Freyr

Basic Info:
 Name Origin: Old Norse
 Other Names: Inguin/Yngvi (Old High German/Old Norse); Frô/Frôjo/Frouwo (Old High
German); Ingƿine (Old English) Ingwaz/Fraujaz/Frauwaz (reconstructed Proto-Germanic)
 Principal Race/“Family” Designation: Vanir
 God of: sacral kingship; virility; prosperity; peace; marriage; childbirth; sunshine; fair
weather; fertility; death
 Associations: boars; horses; ships; death; funerary rites; burial mounds; phallic imagery;
effeminateness, the ingwaz rune
 Epithets: Veraldar góð1, Inn Fróði (according to Snorri), possibly Ing2
 Mythological Possessions: Gullinbursti, a boar faster than any horse, covered with golden,
glowing bristles; Skíðblaðnir, a splendid ship capable of being folded up and carried in
one’s pocket; a magic sword (possibly called Lævateinn3) that fights on its own "if wise be
he who wields it"
 Dwellings: Vanaheimr; Álfheimr; Ásgarðr
 Family: Father: Njǫrðr; Mother: probably Nerthus (Nerþuz); Wife: Gerðr, possibly Freyja;
Sister: Freyja; Children: Fjǫlnir4

Further Info:
 On the Relationship Between Freyr and Gerðr: In the Eddic poem Skírnismál, Freyr
snuck into Valaskjálf and sat upon Hliðskjálf, from which he looked into Jötunheimr,
where he saw and fell in love with the jötun maiden Gerðr. Freyr sent Skírnir with the task
of relaying his (Freyr’s) feelings to Gerðr, a task which Skírnir accepted on the condition
that he would be given Freyr’s sword in return for this service. In the end, Gerðr consented
to meet Freyr and became his bride.
 On Freyr and Nerthus’ Common History with Sacred Wagons: Like Nerthus5, there
are instances recorded of Freyr, with a priestess-wife to accompany him, being borne

1
Snorri Sturluson. Edda. c. 1220. MS.
2
H. R. Ellis Davidson. Gods and Myths of the Viking Age. New York: Barnes & Noble Publishing,
2006.
3
Jackson Crawford. The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes. Indianapolis, IN:
Haccket Publishing Company, 2015.
4
Snorri Sturluson. Ynglinga Saga. c. 1225. MS.
5
Cornelius Tacitus, Harold Mattingly, and J. B. Rives. Agricola ; Germania. London: Penguin,
2009.
 around the land in a sacred wagon, feasting with mortals during the winter season.6 The
Danish King Fróði is also similar to the both of them in this respect.
 On the “Unmanliness” of the Worship of Freyr: Saxo tells7 of the worship of Freyr at
Uppsala, which involved “effeminate gestures,” “clapping of mimes upon the stage,” and
the “unmanly clatter of bells.” This was likely part of a ritual performance in Freyr’s honor,
possibly to invite Freyr’s blessing upon the fields the crops that would be harvested later.
 On Freyr’s History with Human Sacrifice: Saxo also tells of human sacrifices that were
part of the Vanir cult, and the poem Ynglingatal seems to imply that Swedish kings were
not uncommonly the victims of such sacrifices, which therefore suggests that Freyr may
have begun as a priest-king. However, there is no hard evidence to support these theories.
 On Freyr’s History with the Horse Cult: Freyr was associated with the horse cult (we
even know the name of one particular sacred stallion, Freyfaxi), and horses were kept near
Freyr’s temples in Iceland. Sacred horses were also kept in a sanctuary in Norway at
Thrandheim. Flateyjarbók tells of King Olaf Tryggvason, on his way to destroy the
sanctuary, riding a horse that had been given to Freyr, which was forbidden, and an act of
defiance against the god.
 On Freyr’s and Freyja’s Association with Boars: Boars were sacred to both Freyr and
Freyja, and Tacitus tells that the Aestii, a Germanic tribe on the coast of Prussia, wore
figures of boars in rituals and to signify their cult affiliation. When Óttarr the Simple
donned a boar mask in the Eddic poem Hyndluljóð, he was able to disguise himself as
Freyja’s boar Hildisvín and gain protection and inspiration from her. Boar helmets were
treasured for their ostensible protective powers by the early kings of Sweden.
 On Freyr’s Association with Ships: It is possible that Freyr’s mythological portable ship
Skíðblaðnir was based on an actual mock-ship used in ritual practices and folded up when
not being used. There is plenty of evidence of processional ships being kept in churches in
Scandinavia from the Middle Ages to the modern day. Ship symbolism was also very
commonly used in funerary rites, and Freyr himself was very closely associated with death
and funerary rites. When in Ynglinga Saga Freyr was dead and lying in a burial mound,
priests placed gifts of gold, silver, and copper into three separate holes in the side of the
mound.
 On King Fróði: The Danish King Fróði is similar to Freyr as he was in Sweden, a bringer
of peace and prosperity to the land, and borne around in a wagon after death, the news of
which was buried for sometime before Fróði himself was finally buried in a mound.

Theories:
 On the Sibling-Consort Relationships Between Njǫrðr and Nerthus, and Freyr and
Freyja; and on the Shift from Matricentricism and Endogamy to Patriarchy and

6
Flateyjarbók. c. 1394. MS.
7
Saxo Grammaticus. The Danish History. Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar, 2009.
Exogamy: It seems extremely likely that Freyr and Freyja are later forms of Njǫrðr and
Nerthus, since they share a great many qualities, and since Njörðr was recorded by Snorri
as being the father of Freyr and Freyja. This conclusion is further supported by the evidence
of Njǫrðr and Nerthus having once been siblings who in later mythology spawned Freyr
and Freyja as the result of an incestuous relationship. Snorri himself states that sibling
marriage was customary among the Vanir, a custom which is mirrored by actual historical
practices of the endogamic, matricentric, matrilineal, and matrilocal cultures of Old
Europe. During that era and in that area, clans were governed by matriarchs who co-ruled
with their brothers or sometimes their uncles, both of whom were thought of as being
“second in command.” American psychologist Ralph Metnzer, in his 1994 book called The
Well of Remembrance: Rediscovering the Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe,
provides a relatively clear explanation of this through the following snippets:
o ‘With the shift from a matricentric to a patriarchal social order, from village
commons to individual land holdings and ownership, and from matrilineal to
patrilineal inheritance of name and property came parallel shifts from endogamous
and matrilocal marriage customs to exogamous and patrilocal ones. In the cultures
of Old Europe, marrying within the clan lineage (endogamy) was associated with
matrilineal inheritance and matrilocality (living in the woman’s family home). In
the widely dispersed settlements of the archaic period, women would marry
someone from the clan, and the husband or consort would live in the woman’s
extended family household, along with her brothers and sisters. Among the
descendants of the pre-Celtic Picts in Scotland, matriliny survived into the eighth
century and matrilocality, in which the woman stays in her maternal home on
marriage, continued into the twentieth century. According to Gimbutas, Old
European society was organized “around a theocratic, communal temple
community…an endogamous society guided by a highly respected elder—Great
Mother of the clan and her brother or uncle, with a council of women as a
governing body. The structure was matrilineal, with succession to leadership and
inheritance within the female line.”
o ‘According to the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the political and economic
importance of exogamy is the real reason for the worldwide incest taboo. Possible
genetic defects from inbreeding are too delayed and subtle to form the basis for
such a powerful prohibition. But grown-up children with children themselves would
put intolerable economic strain on the village or clan if they never moved. So the
imperative was, “don’t marry in the family (or clan)—marry someone from outside,
so that our family can prosper, and theirs too.” For the Kurgan invaders, marrying
local women, whether through forcible abduction and rape or through peaceful
economic exchanges, must have been one of the principal ways they established
themselves in the farming communities of Old Europe. The endogamous practices
of the indigenous inhabitants would have been condemned as “incestuous,” as
 would the co-rulership of elder women with their brothers. Over the three millennia
of cultural interaction and migration, intermarriage must have been the principal
social glue that led to the hybrid cultures that we encounter as we enter the
historical period.’
o ‘A striking example of mythology as the mirror image of culture, and of mythology
confirming the findings of archaeology, is in the myth of the Vanir deities Freyr
and Freyja, whose names in the Old Norse tongue simply mean “Lord” and
“Lady.” They were brother and sister, children of Njörd and Nerthus, who were
also said to be siblings, or were possibly one androgynous being. Freyr was a god
of fertility and abundance, especially revered among the Swedes, and Freyja was
the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and magic. They were worshipped as consorts
and siblings, although in the later period, in which the Aesir were the dominant
gods, Freyr marries the giantess Gerdra, and Freyja has a mysterious, mostly
absent husband Odr, one of the Aesir. [compiler’s note: This marriage of a Vanir
goddess (Freyja) with an Aesir god (Odr) can only have come to be by means of
cultural sharing between the matricentric Old Europeans and the patriarchal Kurgan
migrants, and therefore they cannot have been each other’s original consorts.] The
historian Snorri, who composed the Prose Edda, stated that among the Vanir,
sibling marriage was customary, but the Aesir gods condemned it as incestuous
and required them each to seek other mates.
‘This mythological fragment probably reflects the shift from endogamy and
brother-sister rule among the Old Europeans, whose gods were the Vanir, to the
exogamic, patriarchal structure of the Germanic and Nordic people, for whom the
Aesir, as among the Olympians of classical Greece, goddesses play a decidedly
lesser role, usually as wives or daughters of the father god, who often has numerous
affairs with other goddesses or human women. Thus, the patriarchal code for male-
female relationships, both at the human level and the divine, condemns sibling
consorts and rulership as incestuous, demands absolute fidelity and loyalty from
the woman, and permits promiscuity for the man. The double standard for sexual
fidelity is still with us, of course, and is one of the most deep-seated anti-feminine
biases of the Indo-European ideology.’
 On Freyr and Alcohol: In Gods and Myths of the Viking Age, H. R. Ellis Davidson says
this: “In Asgard there is a minor figure called Byggvir (Barley) who appears in the Edda
poem Lokasenna. Loki mocks at him because he is always chattering in the ear of Freyr,
and he has a companion called Beyla, whose name Dumézil ingeniously interprets as ‘bee’,
symbolizing the other favourite drink, mead made from honey.” [Compiler’s note: It is my
personal opinion that Byggvir does in fact represent beer and Freyr’s ostensible “drinking
problem,” and also that Beyla, Byggvir’s consort, represents Freyja and her arguable
promiscuity and sexual relationship with Freyr.]
 References

 Crawford. Jackson. The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes. Indianapolis,
IN: Haccket Publishing Company, 2015.
 Davidson, H. R. Ellis. Gods and Myths of the Viking Age. New York: Barnes & Noble
Publishing, 2006.
 Flateyjarbók. c. 1394. MS.
 Grammaticus, Saxo. The Danish History. Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar, 2009.
 Sturluson, Snorri. Edda. c. 1220. MS.
 Sturluson, Snorri. Ynglinga Saga. c. 1225. MS.
 Tacitus, Cornelius, Harold Mattingly, and J. B. Rives. Agricola ; Germania. London:
Penguin, 2009.
 ss, 2016.