She was allowed to pick her new husband but the choice had to be made by looking only at the feet. She picked Njord by mistake, assuming his feet belonged to Balder.

Njord and Skadi could not agree on where to live. She didn’t like his home Noatun at the Sea, and he didn’t like hers Trymheim, in the mountain with large woods and wolves, so they lived the first half of the year in Noatun and the other half in Trymheim.

Njord is said to be a future survivor of Ragnarök in stanza 39 of the poetic Edda:

“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.”

Balder

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Balder

Balder

Balder, son of Odin and Frigga, the god of Love and Light, is sacrificed at Midsummer by the dart of the mistletoe, and is reborn at Jul (Yule). Supposedly his return will not occur until after the onslaught of the Ragnarok, which I see as a cleansing and enlightenment more than wanton, purposeless destruction. Balder’s blind brother Hodur was his slayer, whose hand was guided by the crafty Loki. He is married to the goddess of Joy, Nanna.

Snorri Sturluson describes Balder:

There is nothing but good to be told of him. He is the best of them and everyone sings his praises. He is so fair of face and bright that a splendor radiates from him, and there is a flower so white that it is likened to Balder’s brow; it is the whitest of all flowers. From that you can tell how beautiful his body is, and how bright his hair. He is the wisest of gods, and the sweetest-spoken, and the most merciful, but it is a characteristic of his that once he has pronounced a judgement it can never be altered.

Balder’s dreams are the beginning of the end. He dreams of his own death and shows Loki the truly evil god that he is which shows the ultimate limitations and mortality of the gods. The gods capture and punish Loki but they cannot rescue Balder from Hel and the beautiful, passive god who embodies the qualities of mercy and love is lost to them. This is the beginning of the end, the first step towards Ragnarok begins.

Hel

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Hel

Hel

The goddess of the dead and the afterlife was Hel (Holle, Hulda), and was portrayed by the Vikings as being half-dead, half alive herself. The Vikings viewed her with considerable trepidation. The Dutch, Gallic, and German barbarians viewed her with some beneficence, more of a gentler form of death and transformation. She is seen by them as Mother Holle; a being of pure Nature, being helpful in times of need, but vengeful upon those who cross her or transgress natural law.

Check Wikipedia for more information.

Frigga

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Frigga

Frigga

Frigga (Frigg, Fricka), Odin’s wife, was considered to be the Mother of all; and protector of children. She spins the sacred Distaff of life, and is said to know the future, although she will not speak of it. Some believe that Friday was named for her instead of Freya (see above), and there is considerable confusion as to “who does what” among the two. The Norns (Urd, Verdande, and Skuld), are the Norse equivalent of the greek Fates. It is they who determine the orlogs (destinies) of the Gods and of Man, and who maintain the World Tree, Yggdrasil.

Skadi

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Skadi

Skadi

Skadi is the Goddess of Winter and of the Hunt. She is married to Njord, the gloomy Sea God, noted for his beautiful bare feet (which is how Skadi came to choose him for her mate.) Supposedly the bare foot is an ancient Norse symbol of fertility. The marriage wasn’t too happy, though, because she really wanted Balder for her husband. She is the goddess of Justice, Vengeance, and Righteous Anger, and is the deity who delivers the sentence upon Loki to be bound underground with a serpent dripping poison upon his face in payment for his crimes. Skadi’s character is represented in two of Hans Christian Anderson’s tales: “The Snow Queen” and “The Ice Princess.”

Heimdall

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Heimdall

Heimdall

Heimdall is the handsome gold-toothed guardian of Bifrost, the rainbow bridge leading to Asgard, the home of the Gods. The rainbow bridge seems to be a common symbol in many religious traditions other than Norse Heathenism. In the Vedic tradition, it represents the Antakaranha of humanity (connection between the body and the soul). Other traditions see it as a message from the Gods, or a Bridge between the Gods and Mankind. This would tend to indicate that the Norse/Germanic people were aware of the presence of an overshadowing Soul for each individual, as well as a group or tribal intelligence. It is Heimdall who is to sound the signal horn to the Aesir that Ragnarok, the great destruction (or transformation?) is beginning.

Loki

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Loki, the Trickster, challenges the structure and order of the Gods which is necessary in bringing about needed change. In the Prose Edda Snorri Sturluson writes that Loki:

is handsome and fair of face, but has an evil disposition and is very changeable of mood. He excelled all men in the art of cunning, and he always cheats. He was continually involving the Aesir in great difficulties and he often helped them out again by guile.

Loki

Neither an Aesir or a Vanir, he is the son of two giants and yet the foster-brother of Odin. Loki embodies the ambiguous and darkening relationship between the gods and the giants. He is dynamic and unpredictable and because of that he is both the catalyst in many of the myths and the most fascinating character in the entire mythology. Without the exciting, unstable, flawed figure Loki, there would be no change in the fixed order of things, no quickening pulse, and no Ragnarok.

He is responsible for a wager with a giant which puts Freyja into peril (Myth 3) but by changing both shape and sex (characteristics he has in common with Odin) he bails her out. In Myth 10 he shears Sif’s hair which is more mischievous than evil, but he makes amends in the end. In Myth 8 his deceit leads to the loss of the golden apples of youth… but he retrieves them again. He helps the Gods and gets them out of predicaments, but spawns the worst monsters ever seen on the face of the Earth: Fenrir, Jormungand, the Midgard Wyrm. His other children include the goddess Hel (Hella, Holle), and Sleipnir, and Odin’s 8-legged horse.

It is now generally accepted that he is not a late invention of the Norse poets but an ancient figure descended from a common Indo-European prototype and as such, Loki’s origins are particularly complex. He has been compared to a number of European and other mythological figures, most notably the Trickster of Native American mythology.

As the myths play out, the playful Loki gives way to a cruel predator, hostile to the gods. He not only guides the mistletoe dart that kills Balder but stands in his way on his return from Hel. His accusations against the gods at Aegir’s feast (Myth 30) are vicious. He is an agent of destruction causing earthquakes. And when he breaks loose at Ragnarok, Loki reveals his true colors; he is no less evil than his three appalling children, the serpent Jormungand, the wolf Fenrir and the half-dead, half-alive Hel (Myth 7), and he leads the giants and monsters into battle against the gods and heros.

Tyr

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Tyr

Tyr

Tyr is the ancient god of War and the Lawgiver of the gods. The bravest of the gods, it is Tyr who makes the binding of Fenrir (Myth 7) possible by sacrificing his right hand. At one time he was the leader of the Norse Pantheon, but was supplanted by Odin much later.

Tyr also seems to be a god of justice. His name is derived from Tiw or Tiwaz an Tacticus and other Roman writers have equated this character to Mars, the receiver of human sacrifice. His day is Tuesday.

Tyr was the son of Odin though in Myth 17 he is made out to be the son of the giant Hymir. Like Odin, he has many characteristics of the earlier Germanic gods of battle. Parallels in other mythologies along with archaeological discoveries relating to a one-handed god, suggest that this character is very old and was known in Northern Europe somewhere between one and two thousand years before Snorri Sturluson included it in his Prose Edda. Similarities can be found in the one-handed Naudu in Irish mythology and in Mitra, just god of the day, of Indian mythology.

Freyja

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Freya

Freya

Freyja (modern forms of the name include Freya, Freja, Freyia, Frøya, and Freia) is considered to be the goddess of Love and Beauty, but is also a warrior goddess and one of great wisdom and magick. She and her twin brother Freyr are of a different “race” of gods known as the Vanir. Many of the tribes venerated her higher than the Aesir, calling her “the Frowe” or “The Lady.” She is known as Queen of the Valkyries, choosers of those slain in battle to bear them to Valhalla (the Norse heaven). She, therefore, is a psychopomp like Odhinn and it is said that she gets the “first pick” of the battle slain. She wears the sacred necklace Brisingamen, which she paid for by spending the night with the dwarves who wrought it from the bowels of the earth. The cat is her sacred symbol. There seems to be some confusion between herself and Frigga, Odin’s wife, as they share similar functions; but Frigga seems to be strictly of the Aesir, while Freyja is of the Vanic race. The day Friday (Frejyasdaeg) was named for her (some claim it was for Frigga).

Thor

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Thor

Thor

Thor, also known as the Thunderer, was considered to be a son of Fjorgyn (Jord) and Odin by some, but among many tribes Thor actually supplanted Odin as the favorite god. He is considered to be the protector of all Midgard, and he wields the mighty hammer Mjollnir. Thor is strength personified. His battle chariot is drawn by two goats, and his hammer Mjollnir causes the lightning that flashes across the sky. Of all the deities, Thor is the most “barbarian” of the lot; rugged, powerful, and lives by his own rules, although he is faithful to the rest of the Aesir. The day Thursday (Thorsdaeg) is sacred to him.

Thor is married to Sif, a fertility goddess, and he also had a mistress, the giantess Jarnsaxa with whom he had two sons, Magni and Modi and a daughter, Thrud. Thor is helped by Thialfi, his servant and the messenger of the gods.

Thor was the god of war, thunder and strength. Thor destroyed the enemies of the gods with his magic hammer. It was he who chased away the frosts and called gentle winds and warm spring rains to release the earth from its bondage of ice and snow. He was also the god of the household and of the common people. He even married Sif a peasant woman. The lightning’s flash was his mighty hammer, Mjollnir, hurled in battle with the frost giants, and the rolling thunder was the rumble of his fiery chariot.

Thor was a good-natured, careless god, always ready for adventure, and never tired of trying his great strength. He could shoulder giant tasks with the greatest ease and slay bulls with his bare hands. For sport he sometimes rode among the cloud-veiled mountains, hurling his hammer at their peaks and cleaving them in twain.

This adventurous god once visited Jotunheim, the land of the giants. The king of the giants looked at him scornfully and said, “Is this stripling the mighty god, Thor? Perhaps you are mightier than you appear. What feats do you deem yourself skilled in?” I will test my prowess in a drinking bout with anyone,” smiled Thor.

The king thereupon bade the cup bearer bring a drinking horn, and said, “Whosoever is a good drinker is able to drain this horn at a single drought.” Thor placed the horn to his lips and drank long and deep, but when he removed it the liquid had scarcely diminished. Three times he tried to empty the horn and failed, and at last he threw it down in disgust.

Next he was challenged to lift the king’s cat from the ground. After a great effort he only managed to raise one of its paws. “Is this the mighty god we have been taught to fear?” scoffed the king.

Thor held his temper and offered to wrestle with anyone who would stand against him, and a toothless old crone accepted the challenge. Thor placed his arms about the woman and tried to pull her towards him but she refused to budge. Thor scratched his head and tried again. Still he could not move her. Next he pushed her hard then shouldered her, still she stood like a rock. Then with mad rushes Thor attempted to throw the frail woman to the floor, but in spite of his best efforts he could not succeed and was in turn lucky to stay upright himself when she wrestled with him.
In great shame he departed the palace.

Outside the gates he was surprised to see the king ride up to him. “Mighty Thor,” said the king taking him by the shoulder, “when you attempted to empty the drinking horn you preformed a feat so marvelous, that had I not seen it myself, I should never have believed it. At the end of the horn lay the sea itself, and when you come to the shore you will see how much the waters have fallen away.

Then terror overcame everyone when you lifted the cat’s paw from the ground, for that cat is the serpent that encircles the earth, and the whole world shuddered when its hold was loosened.

To stand against the old crone for so long was marvelous, for it was indeed old age with whom you wrestled, and no man may conquer her. It was not the prowess of the frost giants that overcame you Thor, it was their magic.”

Thor, in wrath at being so tricked, reached for his hammer, but when he would have thrown it, the king of the giants had disappeared. Thor returned to his mountain peak and continued to beat his hammer for the world but with ever-increasing sadness. The fifth day of the week is still called ‘Thor’s day’ after this strong god.

Thor is usually portrayed as a large, powerful man with a red beard and eyes of lightning. Despite his ferocious appearance, he surpassed his father Odin in popularity because, contrary to Odin, he did not require human sacrifices. In his temple at Uppsala he was shown standing with Odin at his right side. This temple was replaced by a Christian church in 1080.

The Norse believed that during a thunderstorm, Thor rode through the heavens on his chariot pulled by the goats Tanngrisni (“gap-tooth”) and Tanngnost (“tooth grinder”). Lightning flashed whenever he threw his hammer Mjollnir. Thor wears the belt Megingjard which doubles his already considerable strength. His hall is Bilskirnir, which is located in the region Thrudheim (“place of might”). His greatest enemy is Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent. At the day of Ragnarok, Thor will kill this serpent but will die from its poison. His sons will inherit his hammer after his death.