Chapter 13

Hence the mingling of their myths becomes the more conceivable. Saxo, p. 13, relates how Frigga, to obtain gold for her ornaments, violated conjugal fidelity; more minutely told, and differing much in the details, the tale about Freyja in Sn. 356 appears to be the same adventure. On quite another ground however the like offence is imputed to Frigg too (Sæm. 63. Yngl. saga. cap. 3). In Sn. 81 the valshamr of Freyja is spoken of, but in 113-9 that of Frigg; the former is supported by Sæm. 70.

Hence the variations in the name for the day of the week. The OHG. Frîatac ought clearly to be Friggjardagr [[Frigg's Day, i.e. - Friday]] in ON., and the ON. Freyjudagr [[Freyja's Day or Frigg's Day, i.e. - Friday]] should be Frouwûntac in OHG. Hence too the uncertainty in the naming of a constellation and of several plants. Orion's belt, elsewhere named Jacob's staff and also spindle (colus hlakath), is called by the Swedish people Friggerock (colus Friggae, Ihre, p. 663) or Frejerock (Finn Magnusen 361ª), as we noticed before, or Fröjas rock (Wieselgren. 383). The orchis odoratissima, satyrium albidum, a plant from which love-potions are brewed, Icel. Friggjargras, otherwise hionagras (herba conjugalis); the later christian way of thinking has substituted Mary for the heathen goddess. And the labouring man in Zealand speaks of the above constellation also by the name of Mariärok, Marirok. Several kinds of fern, adiantum, polypodium, asplenium, are named lady's hair, maidenhair, Mariengras, capillus Veneris, Icel. Freyjuhâr, Dan. Fruehaar, Venusstraa, Venusgräs, Norweg. Marigras, &c. Even if the Norse names here have sprung out of Latin ones, they show how Venus was translated both by Frigg and Freyja and Mary. As for Mary, not only was the highest conception of beauty carried over to her, (frîo, scôniôsta, idiso scôniôst, Hel. 61, 13. 62, 1), but she was pre-eminently our lady, frau, domina, donna. Conf. infra frauachueli, ladycow, Marienkälblein. In the nursery-tales she sets the girls sewing and spinning like Holda and Berhta, and Holda's snow appears to mean the same as Mary's snow (p. 268).

Before so close a contact of the two names I pause, doubting with which of them to connect the strong and incontestable similarity of certain divine names in the non-Teutonic [Aryan] languages. First of all, an OBoh. gloss gives Priye for Aphrodite; taking into account the Goth. frijôn, the OHG. friudil (lover), MHG. vriedel, and the Slav. priyátel (friend), Boh. prjtel, Pol. przyiáciel, it must have meant either Freyja the goddess of love and fruitfulness, or Frigg the divine mother and patroness of marriage. In Sanskrit also prî is to love, priyas a friend, Ramâpriya dear-to-Lakshmi = lotus, Yamapriya pleasing-to-Yama = ficus indica, priya in names of gods = husband or wife, Pott's forsch. 2, 424-7. Then prithivî is the earth, and mâtâ Prithvî Terra mater, from whom comes fruit and increase (conf. Wel. pridd terra, Bopp's gloss. 223b); and the word, though next of king to prithus (platuj latus), the earth being named the broad and wide, seems nevertheless connected with Fria, Frigg and fridu.

Frigg the daughter of Fiörgynn (p. 172), as consort of the highest god, (110) takes rank above all other goddesses: she knows the fates of men (Sæm. 63b. Sn. 23. 64), is consulted by Oðinn (Sæm. 31ª), administers oaths, handmaids fulfil her hest, she presides over marriages, and her aid is implored by the childless (Fornald. sög. 1, 117); hence hionagras is also Friggjargras. We may remember those maidens yet unmarried (p. 264) being yoked to the plough of the goddess who commands they had too long defied. In some parts of northern England, in Yorkshire, especially Hallamshire, popular customs show remnants of the worship of Fricg. In the neighbourhood of Dent, at certain seasons of the year, especially autumn, the country folk hold a procession and perform old dances, one called the giant's dance: the leading giant they name Woden, and his wife Frigga, the principal action of the play consisting in two swords being swung and clashed together about the neck of a boy without hurting him. (111) Still more remarkable is the clear vestige of the goddess in Lower Saxony, where to the common people she is fru Freke, (112) and plays the very parts which we saw assigned to frau Holle (pp. 267-8): a strong argument, by the way, for the divine nature of this latter. Then in Westphalia, legend may derive the name of the old convent Freckenhorst, Frickenhorst, from a shepherd Frickio, to whom a light appeared in the night (like the fall of snow by night at Hildesheim, p. 268) on the spot where the church was to be built; the name really points to a sacred hurst or grove of Frecka fem., or of Fricko masc., whose site christianty was perhaps eager to appropriate; conf. Frœcinghyrst, Kemble 1, 248. 2, 265. There is a Vrekeleve, Fricksleben, not far from Magdeburg (see Suppl.).

Freya is the goddess most honoured after or along with Frigg; her worship seems to have been even the more prevalent and important of the two, she is styled 'agætuz af Asynjum,' Sn. 28, and 'blôtgyðja,' Yngl. saga cap. 4, to whom frequent sacrifices were offered. Heiðrekr sacrificed a boar to her, as elsewhere to Freyr, and honoured her above all other gods. (113) She was wedded to a man (not a god, at least not an As), named Oðr, but he forsook her, and she sought him all over the world, among strange peoples, shedding tears. Her name Sýr (Sn. 37) would perhaps be Saúrs in Gothic: Wilh. Müller has detected the very same in the Syritha of Saxo Gram. p. 125, who likewise goes in search of Othar. Freyja's tears were golden, gold is named after them, and she herself is 'grâtfagr,' fair in greeting (weeping), Sn. 37. 119. 133; in our nursery-tales pearls and flowers are wept or laughed out, and dame Holla bestows the gift of weeping such tears. But the oldest authorities make her warlike also; in a waggon drawn by two cats (as Thôrr drives two goats) (114) she rides to the battlefield, 'riðr til vîgs,' and goes shares with Oðinn in the slain (supra p. 133, conf Sæm. 42ª. Sn. 28. 57). She is called 'eigandi valfalls' (quae sortitur caesos in pugna), Sn. 119; valfreyja, mistress of the chosen, Nialss. p. 118, and of the valkyrs in general; this seems to be in striking accord with Holda or Berhta (as well as Wuotan) adopting the babes that die unchristened into their host, heathen goddesses the heathen souls. Freyja's dwelling is named Fôlkvângr or Fôlkvângar, the plains on which the (dead?) folk troop together; this imparts new credibility to the connexion of St. Gertrude, whose minne is drunk, with Frowa, for the souls of the departed were supposed to lodge with Gertrude the first night (p. 61). Freyja's hall is Sessrymnir, the seat-roomy, capacious of much folk; dying women expect to find themselves in her company after death. Thôrgerðr in the Egilss., p. 103, refuses earthly nourishment, she thinks to feast with Freyja soon: 'ok engan (nâttverð) mun ek fyrr enn at Freyju'. Yet love-songs please her too, and lovers do well to call upon her: 'henni lîkaði vel mansöngr, â hana er gott at heita til âsta,' Sn. 29. That the cat was sacred to her, as the wolf to Wuotan, will perhaps explain why this creature is given to night-hags and witches, and is called donneraas, wetteraas (-carrion). When a bride goes to the wedding in fine weather, they say 'she has fed the cat well,' not offended the favourite of the love-goddess. The meaning of a phrase in Walther 82, 17 is dark to me: 'weder rîtest gerner eine guldîn katze, ald einen wunderlîchen Gêrhart Atzen?' In Westphalia, however, the weasel was named froie, Reinh. clxxii, which I suppose means frau, fräulein (froiken), as that ghostly creature was elsewhere called mühmlein (aunty), fräulein, donna, donnola, titles sure to be connected with myths, and these would doubtless point in the first place to our goddess and her worship. The Greeks said Galinthias was turned into a weasel or cat (galeh), Ovid. metam. 9, 306 (see Suppl.).

In so far as such comparisons are allowable, Frigg would stand on a line with Here or Juno, especially the pronuba, Jupiter's spouse; and Freyja with Venus, (115) but also with Isis who seeks Osiris. Freyr and his sister Freyja are suggestive of Liber and Libera (Dionysus and Proserpina, or even her mother Demeter; of sun and moon). Mary could replace the divine mother and the goddess of beauty; verbally Frigg agrees better with Librera, and Adam of Bremen's Fricco, if he was god of love, answers in name to Liber, in character to Freyr.

The passage quoted from Paul Diac. is one of the clearest and most convincing testimonies to the harmony between the German and Norse mythologies. An author of Charles the Great's time tells us that the Langobards named Woden's wife Frea, and she is called Frigg in the Edda. He cannot have drawn this from Norse tradition, much less can his narrative through Saxo's intermediacy have become the source of the northern faith.

But in favour of Freyja too we possess a weighty piece of external evidence. The Edda makes her the owner of a costly necklace named Brîsînga men (Brisingorum monile); she is called 'eigandi Brîsîngamens,' Sn. 37. 119. How she acquired this jewel from the dwarfs, how it was cunningly stolen from her by Loki, is fully narrated in a tale by itself, Sn. 354-357. In the poets therefore Loki is Brîsîngs þiofr (Thorl. obs. 6, 41. 63); a lost lay of the Edda related how Heimdallr fought with Loki for this ornament, Sn. 105. When Freyja pants with rage, the necklace starts from her breast (stauk þat it micla men Brîsînga), Sæm. 71b. When Thôrr, to get his hammer back, dresses up in Freyja's garments, he does not forget to put her famous necklace on: 'hati hann (have he) it mikla men Brîsînga!' Sæm. 72.---Now this very trinket is evidently known to the AS. poet of Beowulf 2399, he names it Brosinga mene, without any allusion to the goddess; I would read 'Brîsinga mene,' and derive the word in general from a verb which is in MHG. brîsen, breis (nodare, nodis constringere, Gr. kentein to pierce), namely, it was a chain strung together of bored links. Yet conf. ch. XX, brising St. John's fire: perhaps the dwarfs that forged it were called Brîsîngar? The jewel is so closely interwoven with the myth of Freyja, that from its mention in AS. poetry we may safely infer the familiarity of the Saxon race with the story itself; and if the Goths worshipped a goddess Fráujô, they too would doubtless know of a Breisiggê mani. (116) Conf. ch. XX, Iarðar men, Earth's necklace, i.e., turf in the ON legal language.




ENDNOTES:

110. Some of the AS. genealogies have 'Wôden et Freálâf ejus uzor,' so that Frigg = Freálâf (OHG. Frôleip ?) which fits in with that Fridlefsborg in the Danish song, p. 300; others make Freálâf Wôdens father. But in lieu of him we have also Friðulâf and Friðuwulf, a fresh confrimation of the connexion between frið and the goddess's name. Back

111. Communicated by J.M. Kemble, from the mouth of an 'old Yorkshireman'. I account for the sword by the ancient use of that weapon at weddings; conf. RA. 426-7. 431; esp. the old Frisian custom pp. 167-8, conf. Heimreich's Nordfries. chron. 1, 53-4. In Swabia, as late as the 18^th century, the bridesmen carried large swords with fluttering ribbons before the bride; and there is a striking similarity in the Esthonian custom (Superst. M. 13). Back

112. Eccard de orig. Germ. p. 398: Celebratur in plebe Saxonica fru Freke, cui eadem munia tribuuntur, quae superiores Saxones Holdae suae adscribunt. Fru Freke has just been unearthed again by Ad. Kuhn, namely in the Ukermark, where she is called Fruike, and answers to fru Harke in the Mittelmark and fru Gode in the Prignitz. Back

113. Hervararsaga, ed. Verel. p. 138, ed. 1785 p. 124. By the editors of the Fornald. sög. 1, 463 the passage is banished into the notes as an unsupported reading. Back

114. Freyja has a waggon like Nerthus (mother of Freyr?), like Holda and Freyr himself, Wuotan and Donar (pp. 105-7, 251-2-4, 275); the kingly waggon is proper only to great exalted deities. Back

115. In the Tanhäuser, as sung in Switzerland (Aufsess. anz. 1832, 240-2; Uhland's volksl. p. 771), instead of the usual dame Venus we find precisely frau Frene, and acc. to Stald. 1, 395 frein is there a collateral form of frei free. A woman's name Vreneli is known from Hebel. Vrene may be Verena the martyr, or Veronica, v. Vrêne, Ben. 328. Back

116. Just as from Freyja proceeded the general notion of a freyja frouwá, so necklace-wearing serves to describe a beautiful wife or maiden. In Sæm. 97ª menglöð (monili laeta, rejoicing in a necklace) means simply femina, but in 108ª 111ª Menglöð is a proper name (see p. 272 note); in 222ª menskögul is used of Brynhildr. Women are commonly named from their ornaments of gold or precious stones, Sn. 128 (see Suppl.). Back