Vár
In
Attestations
In the Poetic Edda poem
- Benjamin Thorpe translation:
- Then said Thrym,
- the Thursars's lord:
- Bring the hammer in,
- the bride to consecrate;
- lay Miöllnir
- on the maiden's knee;
- unite us each with other
- by the hand of Vör.[3]
- Henry Adams Bellows translation:
- Then loud spake Thrym,
- the giants' leader:
- "Bring in the hammer
- to hallow the bride;
- On the maiden's knees
- let Mjollnir lie,
- That us both the hand
- of Vor may bless."[4]
In the chapter 35 of the Prose Edda book
Ninth Var: she listens to people's oaths and private agreements that women and men make between each other. Thus these contracts are called varar. She also punishes those who break them.[5]
In addition, Vár appears twice more in the Prose Edda. In chapter 75 of the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál Vár appears within a list of 27 ásynjur names.[6] In chapter 87 the name Vár is employed in a kenning referring to the goddess Skaði ("bow-string-Vár") in the poem Haustlöng by the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir.[7] A runic inscription inscribed on a stick from Bergen, Norway around the year 1300 records a common mercantile transaction followed by a verse from a displeased scribe that mentions Vár (edits applied per the translator's notes):
Mindy Macleod and Bernard Mees posit that the first line of the inscription essentially means "women make me miserable" or potentially "marriage makes me miserable," whereas the second line means "women often take a lot of sleep from me."[8]
Theories
Regarding the ceremonial marital reference to Vár in Þrymskviða, Andy Orchard opines that "the antiquity of such a ritual is far from clear."[1] Britt-Mari Näsström argues that, like many other minor goddesses, Vár was originally one of Freyja's names, "later apprehended as independent goddesses."[9]
Rudolf Simek says that the goddesses
Notes
References
- Bellows, Henry Adams (Trans.) (1923). The poetic Edda. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
- Byock, Jesse (Trans.) (2005). The Prose Edda. ISBN 0-14-044755-5
- Faulkes, Anthony (Trans.) (1995). Snorri Sturluson: Edda. First published in 1987. London: Everyman. ISBN 0-460-87616-3
- ISBN 0-19-515382-0
- Macleod, Mindy. Mees, Bernard (2006). Runic Amulets and Magic Objects. ISBN 1-84383-205-4
- Näsström, Britt-Mari (2003). Freyja - the great Goddess of the North. Harwich Port: Clock & Rose, 2003. First published: University of Lund, 1995. ISBN 1-59386-019-6.
- Orchard, Andy (1997). Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. ISBN 0-304-34520-2
- ISBN 0-85991-513-1
- Thorpe, Benjamin (Trans.) (1866). Edda Sæmundar Hinns Frôða: The Edda of Sæmund the Learned. Part I. London: Trübner & Co.