Freyja's Necklace
by Alice Karlsdottir, from Mountain Thunder, Issue 10, Autumn 1993.
Among the Norse legends is a tale of Freyja, the goddess of love and beauty, who obtained her wonderful necklace, the Brisingamen, by sleeping with each of the four dwarves who made it. The story is usually told to demonstrate Freyja's "immorality," or for bawdy humor. This always seemed rather unfair to me. After all, when writers discuss Odin and how he slept with Gunnlod on three nights in order to win the mead of poetry, they praise his efforts at winning wisdom, but when Freyja, a goddess, does pretty much the same thing, they say, "What a shameless hussy!"
Freyja's necklace is not, of course, just a pretty piece of vanity, but rather a powerful symbol of the goddess's powers of fertility and life. Giants are continually trying to win or steal Freyja for themselves, not just because she's a good lay, but because her powers contain the essence of the life force itself and sustain the well-being of Asgard and the rest of the worlds. The story of how Freyja got the Brisingamen is a story of her quest for wisdom and power, every bit as much as Odin's adventures are.
I wrote this song riding on a bus to Scottish country dancing (I wrote a song about Loki on the way back; don't ask me what this means). In it, I equated the four dwarves, whose names are never mentioned, with four dwarves whose names correspond to the four directions, East, South, West, and North, because it seemed to fit somehow. And yes, I know some of the images smack of the four elements of classical Western occultism and there is nothing to indicate the old Norse used these correspondences, but the idea of elemental natural forces has kind of pervaded Western thought by now and again, it seemed to fit. Anyway, it's only one facet of what the dwarves could represent.
One of Freyja's powers seems to be a mastery of material manifestation, the infusing of the physical world with the spiritual. Freyja not only masters the senses, she revels in them and shows that physical existence itself is a wondrous thing. I always sort of imagined that the dwarves didn't create the necklace until after Freyja slept with them, that their intercourse was in fact necessary to inspire the dwarves to be able to make the Brisingamen in the first place. Freyja, on the other hand, discovers the powers of the material world and how to control and shape them.
The Lady of the Vanir
There came a Lady fae the west
Who left not one cold man here;
She smelled of trees, and ocean breeze
The Lady of the Vanir.She kissed the pollen on the rose;
She kissed the golden corn ear
She kissed the seed within the womb,
The Lady of the Vanir.She went forth from the towers of Light;
She felt no sorrow nor fear.
She went to seek the heart of the night,
The Lady of the Vanir.She found the cavern dark and deep,
All filled with gold and jewels dear;
She found the small men at their work,
The Lady of the Vanir.She wrapped her arm around the East
And found a thought so light and clear;
She breathed forth a song and melody,
The Lady of the Vanir.She wrapped her tongue around the South,
And in her breast a flame did sear;
She shouted forth her battle-song,
The Lady of the Vanir.She wrapped her leg around the West,
And felt her Mother's breast near;
She gave her heart to all the world,
The Lady of the Vanir.She wrapped her womb around the North,
And felt the Star of Night appear;
She bore it forth into the Light,
The Lady of the Vanir.As she went forth, her white neck shone
With jewels of ice and fire;
And in her path the flowers they grew,
For the Lady of the Vanir.Some make things grow, and others know,
And some are fair and full of cheer;
But here's not a sweeter, wilder love
Than the Lady of the Vanir
This article copyright 1993 by Alice Karlsdottir.
Web version copyright 1997 by Alice Karlsdottir and Mountain Thunder.
This page maintained by bratwurst@vinland.org
Last modified on 31 Mar 1997.