WORD STUDY:
What Sort of a Son is Frey to Njörd?

The late 13th or early 14th century Gunnars þáttr helmings, preserved in the Flateyjarbók, contains a religious parody recounting the plight of a man named Gunnar who flees from Norway to Sweden in 995 AD, the first year of Olafr's reign, taking refuge there with a priestess of Frey. He accompanies her as she travels among her people giving arbót ('help with the crops'). In this procession, Frey represented by a wooden idol and his wife, the priestess, ride in a horse-drawn wagon through the countryside, just as Nerthus rides in a covered wagon drawn by cattle, attended by a priest of the opposite sex. The time of the procession is marked with peace and feasting. Gunnarr bravely leads the horse through a blizzard, but when he requires rest and sits in the wagon, Frey attacks him. As they wrestle, Gunnar vows to return to King Olafr and the Christian faith should he survive. At once, “the devil” exits the wooden idol and takes flight allowing Gunnar to smash the statue to pieces. Impersonating Frey, Gunnar impregnates the priestess before returning to Norway and Christianity. Here too, good harvests are attributed to the god.

Intended to make light of the pagan past, this story instead confirms many of the details of the Nerthus cult as described by Tacitus: an idol is drawn through the countryside in a wagon, attended by a priest of the opposite sex; only the priest can sense the presence of the god and touch the idol; during the procession, peace reigns. At the very least, this tale provides evidence that people in the early fourteenth century accepted the idea that heathen religious processions conveying effigies of heathen idols through the countryside were still taking place during the reign of Olaf Tryggvasson. In Christian times, images of saints were drawn through the fields for a similar purpose.

It is unlikely that this "Isis" was related to the cult of the Egyptian goddess, whose range is well mapped throughout the ancient world. More likely is that Tacitus' informers witnessed a ship procession devoted to a native Germanic goddess. Noteworthy in this regard, the 3rd century Germanic goddess Nehalennia named on 160 votive altars from the second and third centuries. Twenty-eight of these are found on the Rhine island of Walchern in the Netherlands. A similar number were discovered in 1971-72 at Colijnsplaat on the island of Noord-Beveland. Two more were found in the Cologne-Deutz area. She is most often depicted resting against the prow of a ship or an oar.

The twelfth century monk Rudolfus from the Abbey of St. Trond, in his account of a Carnival festival in the district of Jülich, in Lower Germany pens a detailed report about the year 1133 (Chronicon Abbatiae S. Trudonis, Book XI).  In a forest near Inda (in Ripuaria), a ship was built, set upon wheels, and drawn about the country by "rustic folk" who were yoked to it; first to Aix-la-Chappelle, then to Maestricht, where mast and sail were added, and up the river to Tongres, Looz, and so on, everywhere with crowds of people assembling and escorting it. Wherever it stopped there were joyful shouts, songs of triumph and dancing round the ship kept up till far into the night. The approach of the ship was made known in advance to the towns; the people opened the gates and went out to meet it.

Ship-processions at the beginning of spring continued in various parts of Germany to the end of the Middle Ages. The custom of drawing a plough seems, however, to have been more widespread among the ancient Germans, and has survived down to the present day in some German villages on Shrove Tuesday, more often on Plough Monday. In some districts of Germany, a ship was drawn in addition to the plough. In Ulm on the Danube a ship-procession took place annually down to 1530 when an order by the city council put a stop to it.  A ship-cart was drawn in the Nuremberg procession of maskers ("Schembartlauf") from 1475 on. A closer analysis of the content of these rituals, such as the Anglo-Saxon Aecerbot, demonstrates that these wagon and ship processions at the beginning of spring were closely associated with the communal "opening of the fields" that would ensure a successful harvest.

This is most certainly a Germanic rite. We find it elsewhere among the Scandinavian heathens.  The German historian Thietmar of Merseburg, writing in the beginning of the eleventh century, relates as follows about the heathen practices of the Danes:

"There is a place in those regions which is the capital of the realm, called Lederun, in that part of the country which is called Selon where, every ninth year, in the month of January, somewhat later than our Christian Yuletide, they assemble together and sacrifice to their gods 99 men and as many horses, dogs, and cocks, believing that these will be of service to them in the realm of the dead and atone for their misdeeds."

There can be no doubt that Selon here represents Zealand (Old Norse Selund) and that Lederun stands for Lejre (Old Norse at Hleiftrum, Old Danish at Ledhrum).

Snorri mentions a winter market at Uppsala held at the same time as the cult feast and Thing of the Svear. This is probably identical with the Disþing attested in Upplandslagen (1296 AD).  At Uppsala, the name of the market, Disþing, also indicates a pre-Christian assembly attached to the cult of the Disir.

 Like Freyr, elves are also associated with kingship.  The most famous example is that of Olaf Geirstada-alfr, "Olaf the elf of Geirstad" as told in Ólafs Saga Helga, ch. 106 preserved in the Flateyjarbók. Regarding King Ólaf Haraldsson, the source informs us that his contemporaries believed that he was the ancient king Ólaf Geirstada-alf reborn. The king, it adds, had heard this but labeled it heathen superstition. Ólaf Geirstadaalf was reputed to be the uncle of Harald Fairhair, a descendant of the Ynglings and the first king to unify Norway. The story of Ólaf Geirstadaalf, as found in the Flateyjarbók says that he ruled in two counties, Upsi and Vestmar. His throne was in Geirstadir in Vestfold. According to the Fornaldarsaga known as Af Upplendinga Konungum. (“Of the Kings of Uppland”), he was unusually large, strong, and handsome in appearance. It is said that he defended his kingdom bravely against foes, and that under his leadership, good harvests and peace, for the most part, prevailed so that the people multiplied greatly.

Yet, once he was troubled by a worrisome dream. Before an assembly gathered for this purpose, King Ólaf revealed that he had dreamed that a big, black ox from the east traveled around his entire country, killing so many people with its noxious breath that those who died were as numerous as those that survived. The ox even killed him and his retinue. Ólaf interpreted the dream for them, saying: “Long has peace reigned in this kingdom and good harvests, but the population is now greater than the land can bear. The ox means that a plague will come to the country from the east and cause many deaths. My retinue will also die of it and even I, myself.” He requested that the people not sacrifice to him after his death. In time, King Ólaf's dream came true. The people laid him in a mound with many treasures, and later, when bad harvests came, the people sacrificed to him, despite his prohibition, and called him Geirstada-alf (“the elf of Geirstad”). This story, told in the Flateyjarbók, is associated with a verse in Ynglingatal 38 occurring in variants in the Flateyjarbók and Heimskringla. These stories of Ólaf the elf were not written later than 1200, and thus are among the older stories of St. Ólaf in existence. They contain remarkable parallels to the cult of Freyr.

Details concerning Freyr's cult can be gathered from diverse sources. In the Flateyjarbók tale, Freyr is called blótguð svía, the “sacrificial god of the Swedes.” In Ynglingasaga 4, a euhemerized Odin appoints Njörd and Freyr as blótgoða (sacrificial priests) among the Aesir. Njörd's daughter, Freyja, is their blótgyðja (sacrificial priestess). In Víga-Glum’s Saga, ch. 9, a man named Thorkel goes to Freyr's temple and offers the god an ox. In Brandkrossa þáttur, ch. 1, a farmer kills and cooks a bull, dedicating the entire feast to Freyr. In Hyndluljóð, Ottar reddens the Freyja's altar with ox blood (nauta blóði).  In the first book of Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Dancorum, the hero Hadding institutes the annual festival known as the Fröblot, Frø being the Danish equivalent of Freyr, in which only “dark-colored” (furvis) victims were sacrificed, recalling the black ox of Ólaf Geirstadaalf's dream. The color black, commonly associated with death or evil in Christian iconography, was the color of fertility and the soil in Old Europe. In Hrafnkels Saga Freysgóða, Freyr's priest Hrafnkel dedicates half of all his best livestock to the god (ch. 2). His most valuable animal was a dun stallion with a dark tail and mane, and a dark stripe down its back (ch. 3). He loved this horse so much that he dedicated half of it to Freyr, naming it Freyfaxi.

The nickname alfr (elf) applied to King Olaf buried in a gravemound has suggested to some scholars like E.O.G. Turville-Petre (Myth and Religion of the North, p. 231) that the alfr have come to be identified with the dead. This in turn is supposed to explain how men can be descended from elves. From the existing examples in the lore, however, the connection appears to be more direct.

The identity of the "black-elves" or dwarves known as Ivaldi's sons can be established from the surviving references. They are three in number, commonly called Thjazi, Egil and Idi. Elsewhere Thjazi is known as the giant who kidnaps Idunn. For the evidence demonstrating the connection between the "giant" Thjazi and the "elf" artist of the same name, see The Æsir and the Elves. The artisans known as the Sons of Ivaldi are the offspring of an elf father and a giantess mother, allowing them to thus be characterized by both tribal affiliations, depending on their current loyalties. They were once friends of the gods, producing treausres for them, and because of Loki's perfidy became their most bitter foes, causing devastating destruction on the gods' creation, before the Æsir were able to slay Thjazi and reconcile with the elf-clan.

As part of this reconciliation, after Thjazi's death, Frey's father Njörd marries Thjazi's daughter, Skadi. In Heimskringla, Hakon Jarl claims direct descent from her.  In Ynglingasaga chapter 9, Snorri informs us:

 According to the later reading Thjazi once had been Thor's ofrúni, Thor's trusted friend. This reading finds its support in the myths if Thjazi is a Son of Ivaldi, a treasure-maker for the gods, particularly Thor. When Loki cut off Sif's hair, he went to the Sons of Ivaldi first to ask them favor in replacing it, demonstrating their initial goodwill and friendship toward the Æsir. Even though only one of the two variant readings can be the original, both are found in ancient manuscripts and both can be mythologically justified.

Borr's sons slay Ymir by Giovanni Casselli (1977)

Thjazi is said to be the son of Allvaldi and of Ölvaldi, which both seem to be variant names of Ivaldi. Hrafnagaldur Óðins 6 identifies Ivaldi as an elf, and the father of Idunn. It says that he has two sets of children, a younger and an older set.  In Grímnismál and in the Prose Edda, Ivaldi is the father of the famous sons who crafted treasures for the gods such as Skidbladnir. In Haustlöng, which alludes to the myth of Thjazi and Idunn, Thjazi owns several magic objects: a decoy-reindeer, a pole that cannot be released, a fire that won't cook, and a feather-guise. Völund escapes Nidhad's smithy in a flying device of his own making. In Thidreks Saga of Bern, Velund's brother Egill the archer collects feathers for its construction. The same scene may be depicted on one panel of the Franks Casket. As the creator of an eagle-guise, later worn by Odin, Thjazi may be the author of all the mythic feather-guises, predominately worn by the goddesses such as the falcon-dresses of Frigg and Freyja, as well as the swan-dresses of his and his brothers' wives.  The forge of the Sons of Ivaldi are the most likely source of these mythic treasures.