Freyja, lady of the Vanir: love, magic and war in the Norse world

In the Norse sources no goddess is described in such rich detail as Freyja. Beautiful, coveted by giants, owner of a legendary necklace and a cloak of falcon feathers, she is at once the goddess of love and a mistress of those who fall in battle. To know her, however, one essential fact must be remembered: almost everything we know comes from texts written down in Iceland in the thirteenth century, when the island had been Christian for more than two hundred years.

The sources and the race of the Vanir

The main witnesses are the Poetic Edda, a collection of mythological poems preserved above all in the manuscript known as the Codex Regius, and the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson, composed around 1220. Snorri presents Freyja as the daughter of the sea god Njörðr and the sister of Freyr. Both belong to the Vanir, a divine race linked to fertility which, according to myth, fought against the Æsir before making peace and exchanging hostages with them.

In the Ynglinga saga, which opens the Heimskringla, Snorri himself states that it was Freyja who taught the Æsir seiðr, a form of magic practised among the Vanir. The name Freyja simply means Lady, just as Freyr means Lord: these may be titles rather than proper names, and some scholars suggest that older deities lie hidden behind them.

The chariot of cats and the Brísingamen necklace

Snorri tells that Freyja travels in a chariot drawn by two cats, an image without parallel in other European mythologies. In the poem Hyndluljóð she rides instead a boar with golden bristles, Hildisvíni. She also owns a cloak of falcon feathers that allows its wearer to fly, which in the poem Þrymskviða she lends to Loki when he must find out who has stolen Thor's hammer.

Her most famous jewel is Brísingamen, the necklace of the Brísingar. A short late tale, the Sörla þáttr, preserved in a manuscript of the late fourteenth century, relates that the goddess obtained it from four dwarfs in exchange for a night spent with each of them. In the Þrymskviða, by contrast, the giant Þrymr demands Freyja as his bride as the price of the hammer, and the goddess grows so furious that the great necklace breaks.

Golden tears and fallen warriors

Snorri writes that Freyja delights in love songs and that it is good to call on her in matters of love. She was married to Óðr, a mysterious figure who left on long journeys; the goddess searched for him among many peoples, taking different names, and wept tears of red gold for him. For this reason in skaldic poetry gold could be referred to with metaphors linked to Freyja's weeping. The couple had a daughter, Hnoss, whose name means jewel.

Alongside love, Freyja has a bond with death in war. In the poem Grímnismál we read that in her dwelling, Fólkvangr, the goddess chooses each day half of those slain in battle, while the other half belongs to Odin. The hall in which she receives them is called Sessrúmnir. This double face has long been debated: some scholars see Freyja and Frigg, Odin's wife, as developments of a single original figure, an unprovable hypothesis.

The day of Venus in the North

The name of a Germanic goddess survives in the Friday of the northern languages, such as English Friday and German Freitag, which translated the Latin dies Veneris. Linguists more often connect these names to Frigg than to Freyja. It remains significant that those peoples chose a female deity of their own to render the day of Venus, recognising in love a power shared by different worlds.

In the sagas and poems Freyja always appears as an independent and desired goddess, able to refuse suitors and impose her own will. Between pagan memories and the reworkings of Christian authors, her figure keeps the features of a mistress of desire who rules at the same time over life, magic and death.