Sister-wife of Njörðr

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In Norse mythology, the sister-wife of Njörðr is the unnamed wife and sister of the god Njörðr, with whom he is described as having had the (likewise incestuous) twin children Freyr and Freyja. This shadowy goddess is attested to in the Poetic Edda poem Lokasenna, recorded in the 13th century by an unknown source, and the Heimskringla book Ynglinga saga, a euhemerized account of the Norse gods composed by Snorri Sturluson also in the 13th century but based on earlier traditional material. The figure receives no further mention in Old Norse texts.

The situation is further complicated in that narratives describing the birth of Freyr and Freyja contradictorily cite the birth of the siblings occurring either after or before Njörðr left Vanaheimr to live among the Æsir. In addition, Freyr is referred to as the "son" of Njörðr and the goddess Skaði in the Poetic Edda poem Skírnismál.

In his first-century work Germania, Tacitus describes rituals surrounding a deity by the name of Nerthus, a theonym that is etymologically ancestral to Old Norse Njörðr. However, the figure described by Tacitus is female. Based on this scholars have suggested a Proto-Germanic hermaphroditic deity or a gender aspectual pair (similar to Freyja and Freyr), identified the obscure Old Norse goddess name Njörun as a potential name for the otherwise unnamed goddess, and in some cases identified a potential reflex of a narrative about Njörðr and his sister-wife in Saxo Grammaticus's 12th-century work Gesta Danorum.

Textual background

In a

euhemerized account of the gods in Ynglinga saga chapter 4, Snorri Sturluson
characterizes Freyr and Freyja as the offspring of Njörðr by his unnamed sister, to whom he was married by Vanic custom:

Old Norse

Þá er Njǫrðr var með Vǫnum, þá hafði hann átta systur sína, því at þat váru þar lǫg; váru þeira bǫrn Freyr ok Freyja.[1]

Lee M. Hollander translation (1992)

While Njorth lived with the Vanir he had his sister as wife, because that was the custom among them. Their children were Frey and Freya.[2]

In the Eddic poem Lokasenna, Loki also states that Njörðr had Freyr by his sister:

Old Norse

við systor þinni
gaztu slíkan mǫg

Ursula Dronke translation (1997)

on your sister
you begot such a son[3]

In contrast, in the Gylfaginning section of his Prose Edda, after telling the story of Njörðr's unhappy marriage to Skaði that occurred after he came to live among the Æsir, Snorri states that Freyr and Freyja were born after that; Freyr is also presented as the son of Njörðr and Skaði in the Eddic poem Skírnismál.[4] However, in Ynglinga saga Freyr, and presumably Freyja, accompanies Njörðr when he comes to live with the Æsir as a hostage after the Æsir–Vanir War;[5] and Lokasenna alludes to Freyja having been "surprised" in Vanic incest with her brother.[6]

Scholarly interpretation

Scholars since

Phol and Volla may also be a pair.[13]

References

  1. ^ Ynglinga saga ch. 4, ed. Finnur Jónsson.
  2. ISBN 9780292730618
    , pp. 6–50, p. 8.
  3. ISBN 9780198111818
    , p. 341.
  4. ^ Gylfaginning ch. 13 (24): "Njǫrðr í Nóatúnum gat síðan tvau bǫrn. Hét sonr Freyr en dóttir Freyja." In Skírnismál Skaði calls Freyr "our boy" (okkarr mǫgr: "okkarn mála mǫg", verse 1, line 3) and Skírnir responds referring to him as "son of you two" (ykkarr sónr: "at ykrom syni", verse 2, line 2); Dronke, p. 376.
  5. ^ Ynglinga saga, ch. 4.
  6. ^ Lokasenna verse 32, Dronke, p. 340.
  7. OCLC 457311367
    , note 1, p. 219: "Niörðr and Nerthus were brother and sister, and joint parents of Freyr and Freyja".
  8. OCLC 3264532
    , p. 162, note 2, p. 306.
  9. OCLC 174729601
    , pp. 174–75, note  1, p. 175 (in German).
  10. ISBN 9780859913690
    , p. 234.
  11. ISBN 9780226169729
    , p. 50–61.
  12. ^ Grimm, p. 217.
  13. ^ Joseph S. Hopkins, "Goddesses Unknown I: Njǫrun and the Sister-Wife of Njǫrðr", RMN Newsletter 5 (2012) 39–44; note 5, p. 43.
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