Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

resemble him, and who are called by different names. The first of these is represented as a human king who reigned in Denmark in the far past. He was called Frodi, and both Snorri and Saxo agree that his reign was a time of universal peace and unparalleled prosperity. Snorri states that he lived in Denmark at the time when Freyr ruled in Sweden, and suggests that they both reigned at the time of the peace of the Augustines. Saxo’s picture is less clear because in the early books of his Danish history he has several kings called Frodi, and some live anything but peaceful lives. But he certainly knew stories about an early king of that name whose reign was calm and prosperous, and who after death was carried round by his people in a wagon for some time, and then finally laid in a burial mound. He even quotes four lines of a poem said to be inscribed over his grave:

Frodi, whom the Danes would have wished to live long, they bore long through their lands when he was dead. The great chief’s body, with this turf heaped above it, bare earth covers under the lucid sky.¹

This Danish Frodi has obvious resemblances to Freyr in Sweden, since Freyr too brought peace to the land, was carried round in a wagon, and had his death concealed for some time, while he was finally buried in a mound. The Old Norse word fro?r means ‘wise’, but also has the meaning ‘fruitful’, ‘luxurious’, and so would be a fitting tide for a god of fertility. Snorri indeed tells us that one of Freyr’s tides was inn fro?i, ‘the fruitful’. It seems reasonable to assume then that Frodi was the Danish god of fertility, the equivalent of Freyr in Sweden.

Another being who had some connexion with Denmark, and who possessed a wagon, was known to the Anglo-Saxons. They called him Ing, and his name occurs in the Old English Runic poem, written down in a tenth- century manuscript:

Ing at first among the East Danes

was seen of men. Then he went eastwards

across the sea. The wagon sped after.

Thus the Heardings have named the hero.

It is usually agreed that the Heardings were the same as the Hasdingi, the royal dynasty of the Vandals. They may have worshipped Ing while they were in south Sweden, and carried his cult to Denmark and further east when they migrated from Scandinavia and settled in Continental lands. Ing appears to be the name or title of a god. The Anglian kings of Bernicia in north-eastern England remembered Ingui, Ingibrand, and Inguec in their genealogies as names of the founder of their line. Freyr himself bore the tides Yngvi or Ingunar, and the royal dynasty of Sweden was known as the Ynglings. Some of the men who were said to have worshipped Freyr in Iceland bore names like Ingjald and Ingimund. It is possible then that Ing was another of the names by which the god Freyr was known in northern Europe.

Another royal ancestor of the Danes was said to have brought them peace and prosperity, and to have journeyed over the sea. This was Scyld, whose story is told in the opening section of the Old English poem Beowulf. Here it is said that a ship laden with treasure came across the sea to Denmark, and brought a child who afterwards became the king of the land. When he came to the end of a long and prosperous reign, he departed over the sea as he had come, for the Danes loaded a ship with weapons and precious things and laid their king’s dead body upon it, letting the sea bear it away. The full name of this king is given as Scyld Scefing, and the name Scyldings throughout the poem is used of the Danes.

Another version of this legend seems to have survived in England as late as the twelfth century, and appears in William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum. He gives the child’s name as Sceaf, and says that he came over the sea with a sheaf of corn beside him. On the whole this late tradition is thought to be untrustworthy, but Sceaf’s name is found earlier. The tenth-century Chronicle of Aethelweard says that Sceaf came with a boat full of weapons to the island of Scani, and was made king by the inhabitants. Earlier still his name occurs in a ninth-century genealogy of King Egbert of Wessex, included in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, with the added comment that he was born in the Ark, presumably an optimistic attempt to reconcile native tradition with Biblical lore. Thus, although the allusions vary and are widely scattered, the idea of a young child coming in a ship over the sea and becoming a king in Denmark seems to have long survived in Anglo-Saxon England.

When William of Malmesbury states that Sceaf came in a boat with a sheaf of corn, this suggests folk tradition of some kind. In the thirteenth-century Chronicle of Abingdon, it is recorded that when the monks wished to prove their right to certain meadows beside the Thames, they set a sheaf of corn with a lighted candle beside it on a round shield and floated it down the river, the course taken by the shield proving their claim. Since H. M. Chadwick¹ first drew attention to this passage there has been much argument, first as to whether such a custom ever existed as described, and secondly whether it could have any significant connexion with the stories of Scyld and Sceaf. It is not possible here to go into all the complications involved, but it seems worth noticing the fact that a series of traditions has gone on into medieval times bringing together a divine child, a sheaf of corn, and a vessel moving by supernatural power.

We have also another being among the gods of Asgard whose symbol was the shield, and who had some connexions with the Vanir. The god Ull was known as ‘god of the shield’, and seems to have used the shield as a boat, since in skaldic verse a shield is called ‘ship of Ull’. Ull at one time must have been a deity of some importance, although there is little about him in the pages of Snorri. In Norway and Sweden his name occurs in place-names in two forms, Ullr and Ullin. Places called after him are in many cases near those called after Freyr, Freyja, Njord, and Njord’s wife Skadi, so that it seems natural to assume that he was associated in some way with the Vanir. There is little trace of his worship in Denmark, but a third-century scabbard found in a Danish bog bears a name in runes which means ‘servant of Ull’, and its owner may have been a worshipper of the god. Ull’s name is related to the Gothic word meaning ‘majesty’, or ‘glory’, and because of this it has been thought that he was an early Germanic sky god. Snorri however associated him with the bow and with snow-shoes, and Saxo tells us that he crossed the seas on a magic bone, which suggests skates. Skates and snow-shoes would be fitting for a god of winter, or a deity of the northern lakes and mountains. Ull remains a mysterious and shadowy figure, and serves as a reminder of the many northern deities and cults which had faded into oblivion by the time that Snorri wrote his account of the gods.

A more substantial deity is the father of Freyr and Freyja, the god Njord. He must have been concerned with fertility, but in the literature is mainly remembered as a god of the sea and ships, and will be discussed as such in a later chapter. It must be noted here however that his name is the Old Norse equivalent of Nerthus, the goddess described by Tacitus. Many attempts have been made to find an explanation of the relationship between these two deities. Possibly there was originally a male and female pair of deities, Njord and Nerthus, and Freyr took the place of the earlier god. There are traces of other divine pairs: Ullr/Ullin, and Fjorgyn/Fjorgynn, of whom we know little beyond the names. An alternative theory is that Nerthus was transformed into the male god Njord, and that Njord’s wife Skadi, who like Ull is said to have had snow-shoes and a bow, was originally the male partner. But no completely convincing explanation as to why such a change of sex took place has been found.

Snorri tells us a strange tale of the marriage of Njord and Skadi (see page 30). They could not decide where to live, as Skadi dwelt in the mountains and Njord by the sea, and each was restless and unhappy in the other’s abode. An explanation for this story which has been put forward is that it was based on memories of a joint festival lasting for nine days, when a winter deity linked with the hills was joined with a god of warmth from the more fertile regions by the sea.¹ However, if this was the case, the ‘marriage’ has left only unhappy memories behind.

This brief survey of male figures in the literature who seem to have some connexion with fertility shows how misleading it is to attempt to simplify the cult of the Vanir. The position is sadly complicated, because we seem to be dealing with vague memories and echoes of past beliefs and customs which have left some mark on the literature. Whereas Freyr seems to have been supreme in Sweden at the close of the heathen period, there are a series of male figures bearing different names, possibly local variants of Freyr, or the ghosts of earlier fertility gods displaced by the powerful Swedish deity. Elaborate theories have been woven round these half-forgotten gods, but we lack firm proof as to the nature of their cults or their relationship with one another.

There are certain basic ideas which are associated with these male deities. First we have that of the royal ancestor, as in the case of Freyr and Frodi, Scyld and Sceaf, the first of a line of kings, coming to reign over the land and bring it fruitfulness and peace. There is also an obstinate tradition of a divine infant, who comes over the waves to save his country. Freyr himself may have been associated with such a story; we have the statement in one of the Edda poems that he received his hall, Alfheim, as a ‘tooth-gift’, that is, a present given to