Chapter 10

All that I have made out thus far on the name and idea of the god, will receive new light and confirmation when we come to examine his divine sister Freyja. The brother and sister are made alike in all their attributes, and each can stand for the other.

Frô does not appear in the series of gods of the week, because there was no room for him there; if we must translate him by a Roman name, it can scarcely be any other than that of Liber, whose association with Libera is extremely like that to Frô with Frôwa (Freyr with Freyja). As Liber and Libera are devoted to the service of Ceres or Dêmêtêr, Frô and Frôwa stand in close union with Nerthus. Frô's godhead seems to hold a middle place between the notion of the supreme lord and that of a being who brings about love and fruitfulness. He has Wuotan's creative quality, but performs no deeds of war; horse and sword he gives away, when consumed with longing for the fair Gerðr, as is sung in one of the most glorious lays of the Edda. Snorri says, rain and sunshine are in the gift of Freyr (as elsewhere Wuotan and Donar, pp. 157. 175); he is invoked for fertility of the soil and for peace (til ârs oc friðar, Sn. 28; conf. Yngl. saga cap. 12). The Swedes revered him as one of their chief gods, and Adam of Bremen says that at Upsal his statue stood by those of Thôr and Wôdan (see Suppl.). Also in Sæm. 85b he is named next to Oðinn and Thôrr (âsabragr) as the third god. Adam calls him Fricco, (2) which is precisely parallel to the frequent confusion of the two goddesses Freyja and Frigg, which I shall deal with at a future time. But he paints him as a god of peace and love: Tertius est Fricco, pacem voluptatemque largiens mortalibus, cujus etiam simulachrum fingunt ingenti priapo; (3) si nuptiae celebrandae sunt, (sacrificia offerunt) Fricconi. Then there is the story, harmonizing with this, though related from the christian point of view and to the heathen god's detriment of Frey's statue being carried round the country in a waggon, and of this beautiful young priestess, Fornm. sög. 2, 73-8. This progress takes place, 'þâ er hann skal gera mönnum ârbôt,' when he shall make for men year's boot; the people flock to meet the car, and bring their offerings, then the weather clears up and men look for a fruitful year. The offerings are those which Saxo, p. 15, names Fröblôt; live animals were presented, particularly oxen (Vigagl. saga, p. 56. Islend. sög. 2, 348), which seems to explain why Freyr is reckoned among the poetic names for an ox, Sn. 221ª; in like manner, horses were consecrated to him, such a one was called Freyfaxi and accounted holy, Vatnsd. p. 140; and human victims fell to him in Sweden, Saxo Gram. 42. Freyr possessed a boar named Gullinbursti, whose 'golden bristles' lighted up the night like day, who ran with the speed of a horse and drew the deity's car, Sn. 66. 132. It is therefore in Frey's worship that the atonement-boar is sacrificed (p. 51); (4) in Sweden cakes in the shape of a boar are baked on Yule-eve.---And here we come upon a good many relics of the service once done to the god, even outside of Scandinavia. We hear of the clean gold-hog (-ferch, whence dimin. farrow) in the popular customs of the Wetterau and Thuringia (p. 51). In the Mid. Dutch poem of Lantslôt ende Sandrîn, v. 374, a knight says to his maiden: 'ic heb u liever dan ên everswîn, al waert van finen goude ghewracht,' I hold you dearer than a boarswine, all were it of fine gold y-wrought; were they still in the habit of making gold jewels in the shape of boars? at least the rememberance of such a thing was not yet lost. Frô and his boar may have had a hand in a superstition of Gelderland, which however puts a famous hero in the place of the god: Derk met den beer (Theoderic, Derrick with the boar) goes his round on Christmas-eve night, and people are careful to get all implements of husbandry within doors, else the boar will trample them about, and make them unfit for use. (5) In the same Christmas season, dame Holda or Berhta sallied out, and looked after the ploughs and spindles, motherly goddesses instead of the god, Frouwa instead of Frô. With this again are connected the formae aprorum worn as charms by the remote Aestyans, who yet have the 'ritus habitusque Suevorum'. Tacitus Germ. 45 says, these figures represent the worship of the 'mater deûm,' of a female Frô, i.e., of Freyja; and what is conclusive on this point, the Edda (Sæm. 114ª) assigns the Gullinbursti to Freyja, though elsewhere he belongs to Freyr (see Suppl.).---Anglo-Saxon poetry, above all, makes mention of these boar-badges, these gold swine. When Constantine sees a vision in his sleep, he is said to be eoforcumble beþeaht (apri signo tectus) El. 76; it must have fastened as an auspicious omen over the head of the bed. Afterwards again, in the description of Eleue's stately progress to the east: þær wæs on eorle êðgesýne grîmhelm manig, œnlîc eoforcumbul (tunc in duce apparuit horrida cassis, excellens apri forma), El. 260. The poet is describing a decoration of the old heathen time, cumbul is the helmet's crest, and the king's helmet appears to be adorned with the image of a boar. Several passages in Beowulf place the matter beyond a doubt: eoforlîc scionon ofer hleor beran gehroden golde, fâh and fýrheard ferhwearde heold (apri formam videbantur supra genas gerere auro comptam, quae varia igneque durata vitam tuebatur), 605; hêt þa inberan eofor heáfodsegn, heaðosteápne helm (jussit afferri aprum, capitis signum, galeam in pugna prominentem), 4300; swîn ofer helme (sus supra galea), 2574; swîn ealgylden, eofor îrenheard (sus aureus, aper instar ferri durus), 2216, i.e., a helmet placed on the funeral pile as a costly jewel; helm befongen Freáwrâsnum (=OHG. Frôreisanum), swâ hine fyrndagum worhte wæpna smið, besette swînlîcum, þæt hine siðþan no brond ne beadoinêcas bîtan ne meahtan (galea ornata Frohonis signis, sicut eam olim fabricaverat armorum faber, circumdederat eam apri formis, ne gladius ensesve laedere eam possent), 2905; as a sacred divine symbol, it was to protect in battle and affright the foe. (6) The OHG. proper name Epurhelm, Eparhelm (eber, eofor, aper), placed by the side of Frôhelm (both occur in the Trad. patav. no 20; MB. 28b, 18) acquires thus a special and appropriate meaning. Such boar-crests might still serve as ornaments even to christian heroes, after the memory of Frô was obliterated, and long continue to be wrought simply as jewels (see Suppl.).---Some other traces of boar consecration have lasted still later, especially in England. The custom of the boar-vow I have explained in RA. 900-1. As even at the present day on festive occasions a wild boar's head is seen among the other dishes as a show-dish, they used in the Mid. Ages to serve it up at banquets, garnished with laurel and rosemary, to carry it about and lay all manner of pranks with it: 'Where stood a boar's head garnished with bayes and rosemarye,' says one ballad about Arthur's Table; when three strokes have been given with a rod over it, it is only the knife of a virtuous man that can carve the first slice. At other times, even a live boar makes its appearance in the hall, and a bold hero chops its head off. At Oxford they exhibit a boar's head on Christmas day, carry it solemnly round, singing: Caput apri defero, Reddens laudes Domino (see Suppl.). Those Aestyans may prove a link of fellowship between the Germanic nations and the Finnish and Asiatic; it is well worth noticing, that the Tcherkass (Circassians) worship a god of woods and hunting, Mesitch by name, who rides a wild boar with golden bristles. (7) To most of the other gods tame animals are sacred, to Frô the daring dauntless boar, as well befits a god of the chase. Perhaps also a huge boar with white tusks, (8) who in Slavic legend rises foaming out of a lake, is that of a kindred deity.  
 



ENDNOTES:

2. Which occurs elsewhere as a man's name, e.g., Friccheo in Schannat, Trad. fuld. 386.  (back)

3. With priapus pr…apoj I would identify the ON. friof semen, friofr [[fertility]] foecundus; conf. Goth. fráiv, seed. The statement of Adamus Bremensis looks better, since Wolf in his Wodana xxi. xxii. xxiii brought to light the festivals and images of Priapus or Ters at a late period in the Netherlands. This ters is the AS. teors, OHG. zers, and Herbort 4054 is shy of uttering the name Xerses. Phallus-worship, so widely spread among the nations of antiquity, must have arisen out of an innocent veneration of the generative principle, which a later age, conscious of its sins, prudishly avoided. After all is said, there is an inkling of the same in Phol too and the avoidance of his name (ch. XI), though I do not venture exactly to identify him with fallÒj.  (back)

4. Not only Demeter, but Zeus received boar-offerings, Il. 19, 197. 251.  (back)

5. Staring, in the journal Mnemosyne, Leyden 1829. 1, 323; quoted thence in Westendorp's Noordsche mythologie, Dordrecht 1830. p. 495.  (back)

6. On this point again, the statement of Tacitus about the Aestyans agrees so exactly, that it seems worth quoting in full: Aestyorum gentes.........quibus ritus habitusque Suevorum.......Matrem deûm venerantur: insigne superstitionis, formas aprorum gestant; id pro armis omniumque tutela securum deae cultorem etiam inter hostes praestat.---Trans.  (back)

7. Erman's archiv für wissenschaftl. kunde Russlands 1842, heft 1, p. 118.  (back)

8. LeukÕn odÒnta, Il. 11, 416. sàj leukù ÑdÒnti, Od. 19. 465.  (back)