A pair of lesser known gods from Norse mythology.
Tag: norse
Okay, I think I’m finally done with this.
Don’t use this as your main source of information on Norse mythology. Some things are only based on speculation and theories, not hard proof from any texts.
Also, Jotuns are gods of chaos (Not necessarily "destroy everything" chaos, but rather “not categorized and put in order” chaos) so their gender and sex is a bit muddy. The first Jotun Ymer had both male and female genitalia and mated with himself, and that set the tone for all Jotuns to come.We don’t know for sure who Heimdall’s mothers are. We’re told he has nine, so people just assume it’s Ægir’s nine daughters. We don’t know for sure if Ran is mother to the daughters either, because only Ægir is mention as their parent.
A god named Lothur helped make the first humans, but because he doesn’t appear anywhere else, people speculate Lothur is another name for Loki. Høner is said to be Loki’s good friend, which strengthens the Odin, Høner, Loki connection.
In one text Odin is the father of Tyr, but in another Hymer is his father. Depending on what people prefer they might claim either Frigg or Hrodr is his mother, but neither is mentioned as his parents, just wives. That’s why I just put both Odin and Hymer as Tyr’s parents. Male Jotuns could give birth, so there’s nothing standing in the way of this.
People speculate that Skadi may originally have been a male deity because a man with the same name who is also associated with winter, snow and hunting appears in one of the Eddas. This could mean she’s the original father of Ull whom she shares a lot of traits with.
When Skadi and Njord’s marriage doesn’t work out, she runs off with someone else, but people can’t agree on who. Most people say Od, though.
Some goddesses from Nordic mythology
Syn: She guards The Hall. What hall? We don’t know, but if she has decided you can’t go in, nothing in the world can change her decision. Odin and Frigg can’t change her mind, and Thor can’t force her.
Jord: The embodiment of Earth itself. She is Thor’s mother and Frigg’s father.
Elle: The embodiment of aging. Thor tried to wrestle her, thinking beating an old lady would be easy, but he lost because no one can beat age.
Nat: Embodiment of night, with her three husbands and three children, one of which is Jord.
Most people know about fairy changelings from Ireland. In Scandinavia trolls were accused of switching children, but they had two ways of doing it. In Denmark specifically it was explained as trolls wanting humans who could walk into towns or holy grounds and get stuff for them.
They tend to feel out of place among humans, so if they realize they are changelings they return to the forest and either turn into a proper troll or a tree, both feeling much happier.
Someday I might get sick of trolls, but today is not that day.
Just a little visual rant.
It’s thanks to Christian monks that we today think of jotuns (or ice giants if you’re a pleeb) as evil demon-like creatures.
We know the Vikings didn’t think of them as such because they were worshiped like gods in some areas and some people even proudly claimed to be descendants of them.
Instead jotuns were natural chaos opposite the gods’ culture and order. Jotuns were trees, the gods were wooden boats. Jotuns were cliffs, the gods were walls.
That’s why jotuns don’t fit neatly into any boxes. They all knew magic despite that being a female trait to the Vikings, they could change size, they made nature behave weird, and some jotuns were embodiments of things that can not be controlled like age, sea, and night.
And something that appears a few times in the old stories are pregnant male jotuns. The very first jotun even birthed the jotun race on his own. This is part of their chaos nature. They can give birth by changing their sex, or even in their male form (however that works).
I’m still hoping we will some day see a random pregnant male jotun in a game or movie, but people are always more interested in depicting jotuns as destructive, but it’s a very important part of their role in the mythology that they also created a lot of the things the gods use. They are so good at creating that even men can birth life.
After my last post about how jotun men from Norse mythology can give birth I wondered what that would be like in a more fantasy-like setting.
I didn’t make it clear in the last post, but jotun men can also get spontaneously pregnant. They usually have to do something for it to happen, but they don’t always know what they did. Jotun women also seem to be able to get others pregnant, men and women, if you cross some stories. It’s all an expression of jotuns as creatures of chaos. For them there are no rules.
The inspiration for the elf is a mix of Viking beliefs about them and Golden Age/Victorian beliefs. The Vikings believed them to be dark in appearance and they were often associated with gold and silver from graves. It was believed that they stole it from the dead. Only later did people start to think of them as beautiful, misty creatures.
I placed a lot of mist and rocks around them to suggest they’re near a hot spring, mostly as way to explain why they’re almost naked.
We don’t much remember that Freyr, the Norse god of harvest, also had the unique property that women couldn’t be harmed near him. Not because he would attack those who wanted them harm, but because it was like a magic shield was put on them. Weapons would literally break on impact with women’s skin if he was around.
Gerd is the only jotun woman romantically involved with the gods who is consistently depicted as big, and often fat. That’s because in the story about Freyr falling in love with her he especially admires her “big, white arms”. It also makes sense that a god of harvest and plenty would love a woman embodying that.
Freyr, his sister Freya and their father Njord (who also married a jotun btw) are all gods of fertility in each their own way, so I like to depict them as overweight too, though not as big as Gerd.I also like depicting Freyr as something of a classic romantic hero because of how hopelessly and dramatically he falls in love with Gerd. He longs for her and cries when he thinks he can’t be with her, and gets depressed because he has to wait a whole week to meet her in person. Also, the reason why he doesn’t have a sword is because he gave it to Gerd as a present.
And Gerd is a tough lady. Freyr’s servant threaten her with death (without Freyr knowing) and she doesn’t give a shit. He had to threatened her with bad luck for the rest of her life before she agreed to meet Freyr.
Her father is the sea jotun Ægir which is why I tend to give her a sea inspired look.
Idun and Brage are an odd pair of gods from Norse mythology.
Idun is the most legit of the two. She is mentioned as being the goddess in charge of the golden apples that keep the other gods young, though one text suggest she might be keeping them young simply by living in Asgard. She is supposedly also quite fond of sex. Freya is often assumed to be the most promiscuous of the goddesses, but according to Loki Idun is far more active on that scene. One of her names even means “mistress/lover of the gods” so it would seem she got around.
Scholars aren’t quite sure what she even is. There’s some suggestion she might be one of the Vanir (same tribe as Freya and Freyr) because Freyr has some golden apples of his own in one story. Vanir and elves are also closely connected, so some think Idun might be an elf because there’s a whole story surrounding why Freya and Freyr lives in Asgard that would make it kinda weird for Idun to live there too if she’s a Vanir. Elves were seen as lesser nature gods so it would still make her a legit god.
Brage’s claim to fame as a god is less legit. He is often cited as being god of music and poetry, but nowhere in the old texts is he actually called a god and there’s evidence of real humans going by the same name. It was unheard of for humans to be named after gods, so it seems likely that Brage despite being the son of Odin wasn’t a god himself. He was just a human who lived in Asgard because his wife and father were gods. That would also explain why he apparently was quite the coward in battle. He was just a puny human going up against gods. (Then again he might have been a really good poet who was made a god by later people, but I think my version is more fun)
And don’t worry about the whole “Idun sleeping with every man she sees” thing. Vikings didn’t expect people to stay faithful to their spouse (no, not even the women), so Brage probably wasn’t torn up about it. And she clearly loved him as she tried to defend his honor when Loki mocked him for being a coward.
teakepp 