Njörd, the sea god, was the father of various goddesses including the female god Freya (also commonly written as Freyja).She was Freyr’s sister and female counterpart and she rode a golden-bristled boar because pigs were holy to her. Another of her vehicles was a cat-drawn chariot.Freyja had the honor of choosing one-half of the heroes killed in the battle for her big hall in Fólkvangar (the god Odin took the other half to Valhalla, an afterlife realm).She wore the famed Brsingamen’s necklace, which Loki, the trickster god, took and Heimdall, the gods’ watchman, retrieved. Freyja was greedy and lustful, and she was also blamed for teaching the Aesir witchcraft (a tribe of gods). Freyja, like the Egyptian goddess Isis and the Greek goddess Aphrodite, is said to have searched the world for a missing spouse while crying tears.After reading about her relationship with Odin, her magical cloak and precious stones related to the female god Freya, also check Viking god Thor facts and Viking god Odin facts.Freya’s CloakGoddess of the Universe Freya is often depicted with her holy cats, which are typical witches’ familiars. As her cloak is made from falcon feathers, Freya is said to be able to fly in the shape of a falcon.Brisingamen, the fire necklace, encircles the neck of Freya, fashioned by four dwarves at work in their smithy deep within the tunnels. Freya embarked on a brief marriage with each dwarf in order to obtain their riches. The necklace represents the holy fire circle formed when the sun moves through the four seasons.Freya’s NameFreya is a powerful and contemporary name with a hint to Old Scandinavian mythology. It is a classic name entrenched in Nordic culture, which originates in northern Europe.As per Norse mythology, the name Freya is derived from Freyja and means ’noblewoman’. It is the name of the Norse goddess of beauty, fertility, and love, and Freya rules over the heavenly field of Fólkvangr. She was a goddess who practiced a type of divination and magical arts that allowed her followers to see and affect the future. Freya was also the monarch of the battlefield meadow, where she welcomed dead heroes.This Nordic name’s mythical origins may still be seen today. The goddess Freya is honored in the Danish national song, which refers to Denmark as the ‘Hall of Freya’.Freya’s AnimalsCats were the favorite animal of the fertility goddess Freya.As per the legend, Freyja has a large, beautiful hall called Sessrumnir, and she travels in a golden chariot pulled by two blue cats. Freyja is viewed as ’the most approachable one for people to pray to’, and from her name, the honorific title ‘Fru’ for noble women is derived.Freya SymbolismThe Brisingamen necklace is the most well-known emblem linked with Freya, and a necklace that reportedly glittered and shone so brightly that Freya was ready to go to great lengths to obtain it.Freya is said to have gone into the dwarfs’ country one night. She noticed four of them working together to create a stunning golden necklace. She stated that she would pay any amount of gold and silver in exchange for it.The Role Of FreyaThe dwarfs, on the other hand, were uninterested in money. They informed Freya that the only way they could give her the Brisingamen was if she spent one night with each of them individually.Freya despised the thought of spending time with the vile dwarfs, but her desire for the Brisingamen was so intense that she succumbed to their demands. They kept their word and handed it to her after four nights spent with them.As an important goddess in Norse mythology, Freya is associated with fertility, love, and beauty. She is known to wear her Brsingamen necklace and is usually in the company of her boar, Hildisvni. Gersemi and Hnoss are her two daughters. She and her twin brother Freyr are members of the Vanir tribe along with their parents.Post-Christianization And Scandinavian FolkloreChristianity had fully established itself over northwestern Europe by the 12th century. Scandinavian ecclesiastics continued to criticize paganism for two centuries, though it’s unclear if it was still a viable alternative to Christian domination.Writers frequently depicted paganism as founded on deception or delusion; for example, some claimed that the Old Norse gods were individuals who had been erroneously euhemerized as deities.Old Norse mythical tales were passed down orally for at least two centuries before being written down in the 13th century. It’s unknown how this mythology was carried down; it’s conceivable that pockets of pagans kept their beliefs throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, or that it was passed down as a cultural object by Christians who kept the stories but didn’t believe them literally.There is no comparable proof for the existence of a common Germanic goddess from which Freyja sprung, but historians have speculated that this could simply be due to a lack of evidence. In Old Norse literature, for example, Freyja was viewed as a Scandinavian counterpart to the Roman Venus, where the goddess may be connected with romantic love or merely used as a synonym for passion and potency.Freya, Freyia, and Freja are modern names derived from the Old Norse name Freyja. Her name, like that of other Norse gods, was given to ‘sweetmeats or stout carthorses’ throughout Scandinavia. Freyja is linked to the Phrygian goddess Cybele, according to Gustav Neckel, who wrote about her in 1920. Both goddesses can be understood as fertility goddesses, according to Neckel, and other possible parallels have been noticed. According to some academics, Cybele’s image affected Freyja’s iconography, with lions dragging the former’s chariot, becoming big cats. Until at least the early 1990s, these observations became a typical occurrence in writings about Old Norse religion. A euhemerized description of the gods is presented in ‘Sörla áttr’, a late 14th-century story from a later and extended version of the ’láfs saga Tryggvasonar’ contained in the ‘Flateyjarbók’ manuscript. According to the story, Freyja was Odin’s wife who bartered with four dwarfs in exchange for a golden necklace.Various flora in Scandinavia previously held her name, but throughout the Christianization process, these were substituted with the name of the Virgin Mary. Freyja was revered as a supernatural figure by rural Scandinavian countries well into the 19th century, and she has inspired a variety of works of art.The Aesir gods originally dwelt in a city called Asgard, which was located in an area known as ‘Asia land or Asia Home’ in written work. The name Freyja, like the name of the other gods to whom Freyja belongs, the Vanir, is not found outside of Scandinavia, in contrast to the name of the goddess Frigg, who is found among the Germanic peoples and is recognized in Germanic languages.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Viking god Freya facts then why not take a look at Viking gods facts, or Viking religion facts?
Njörd, the sea god, was the father of various goddesses including the female god Freya (also commonly written as Freyja).
