HOME | DD

Description

Character design for Norse Mythology: The Animated Series www.patreon.com/norsemythology…

Gefjon (the giving one) is a Scandinavian goddess of whom Snorri tells stories in Ynglingasaga 5 and Gylfaginning 1: During Odin's migration to Scandinavian he stayed en route in Odensø (Odense) on Fyn and sent Gefjon to look for land to the North. The swedish king Gylfi gives her land to plough and she turns her four sons, who she has from a Jötun, into bulls. She puts these in front of a plough and thus ploughs Zealand free from Sweden. Snorri adds that Zealand used to lie where Lake Malar is now in Sweden and that later Odin's son Skjöldr married Gefjon and they lived together in Lejre.

Snorri's reference to lake Mälar is certainly secondary, and originally this was an aetiological legend of the origin of the Öresound between Scania and Zealand which Snorri linked with the reference to Gefjon and Gylfi in Bragi's Ragnarsdrapa 13 (9th century), although in this work it is not necessarily the same legend that is being referred to.

In chapter 35 of Gylfaginning, the enthroned figure of High presents a list of goddesses. High presents Gefjun fourth, and says that Gefjun is a virgin, and all who die as virgins attend her. In relation, High notes that, like Gefjun, the goddess Fulla is also a virgin.

Gefjun is sworn by in the þáttr Völsa þáttr, where the daughter of a thrall reluctantly worships a penis severed from a horse:
Modern English
I swear by Gefjun
and the other gods
that against my will
do I touch this red phallus.
May giantesses
accept this holy object,
but now, slave of my parents,
grab hold of Völsi.
Older scholarship tended to consider Gefjon as a name for Freyja because in Lokasenna 20 Loki blames Gefjon for having given herself to a 'white youth' for the sake of a gift. The Lokasenna however is a late composition and the reproach is too much of a stereotype to carry much weight.

However if Gefjon is not considered another name for Freyja she should at least still be considered a Goddess of the earth and fertility and as a protective goddess given her name and legends. She may share this function with most of the Germanic Goddesses.

Description

Character design for Norse Mythology: The Animated Series www.patreon.com/norsemythology…

Gefjon (the giving one) is a Scandinavian goddess of whom Snorri tells stories in Ynglingasaga 5 and Gylfaginning 1: During Odin's migration to Scandinavian he stayed en route in Odensø (Odense) on Fyn and sent Gefjon to look for land to the North. The swedish king Gylfi gives her land to plough and she turns her four sons, who she has from a Jötun, into bulls. She puts these in front of a plough and thus ploughs Zealand free from Sweden. Snorri adds that Zealand used to lie where Lake Malar is now in Sweden and that later Odin's son Skjöldr married Gefjon and they lived together in Lejre.

Snorri's reference to lake Mälar is certainly secondary, and originally this was an aetiological legend of the origin of the Öresound between Scania and Zealand which Snorri linked with the reference to Gefjon and Gylfi in Bragi's Ragnarsdrapa 13 (9th century), although in this work it is not necessarily the same legend that is being referred to.

In chapter 35 of Gylfaginning, the enthroned figure of High presents a list of goddesses. High presents Gefjun fourth, and says that Gefjun is a virgin, and all who die as virgins attend her. In relation, High notes that, like Gefjun, the goddess Fulla is also a virgin.

Gefjun is sworn by in the þáttr Völsa þáttr, where the daughter of a thrall reluctantly worships a penis severed from a horse:
Modern English
I swear by Gefjun
and the other gods
that against my will
do I touch this red phallus.
May giantesses
accept this holy object,
but now, slave of my parents,
grab hold of Völsi.
Older scholarship tended to consider Gefjon as a name for Freyja because in Lokasenna 20 Loki blames Gefjon for having given herself to a 'white youth' for the sake of a gift. The Lokasenna however is a late composition and the reproach is too much of a stereotype to carry much weight.

However if Gefjon is not considered another name for Freyja she should at least still be considered a Goddess of the earth and fertility and as a protective goddess given her name and legends. She may share this function with most of the Germanic Goddesses.