Norse Goddess Magic (8 page)

GODDESS OF MARRIAGE AND CHILDBIRTH

In her roles as wife and mother, Frigg is goddess of marriage and
childbirth. She is usually toasted at weddings, along with Freyja and Thor.
Helene A. Guerber, a British historian best known for her works on Germanic
mythology, suggests that husbands and wives who truly loved each other and
didn't want to be separated after death would come to Frigg's hall in the
afterlife,
⁹
which is a pretty thought, though not supported by any
evidence. In Norse society, marriage was more than the joining of two people; it
was the joining of two families and represented a highly important occasion with
deep social and spiritual ramifications. Frigg's role as patron of marriage
stems not only from her interest in women, children, and domestic concerns but
also grows out of her function as a maintainer of social laws and norms and an
upholder of society itself.

Frigg is also invoked, along with Freyja, at childbirth. In the Oddrúnargrátr
(st. 8), the king's daughter Borgny calls on the two goddesses together after
she has finally given birth to twins with the aid of Oddrun's magic. Frigg is
also petitioned by childless couples who wish for children. The
Völsunga saga
(ch. 1) tells how Rerir, king of the Huns, and his wife pray to the gods for a
child, and Frigg hears their prayer and reports it to Odin. Odin subsequently
sends a wish-maiden (a supernatural female being, possibly a
valkyrja
)
with a magic apple to give to Rerir, whom she finds sitting on a mound. The king
and his queen both eat the apple, and she later bears him a son who becomes the
great hero Volsung.

Rerir sitting on the mound is an example of the old Norse practice of sitting
out on a howe, or burial mound, to get help or advice from one's ancestors. This
practice also seems to have had some relation to matters of inheritance and
royal selection. Here again Frigg seems related to the female beings called
dísir,
often regarded as the female ancestors of a family, who protected the
clan's fertility. Frigg's involvement in the matter also reflects her dual
interest in private family matters and in the greater social and political
order, which would be adversely affected by Rerir's failure to have an heir. The
apple sent to the king is reminiscent of the goddess Idun and her golden apples
of immortality and youth. To the Norse, having children was true immortality,
for the souls of the clan were reborn in the descendants.

MAGICAL POWERS

Frigg, as well as Odin, possesses magical powers, notably second
sight. She is said to know the fates of all people, though she never says what
she knows (Lokasenna, st. 29). Perhaps she doesn't feel it advisable to tell
others their fates before they've lived them out. It has been mentioned before
that Frigg shares Odin's seat, Hlidskjalf, from which the two can see all that
happens in the Nine Worlds; therefore, Frigg could be considered a goddess of
scrying. However, she would not necessarily be good to call on during a
divination, because she is so disinclined to share her information; rather, she
might preside over activities designed to look into one's own soul for
self-knowledge.

Frigg's reluctance to interfere in fate possibly stems from her tragically
unsuccessful attempt to avert her son Balder's death in what is probably the
best-known myth about this goddess (Gylfaginning, ch. 49; Baldrs draumar). In
it, the beloved god Balder is troubled with foreboding dreams, and Frigg sends
word into all the worlds to extract an oath from everything—fire and water,
metals, stones, illnesses, plants, animals, and people—not to harm her son.
After this, the gods get cocky and initiate a game in which they amuse
themselves by throwing all sorts of weapons at Balder and watching them turn
away without hurting him. Loki, disguised as a woman, visits Frigg and discovers
that she has neglected to ask an oath from only one thing—the mistletoe, which
she considered too young to take an oath. Loki then takes some mistletoe to the
Thing, the lawgiving assembly of Old Norse culture, where he finds the blind Hod
standing a little dejectedly to the side. Hod says he is not participating
because he is blind and has no weapon, so Loki gives him the small dart of
mistletoe and offers to guide Hod's aim. The mistletoe shoots Balder through and
he falls down dead, whereupon the other gods are overcome by grief, not only for
their fellow's death but also because he died at the hand of a kinsman on the
sacred grounds of the Thing and thus no one who is present may take vengeance
for him and restore the Aesir's lost honor.

Frigg is the first to recover her wits. She offers her special love and favor
to anyone who will ride to the land of the dead and try to ransom Balder back
from the death goddess, Hel. Hermod the Bold, another of Odin's sons, volunteers
and borrows Odin's horse, Sleipnir, to ride to the Underworld. After riding nine
days and nights, he arrives in the hall of Hel, where he finds Balder and his
wife Nanna sitting in the high-seat at Hel's table. The next morning Hermod asks
Hel to let his brother ride home with him, telling her how all things weep for
the the slain god. Hel replies that if every single thing in all the worlds will
weep for Balder, she will release him from death. Hermod departs again, carrying
with him gifts to Asgard, including a piece of linen from Nanna to Frigg.

When the Aesir receive the good news, they send out messengers to all things,
living and inanimate, asking them to weep for Balder. All things do so except
for one mountain giantess called Thokk; she answers that she will weep waterless
tears for Balder and that Hel shall hold what she has. The
Prose Edda
goes on to state that men believe that this giantess was really Loki in
disguise. The result, however, was that Balder remained with Hel until after
Ragnarok, the end of the age.

This myth is the longest and most important story dealing with the goddess
Frigg and shows her at her most active. She is first of all the protective
mother, doing all in her power for the well-being of her child, even going so
far as to confront Death herself. Frigg must be a goddess of considerable power
to be able to extract an oath from everything in all the worlds. She has
influence over men and women; gods and giants and the inhabitants of the other
worlds; animals, plants, and even inanimate objects and forces, such as metals,
rocks, and diseases. All these entities bow to Frigg's will and do what she asks
of them. Her role as the receiver of oaths possibly indicates that one of her
roles was a goddess of vows; this dovetails well with her interest in social
order.

But in this story Frigg also attempts to evade the laws of society and of
life. She tries to alter her son's ørlög and thus attempts to change history. By
her own actions she brings about the circumstances that lead to Balder's death,
for the gods would never have been throwing weapons at him if Frigg had not made
all things swear oaths not to hurt him. Yet in a way, she saves him after all,
because he and his blind brother, Hod, both survive Ragnarok because they are
safe in Hel's kingdom, and the two gods return again to rule over the new
Asgard. Frigg is a goddess who battles all the odds and goes head to head with
the laws of life and the universe itself to try to gain her will, and it is all
for her child. In the best Norse tradition, she takes up a battle she probably
knows she cannot win and yet gives her all in the attempt. Perhaps it is this
failure to alter the workings of fate that causes her to refuse to speak the
prophecies that she knows.

OTHER GERMANIC GODDESSES AND FRIGG

There are several German goddesses who are very closely
associated with Frigg. They are possibly the same goddess going under different
names.

Holda

Holda (Frau Holda, Holle, meaning “kind, gracious”) is a goddess
of sky and weather—when she shakes out her feather bed it snows, when she does
her washing it rains, the fluffy white clouds are her linen things put out to
bleach, and the gray clouds are her weaving.
¹⁰
The Dutch named the
Milky Way after her—
Vronelden straet
(or
Vrou-elden-straat,
“Frau
Hulde's street”).
¹¹
She, like Frigg, is a goddess of spinning,
weaving, and other housewifely skills and helps people with smithwork and
baking.

One legend about Holda from the Tyrol tells of how she introduced flax to
humankind. In this story, a peasant wanders into her secret cave while herding
sheep in the mountains. He finds himself in a marvelous jeweled cavern. Before
him stands a beautiful lady in shining robes, the goddess Holda, attended by a
group of young women. She tells him to take anything with him that he likes, and
he asks for the bunch of tiny blue flowers she holds in her hand. Holda tells
him that he has chosen wisely and will live as long as the flowers do. She also
gives him some seed to plant in his fields, and then vanishes.

At home the peasant's wife scolds him for not bringing back something more
valuable, but he sows his fields with the seed and soon he has a crop of tiny
blue flowers. When the blooms drop away, Holda returns and teaches them how to
harvest the flax stalks and to spin, weave, and bleach the linen they produce.
The peasants grow rich selling both linen and seed, and live long and
prosperously.

When he has become quite old, the peasant one day notices that his flowers
have finally begun to fade. He goes back to the mountains to find the cave once
more and is never seen again.
¹²
It was thought that the goddess had
taken him to live with her. Note here how the goddess does not give wealth
outright but instead provides the means for the people to earn it themselves.

This story is reminiscent of the Tannhäuser legend. In this tale the goddess
is called Frau Venus and lives in a cave in the Horselberg in Thuringia, where
she was said to lure people into her realm and keep them there forever. A
Christian knight named Tannhäuser lives with her for a time, until he begins to
tire of a life of sensuality and to worry about his immortal soul. He runs away
to Rome, but the pope rejects his pleas for absolution, telling him that the
papal staff will break into blossom before Tannhäuser can expect forgiveness
from the Christian god. The knight flees in despair and returns to the more
tolerant goddess, but, after his departure, the pope's staff does indeed flower
with buds.
¹³

Holda is sometimes pictured with various attendants, including the spirits of
the dead, particularly the souls of small children; night hags, enchantresses,
and women armed with sickles; and elves or dwarves, who snarl and soil the
spinning if it is done at improper times. Holda is said to dwell in a cave or
hollow mountain, where she keeps the souls of dead and unborn children. She can
also be found in the woods or in wells and often appears near water, bathing or
washing clothes. People can reach her realm by falling down wells, as described
in the Grimms' tale “Mother Holda.”

Babies are said to come from Frau Holda's well or pool, which indicates that
she is in charge of newborn children as well as dead ones and suggests that this
goddess is involved with the process of rebirth. Holda usually appears as a
beautiful and powerful deity, kind and helpful toward human beings, but she also
has a dark and wild side. In this aspect she appears as an ugly old woman with a
long nose, big teeth, and bristling, matted hair. Tangled hair was so strongly
associated with her that a person with unkempt hair was said to “go holda.”
Nevertheless, her helpfulness and concern with the domestic affairs of humanity
persist, despite her ugly shape, and she becomes angry and fearsome only when
she finds disorder in the household.

Berchte

Berchte (Perchte, Berhta, meaning “bright”) is a goddess very
similar to Holda; her legends appear in the south of Germany, while Holda's
predominate in the north. Berchte is also a goddess of spinning and weaving, and
of agriculture. She rides around the country with her plow or wagon and her
train of youngsters, called
heimchen,
thought to be the souls of dead and
unborn children. Later, in Christian times, her train came to include the souls
of unbaptized babies. This small entourage is armed with water jars with which
to tend the plants, while the goddess plows beneath the earth.
¹⁴

Sometimes Berchte has a falling-out with the people of the country she
resides in, and then she takes her plow and her complaining children (who never
seem to want to move) and goes elsewhere. She punishes those who gawk at her
train as she passes or who fail to leave the appropriate gifts of food at Yule.
On one occasion she struck a silly girl blind for laughing at her bedraggled
children, although Berchte restored the girl's sight when the goddess passed
through the area the following year.
¹⁵

Like Holda, Berchte has two contrasting aspects and can appear as a noble and
beautiful lady or an ugly hag. In the latter form she is particularly noted for
her shaggy hair, long nose, and large or misshapen foot or feet, which got that
way from treading her spinning wheel. Thus she is sometimes called “Big-Footed
Berchte” or “Queen Goose-Foot.” Jacob Grimm, the famous German philologist and
mythologist, speculates that the pentagram, which resembles a bird's foot, was
therefore connected with her.
¹⁶
One of the Grimm stories, “
The Three
Spinners
” features three magical old women, each with a
deformity caused by too much spinning, which possibly derived from legends about
this goddess.

In an old German poem, guests at a Twelfth Night feast are warned to eat all
their food or the Stempe would trample them (and you thought Mom was kidding
about cleaning your plate). This figure could be meant to represent Berchte, and
the name is similar to one of Holda's nicknames, Die Trempe (“the trampling
one”).
¹⁷
Another interesting connection is a German folk name for
flax,
stempen-har
.
¹⁸

Interestingly, the legendary mother of the Christian king Charlemagne was
called
Berte au grans pies
(“Berchte of the Big Foot”). There is a tale
about how, while on her way to be married, Berte, the mother of Charlemagne, was
left in the woods by a serving woman who substituted her own daughter for the
bride. The true bride was eventually revealed by her skill at spinning and
weaving.
¹⁹
Although scholars disagree about whether this Berte can be
considered a manifestation of the goddess Berchte, the legends about that deity
must have crept in to the folklore about this mythical royal personage.

The White Lady

Another form of this goddess is the White Lady, a figure that
has appeared throughout Germany and other parts of Europe up until the past
century (and perhaps does still). The White Lady is a beautiful woman dressed
all in white, often with a ring of keys at her waist; sometimes these keys are
bound with a snake. She appears in lonely, out-of-the-way places, often near
pools or wells, and particularly likes to show herself to young children, animal
herders, fishermen, and other solitary workers. She is particularly associated
with the springtime, especially Easter, and tends to appear during the day
around the noon hour.

Like Holda, Berchte, and Frigg, the White Lady is passionately interested in
spinning and in flax. Among the Wends she would appear to women who were weeding
flax and lecture them on the pros and cons of how to plant, raise, harvest, and
spin the plants; she would occasionally wring the necks of women who would not
answer her. This figure is also sometimes called “aunt-in-the-rye” or
“woman-in-thewheat” because of her habit of passing through the fields at
noontime.
²⁰
The White Lady often attaches herself to particular
families, especially noble or royal ones. At night she is sometimes discovered
rocking the babies of the house on her lap, and in general she functions as the
“old grandmother” of the house,
²¹
in much the same way that Odin
appears as the ancient ancestor of kingly lines.

Huldra

In Scandinavian lore there is a being who bears some
similarities to Holda and Berchte in Germanic folklore, although she should not
be taken as the Norse version of Holda, despite her name. This figure is a wood-
or mountain-wife called Huldra (Huldre, Holle). She dresses in blue and white
and appears variously as young and beautiful or old and melancholy; in some
places she is said to be beautiful in front and ugly or hollow in the back. She
is not directly connected to textiles, like the other goddesses, but in Norway
there is a type of soft vegetable material, similar to flannel, called
huldre-web
.
²²

Huldra is the patron of cattle grazing and milking, just as the German Holda
is the patron of spinning and agriculture. Huldra sometimes appears armed with a
milk pail and leading her flock. She is also said to have a cow's tail, which
she takes great pains to conceal. Up until recent times most young men and women
in Scandinavia grazed the flocks on the mountains during the summer. There they
made butter and cheeses, living alone at the
seder,
a small mountain
cabin, for several weeks or months at a time. It was during these times that
Huldra and her elves were apt to visit the pasture grounds.

Huldra is the queen of the
huldrefolk,
or mountain elves, which sound
very much like Holda's attendants, the
holden
. Huldra's train also
consists of human children, for Huldra, like Berchte and Holda, is believed to
carry off the souls of infants. Like the German White Lady, Huldra is fond of
music and is often heard singing sad songs. She likes to join in human dances,
but she is easily recognized by her tail and will flee in embarrassment if she
is discovered.
²³