Everything about Frigg totally explained
Frigg (or Frigga) is a major goddess in
Norse paganism, a subset of
Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of
Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses". Frigg appears primarily in
Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power of prophecy yet she doesn't reveal what she knows . And Frigg is the only one other than Odin who is permitted to sit on his high seat
Hlidskjalf and look out over the universe.
Frigg also participates in the
Wild Hunt (
Asgardreid) along with her husband. Frigg's children are
Baldr,
Höðr and, in an English source,
Wecta; her stepchildren are
Hermóðr,
Heimdall,
Tyr,
Vidar,
Váli, and
Skjoldr.
Thor is either her brother or a stepson. Frigg's companion is
Eir, the gods' doctor and goddess of healing. Frigg's attendants are
Hlín,
Gná, and
Fulla.
In the
Poetic Edda poem
Lokasenna 26, Frigg is said to be
Fjörgyns mær (etymologically "Fjörgynn's maiden"). The problem is that in Old Norse
mær means both "daughter" and "wife", so it's not fully clear if Fjörgynn is Frigg's father or another name for her husband
Odin, but
Snorri Sturluson interprets the line as meaning Frigg is Fjörgynn's daughter (
Skáldskaparmál 27), and most modern translators of the Poetic Edda follow Snorri. The original meaning of
fjörgynn was the earth, cf. feminine version
Fjorgyn, a byname for
Jörð, the earth.
Etymology
Old Norse
Frigg (genitive
Friggjar),
Old Saxon Fri, and
Old English Frig are derived from
Common Germanic Frijō. Frigg is cognate with
Sanskrit prīyā́ which means "wife".. Some have pointed out that the constellation is on the celestial equator and have suggested that the stars rotating in the night sky may have been associated with Frigg's spinning wheel.
Frigg's name means "love" or "beloved one" (Proto-Germanic *frijjō, cf.
Sanskrit priyā "dear woman") and was known among many northern European cultures with slight name variations over time: for example
Friggja in Sweden,
Frīg (genitive
Frīge) in Old English, and
Frika in Wagner's operas. Modern English translations have sometimes altered Frigg to
Frigga. It has been suggested that "
Frau Holle" of
German folklore is a survival of Frigg.
Frigg's hall in Asgard is
Fensalir, which means "Marsh Halls." This may mean that marshy or boggy land was considered especially sacred to her but nothing definitive is known. The goddess
Saga, who was described as drinking with Odin from golden cups in her hall "Sunken Benches," may be Frigg by a different name.
Frigg was a goddess associated with married women. She was called up by women to assist in giving birth to children, and Scandinavians used the plant
Lady's Bedstraw (
Galium verum) as a sedative, they called it
Frigg's grass)
Immediately after Frigg revealed this, the woman vanished. Loki then took hold of the mistletoe, broke it off and went to the thing.
There, Höðr, since he was blind, stood at the edge of the circle of people. Loki offered to help Höðr in honoring Baldr by shooting things at him. Höðr took the mistletoe from Loki and, following Loki's directions, shot at Baldr. The mistletoe went directly through Baldr and he fell to the ground. Baldr was dead.
The gods were speechless and devastated, unable to react due to their grief. After the gods gathered their wits from the immense shock and grief of Baldr's death, Frigg asked the Æsir who amongst them wished "to gain all of her love and favor"
The same story is referenced in one stanza of the poem,
Lokasenna, in which Loki insults Frigg by accusing her of infidelity with Odin's brothers:
Hush thee, Frigg, who art Fjorgyn's daughter:
Thou hast ever been mad after men.
Vili and Ve, thou, Vithrir's spouse, [Vithrir=Odin]
Didst fold to thy bosom both.
Modern scholars such as Lee Hollander explain that
Lokasenna was intended to be humorous and that the accusations thrown by Loki in the poem are not necessarily to be taken as "generally accepted lore" at the time it was composed. Rather they're charges that are easy for Loki to make and difficult for his targets to disprove, or which they don't care to refute.
Comparisons have been proposed regarding Frigg's role in this story to that of sacred queens during certain periods in ancient Egypt, when a king was king by virtue of being the queen's husband.
Historia gentis Langobardorum
The Langobard historian
Paul the Deacon, who died in southern Italy in the 790s, was proud of his tribal origins and related how his people once had migrated from southern Scandinavia. In his work
Historia gentis Langobardorum, Paul relates how Odin's wife Frea (Frigg/Freyja) had given victory to the Langobards in a war against the
Vandals.
In Saxo's
Gesta Danorum, however, the gods and goddesses are heavily
euhemerized, and Saxo's view on pagan deities is extremely biased, therefore most stories related to pagan gods written in it might not exist in ancient lore.
Georges Dumézil linked Saxo's account of Frigg's infidelity and the stolen gold with the burning of
Gullveig.
Connection between Frigg and Freyja
Frigg is the highest goddess of the
Æsir, while
Freyja is the highest goddess of the
Vanir. Many arguments have been made both for and against the idea that Frigg and Freyja are really the same goddess, avatars of one another.
Some arguments are based on linguistic analysis, others on the fact that Freyja wasn't known in southern Germany, only in the north, and in some places the two goddesses were considered to be the same, while in others they were considered to be different. There are clearly many similarities between the two: both had flying cloaks of falcon feathers and engaged in shape-shifting, Frigg was married to Odin while Freyja was married to
Óðr, both had special necklaces, both had a personification of the Earth as a parent, both were called upon for assistance in childbirth, etc.
There is also an argument that Frigg and Freyja are part of a
triad of goddesses (together with a third goddess such as
Hnoss or
Iðunn) associated with the different ages of womankind. The areas of influence of Frigg and Freyja don't quite match up with the areas of influence often seen in other goddess triads. This may mean that the argument isn't a good one, or it may show something interesting about northern European culture as compared to Celtic and southern European culture.
Finally, there's an argument is that Frigg and Freyja are similar goddesses from different pantheons who were first conflated into each other and then later seen as separate goddesses again (see also
Frige). This is consistent with the theological treatment of some Greek, Roman, and Egyptian deities in the late classical period.
Toponyms
Toponyms that are named after Frigg are rare, but in
Västergötland,
Sweden, there's a place called Friggeråker.
References and footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Frigg'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://frigg.totallyexplained.com">Frigg Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
