Frigg was the goddess of love, marriage, and destiny. She was the wife of the powerful Norse god Odin, the chief of the Norse deities. A sky goddess, responsible for weaving the clouds, and therefore for sunshine and rain and the fertility of the crops, she was also responsible for weaving the fates.
Description[]
She was known as a 'seer', one who knew the future though she could never change it. In ancient times the end of the Winter Solstice, when the hours of sunlight began to lengthen, marked the beginning of the new year and was a time to think of new possibilities that would unfold. Frigg, who sat at her spindle weaving the destiny of man and gods alike, was the goddess associated with the beginning of each new year.
Although, as a fertility goddess, Frigg’s primary responsibility was arranging matches for marriage, she is almost never referenced as engaging in this activity. The stories in which she features fully always show her as either Odin’s companion and intellectual equal – or better – or as a devoted mother looking out for her children.
History[]
Queen of the Gods[]
Frigg was queen of the Æsir gods and by extension the Vanir gods given that she married Odin who rules over both the Æsir and the Vanir but only after the Vanir agreed to conjoin their tribe and resources with the Æsir in order to avoid the conflict of war. She dwells in the wetland halls of Fensalir, is famous for her foreknowledge, is associated with the goddesses Fulla, Lofn, Hlín, and Gná, and is ambiguously associated with the Earth. The children of Frigg and Óðinn include the gleaming god Baldr.
Frigg dwelled in Fensalir, a watery realm that likely took the form of a bog, marsh, or wetlands. She owned an ashen box called an eski, which the goddess Fulla toted around for her; the box’s contents were unknown. It is also revealed that Frigg engaged in an affair with Vili and Vé, Odin's younger brothers, when the All-Father was away from Asgard.
Tribe of the Lombards[]
Despite the fact that Odin had a few consorts during his marriage with Frigg, the goddess still maintained an easy relationship with Odin characterized by his obvious respect for them and their ability to deceive him, often in sport, though sometimes to further an agenda. In these tales, Frigg is depicted as a clever woman who can outwit Odin, god of wisdom, to get her own way, reflecting the relatively high status women enjoyed in Norse culture.
Frigg is featured as the goddess who not only elevates the Lombards to victory but is responsible for their name. The Lombards, then a small Scandinavian tribe known as the Winnili, received demands from the powerful Vandals that they should submit themselves as vassals and pay tribute or prepare for war. The Winnili sent back word that they would rather die as free men than live as slaves.
Both the Vandals and the Winnili then appealed to Odin for victory. Odin favored the Vandals while Frigg sided with the Winnili. Not wanting to upset his wife, Odin replied that victory would be given to whichever side he saw first at dawn of the next day, which he was sure would be the Vandals. The völva Gambara of the Winnili appealed to Frigg to grant victory to her sons in battle and Frigg told Gambara to return to her tribe and have all of the women take down their hair, arrange it across their faces to look like beards, and stand with their men in the field where Odin would see them first when he rose in the morning and looked to the east.
Gambara did as she was told and, the next morning, all the women stood in ranks with the men, their hair tied across their faces and braided to look like beards. Odin looked out his window and said to Frigg, "Who are these long-beards?" to which Frigg replied that, since he had now given them their name, he should also give them victory. Odin agreed, and the 'Longbeards' became the Lombards who defeated the Vandals and kept their autonomy.
Lay of Grimnir[]
Frigg also manipulates Odin, this time over a perceived insult he gave to her foster-son. Two young sons of a great king, Geirröth and Agnarr, go fishing but are blown out to sea by a storm. They are taken in by a peasant and his wife who raise them. The peasant fosters Geirröth while his wife tends to Agnarr. When the boys are grown, the couple sends them back to their kingdom. Upon reaching the shore, Geirröth kicks the boat back out to sea, telling Agnarr to fend for himself, and returns to the palace where he finds their father has died and he is now king.
The scene switches to Odin and Frigg who are sitting in Odin’s throne room from which they can see all the Nine Realms. The peasant and his wife, it turns out, were actually Odin and Frigg, and Odin casually observes how his boy has become a powerful king while hers is a nothing now living in a cave with a giantess as a mate. Frigg replies that Geirröth is so cheap and inhospitable he tortures his guests if he feels there are too many mooching off him. Odin challenges her to a wager, saying he will go disguised as a traveler named Grímnir and will no doubt be treated well. Frigg accepts the bet and then sends her handmaiden, Fulla, to warn Geirröth that a wizard is coming to bewitch him and he will know the man because not even the bravest dogs will dare attack him.
Gylfaginning[]
Frigg is tormented by dreams in which a tragedy, that she cannot see, takes her son Baldr. At this same time, Baldr himself has had some similar dreams. Since Frigg knows the fate of all, but cannot see what is coming for Baldr, she becomes upset and so Odin travels to the realm of Hel, raises the spirit of a witch, and asks her. The witch only tells him that Hel has been prepared for Baldr's arrival. Frigg then goes throughout the Nine Realms of Norse cosmology extracting from all things animate and inanimate the promise that they will not harm her son. Afterwards, the gods of Asgard take up the sport of hurling objects at Baldr which, because of their promise to Frigg, bounce harmlessly off the god.
Loki, observing this, transforms himself into a woman and goes to visit Frigg on her throne in Fensalir. She asks the visitor what the gods are up to in Asgard and is told they are playing at their usual sport throwing things at Baldr, and then the visitor asks if it is true that all things took the oath never to harm the most handsome and kindest of the gods. Frigg, suspecting nothing, tells the woman that she never extracted an oath from the young plant mistletoe because it was so small and harmless.
Loki leaves and finds the mistletoe west of Valhalla. Fashioning it into a small projectile, he then returns to Asgard and hands it to the blind god Hodr (Höðr) who was feeling bad because he was unable to participate in the game. Loki assures him that he will guide Hodr’s aim and Hodr hurls the mistletoe which pierces Baldr’s breast, killing him. The gods are all struck with horror and begin weeping as Frigg arrives to find her son dead. She asks for a volunteer to journey to the afterlife realm of Hel and ask for the return of Baldr’s soul and then prepares a grand funeral for him.