Freya, goddess of love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold and seiðr

Freya

In Norse mythology, Freya, also known as Gefn, Hörn, Mardöll, Sýr, and Vanadís, is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (also anglicized as seidhr , seidh , seidr , seithr , or seith.) Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot drawn by two cats, is accompanied by the boar Hildisvíni, and wears a cloak of falcon feathers. With her husband, Óðr, she is the mother of two daughters, Hnoss and Gersemi. Along with her twin brother Freyr, her father Njörðr, and her mother (Njörðr's sister, unnamed in sources), she is a member of the Vanir. Originating from the Old Norse Freyja, modern forms of the name include Freya, Freyia, and Freja.

Freya rules her celestial domain, Fólkvangr, and daily roams the battlefields and collects half of the warriors who have died in battle, with the other half going to the god Odin's hall, Valhalla. She may do this as a reward for initiating the god into the practice of seidr magic. In this guise, she is called Val-Freyja and also receives the souls of unmarried women. Within Fólkvangr is her hall, Sessrúmnir. Freyja assists other deities by allowing them to wear her feathered cloak. She is invoked in matters of fertility and love and is often sought out by powerful jötnar who wish to make her their wife, as when an unnamed giant offers to build an impenetrable wall around Asgard and asks for Freya's hand in payment; there is also the story of the giant Thrym stealing the hammer Mjölnir from the god Thor and asking for the goddess as his wife in exchange for the hammer. The goddess was also known for her promiscuity and lasciviousness, and the best example is the story of how she acquired her golden necklace, Brisingamen, in which she offers to sleep with the four dwarves who were making the jewel. However, do not think that the goddess allowed anyone to affront or attack her with words, as in a poem in which Loki accuses her of having slept with all the gods and elves in the hall, to which she rises and affronts the god. Freya is the goddess of love, sensuality, and magic, but she is also the goddess of war, leader of the Valkyries and the Vanir, and has the same thirst for blood during combat as all the other Æsir , some say even more than them!

Freya

Freya was fond of jewels and all that was beautiful, and was very jealous of all her possessions, but that was not why the goddess was associated with gold. It was believed that the goddess's tears turned into gold nuggets when they fell to the earth, and into amber stones when they fell into the sea. She cried all the time as she traveled the nine worlds in search of her lost husband. This journey she made followed the path of the sun, and many ancients believed that while the goddess was searching for her beloved, the world was cold and sad, and when she found him, the world was filled with light and warmth, and for this reason, she was also linked to the sun and the earth.

Due to numerous similarities, scholars often connect Freya with the goddess Frigga. The connection with Frigga, and the possible earlier identification of Freyja with Frigg in the Proto-Germanic period (Frigga and Freya origin hypothesis) remains a matter of scholarly discourse. Regarding a Freya–Frigga common origin hypothesis, scholar Stephan Grundy comments: "The problem of whether Frigga or Freya may originally have been a single goddess is a difficult one, made more so by the paucity of pre-Viking age references to Germanic goddesses, and the varying quality of the sources. The best that can be done is to examine the arguments for and against their identity and see how each can be supported."

Freya

Like the name of the group of gods to which Freya belongs, the Vanir, the name Freya is not attested outside Scandinavia, unlike the name of the goddess Frigga, who is attested as a common goddess among the Germanic peoples, and whose name is reconstructed as Proto-Germanic *Frijjō. Similar evidence for the existence of a common Germanic goddess from which Freya descended does not exist, but scholars comment that this may simply be due to a lack of evidence.

Popular Culture: Freyja has been featured in several video games, such as Ensemble Studios' 2002 game Age of Mythology, where she is one of the nine minor gods that Norse players can worship. She is also featured in Santa Monica Studio's 2018 game God of War, where she has the role of both a supporting protagonist and antagonist. She is set to appear in the game's sequel, God of War Ragnarök, which is scheduled for release in 2022. In the third-person multiplayer online battle arena game Smite, Freya is one of several playable gods from the Norse pantheon. The band Leaves' Eyes produced a song in homage to the goddess called " Frøya's Theme " and it is featured on their album " Njørd ", which is quite rich in ancient Scandinavian mythology. The Danish national anthem “There is a lovely country” (Danish: Der er et yndigt land), pays homage to the goddess Freya, calling Denmark Freya's hall:

“ It is a lovely country that rises with broad beeches, near the salty eastern shore. It curves into a hill, a valley, its name is ancient Denmark, and it is Freya's hall. ”

Freya

Co-author: Bruno Becker