Frigg (deity)

Symbol: Raven’s cloak; birds of prey (ravens, hawks, falcons)

Country or Culture: Scandinavia; Nordic cultures

Mother: Nerthus

Father: Fyorgynn

Siblings: Frey

Children: Balder, Hod

Frigg is the highest-ranking goddess in Norse mythology, which is the northernmost tradition of Germanic mythology/religions. Also known as Frea, Freya, Friia, Frig, Friggia, and Frija, Frigg is the wife of Odin, the chief of the Aesir tribe of Norse deities, which was the superior tribe of those deities. She may or may not be synonymous with Freya, an almost-identical Germanic goddess who belongs to both the Aesir and Vanir tribes of deities.

The areas of Norse life over which Frigg held sway were marriage and childbirth, motherhood, and spinning and weaving. Women who were unable to conceive turned to Frigg for aid. She was also a goddess of wisdom. She was alone among the Norse gods in being allowed to sit on her husband’s throne.

The name Frigg means "beloved one." Mistletoe is sacred to Frig. Along with her nurturing, devoted role as the mother goddess, another tradition focuses on her promiscuity and loose sexual behavior. The word Friday is derived from her name.

In Mythology

Although Frigg was the chief goddess and wife of the lord of the gods, she is the subject of only a few complete Norse myths. However, she appears in various forms in several of the sagas and old compilations of Scandinavian mythology. From scraps of information about her actions and personality, a picture of an interesting, complex deity emerges.

Frigg was the daughter of Fyorgynn, the masculine version of the earth. Her home was Fensalir ("marsh hall") in Asgard, the realm of the Aesir. As a consequence, all bogs and marshy ground are sacred to Frigg. A crowd of handmaidens including Hlin, the Goddess of Protection; Fulla, a fertility goddess; and Gna, a messenger deity, tended her.

A portion of the Orion constellation, Orion’s Belt, is known in Norse mythology as Frigg’s Distaff. As the weaver goddess, Frigg wove the clouds and the strings of people’s lives. She used the distaff to wind the threads of fate. The Nordic term for this was wyrd. As she wove the threads of fate, she also had the power of prophecy. This played an important role in one of the main myths involving Frigg, which is found in the Icelandic sources the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda.

With Odin, Frigg gave birth to Balder and his blind twin brother Hod. Balder was a god of peace and harmony who was described as the fairest of all the gods. He and his mother had the same dream about his death.

In an effort to protect her beloved son, Frigg demands an oath of protection for Balder from everything in all of the realms of life. She approaches every plant, animal, rock, stream, disease, cloud, and so on. Every object makes the vow except mistletoe. According to one version of the myth, Frigg exempted mistletoe because it was too young to swear an oath. The oaths taken, all the gods were fascinated by Balder’s immunity to harm. They made a game of throwing objects at the shining god, just to watch them bounce harmlessly away. Loki, the mischief-making god, resented this bitterly.

Loki disguised himself as a woman and visited Frigg in Fensalir. There he tricked Frigg into revealing Balder’s weakness. Loki then disappeared. He made a spear out of mistletoe. He took the spear to Asgard and gave it to Balder’s blind brother Hod. Hod cast the spear and unintentionally killed the beloved god with it.

Frigg was inconsolable and is depicted in sagas as weeping uncontrollably. She was so pitiful in her grief that Hel agreed to allow Balder to leave the underworld if all living things would grieve for him. All did except one giant—Loki in disguise. Thus Frigg has never recovered from the loss of her first son.

Another myth of Frigg shows the opposite of her attributes. Odin often traveled alone and for long periods of time. Once he was gone so long that he was assumed to be dead. Frigg then consorted with his brothers Vilii and Ve. When Odin returned, she resumed her role as his wife. Another myth refers to her consorting with a slave along with other references to her promiscuity.

In a broader tradition, Frigg is seen as a sky goddess who weaves the clouds, thus controlling sunshine and rain and therefore the success or failure of crops. She is also associated with the winter solstice and the beginning of a new year because she sits at her spindle weaving the destiny of humanity and the gods alike. It was during the darkest (longest) night that Frigg was in labor with Balder and Hod.

Origins and Cults

There is substantial overlap between Frigg’s attributes and those of Freya, who like Frigg developed from the older Germanic goddess Frija. She is presented in myth as a völva, which in the Viking Age was a "practitioner of a form of Norse magic known as seidr," according to Dan McCoy. "Seidr is concerned with discerning destiny and altering its course by re-weaving part of its web."

Frigg’s association with fertility and childbirth is still invoked by Scandinavian women. A white candle that was last burned during the winter solstice is lit to ensure a safe delivery for expectant mothers in labor.

More commonly today Frigg is represented as a goddess of love, often meant licentiously. In many ways this is a misrepresentation, but it draws upon real traditions involving Frigg or Freya among Scandinavian and German folktales.

In addition to many artistic depictions of the goddess, there are two enduring invocations of Frigg in the modern world. First, of course, is the day Friday, which is named after her. The second derives from her association with childbirth. Scandinavians call the plant Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum) "Frigg’s grass." The plant is often given to women as a sedative during childbirth.

Bibliography

Davidson, H. R. Ellis. Scandinavian Mythology. New York: Bedrick, 1986. Print.

Lindow, John. Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002. Print.

McClymond, Kathryn. Great Mythologies of the World. Chantilly: Teaching Co., 2015. CD.

McCoy, Dan. "Frigg." Norse Mythology for Smart People. Dan McCoy, 2015. Web. 15 Dec 2015. <http://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/the-aesir-gods-and-goddesses/frigg/>.

Mortensen, Karl. A Handbook of Norse Mythology. Mineola: Dover, 2011. Print.

Phillips, Martin. Norse Mythology. Seattle: CreateSpace, 2015. Print.

Sturluson, Snorri. The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales From Norse Mythology. Mineola: Dover, 2012. Print.

Weaver, Stephan. Norse Mythology. Seattle: CreateSpace, 2015. Print.

Wilkins, Terry. Norse Gods. Dublin: Red Pine, 2015. Electronic.