Ancient history

Freyr

" Lord ". God vane.

Freyr, son of Njôrdr, is the twin brother of Freyja. Except for the sexual implications, everything that has been said about Freyja can be applied here. Like his twin (and perhaps wife), Freyr is par excellence the vane god of fecundity-fertility. He seems particularly linked to the Swedes.

When, around 1075, Adam of Bremen described the great temple of Uppsala (which he had not seen, he brought back a testimony), he placed the statue of the god “Fricco cum ingenti priapo” there. Like Freyja, Freyr is related to the boar or wild boar, Gullinbursti (“with golden bristles”), or Svfagr ss (“Piglet of the Swedes”). A very beautiful myth, recounted in the Skirnisfôr (Poetic Edda), shows the god Freyr transfixed with love for the beautiful giantess Gerdr whom he saw from his celestial throne. Freyr delegates his servant Skirnir (the Sparkling) to make a proper marriage proposal; Skirnir demands his sword in exchange (thus in Ragnarôk, the god, disarmed, will be defeated), then carries out his mission; Gerdr refusing his proposals, Skirnir comes to magical practices and threatens the beauty to strike her with frigidity (or nymphomania). Gerdr then gives in and makes an appointment with the handsome god. A naturist interpretation of this myth has long been proposed:Freyr is the spring sun god who unites himself, by violence, with the germinating spring earth (the substantive gerdr can refer to the Norwegian den inngjerdete, "she who is surrounded by an enclosure").

On the other hand, just like his father Njôrdr, Freyr reigns over navigation:he has the magic ship Skidbladnir which folds up after use, so that the god can put it in his pocket - undoubtedly the image of these processional boats collapsible, used a few centuries ago in the North, which we find in an Icelandic story from the end of the twelfth century, Ôgmundar thàttr dytts. In this story, a certain Gunnarr helmingr (“half”, possible nickname for a twin or a consort) takes part in a processional cult offered to a “goddess”; it is in fact a woman, with whom he cohabits and impregnates her, to the great joy of the population (a cult of this type is described by Tacitus in the Germania).

All these features attest to the antiquity of the god and his cult in Scandinavia, a country of navigators where the liquid element and the boat have always played a considerable role.

Another tradition makes Freyr the prince of the Alfes. He is said to inhabit Âlfheimr (World-of-Alfes) and, if the Alves are indeed fertility deities, the connection could go without saying.

On the other hand, it is possible that Freyr coincides with a king of the Ynglingar (central Sweden), dynasty to which he would have given his name:he would then have been called Yngvi or Yngvi-Freyr, the slow equivalent of Ingunar-Freyr ( which we find in Lokasenna 43 of the Poetic Edda); this name went back to an *Inguaz, which would be found behind the Ingva;ones cited by Tacitus as one of the tribes inhabiting Germania. This would explain why he benefited from a well-attested cult, if only by toponymy; and we even find, in the Icelandic sagas, freysgodar who are said to be his servants. The Saga of the chiefs of Val-au-Lac (Vatnsdcela saga 12) gives us a story of Freyr's magic amulet which moves by magic from Norway to Iceland, where it will have a founding and tutelary function.


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