Page 66 - All About History 58 - 2017 UK

Daughters

66

Written by Jessica Leggett

Discover the role of women in Viking society, their relationship with religion
and their devotion to one Norse goddess in particular

rom the one-eyed god Odin to his Freyja, along with her brother Freyr, was the Edda by Snorri Sturluson, who refers to her as
hammer-wielding son, the thunder child of Njörd and his sister, whose name remains “the most renowned of the goddesses.”
god Thor, Norse mythology is full of unknown. She was married to Oðr and together If there is one thing that can be assured, it is
colourful deities. They were an integral they had two daughters, Hnoss and Gersemi, that Freyja was definitely a goddess who was not
Fpart of the Old Norse religion, paganism, although Oðr’s eventual disappearance leaves to be messed with. For example, when the giant
which was displaced in Scandinavia by the end of Freyja heartbroken. She is the goddess of love, Thrym stole Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, he agreed to
the 12th century with the arrival of Christianity. sexuality, fertility, magic, war and death, portrayed return it on the condition that Freyja was given to
However, out of all of them, there was one pagan in Norse mythology as a strong and independent him as his wife.
deity whose popularity continued to rise after deity, especially after the disappearance of While Thor and the other gods were ready to
Christianisation: Freyja. Devotion to her remained her husband. The majority of the information cede to these demands, Freyja was left outraged
strong among Norse women despite Christian regarding Freyja comes from the 13th-century and refused to cooperate. As a result, Thor was
attempts to stamp out her popularity. Icelandic sagas, most prominently in the Prose forced to dress up as a woman, pretending to