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TheEndOfGrey — Lokasenna 5
Published: 2015-08-27 20:30:09 +0000 UTC; Views: 1203; Favourites: 14; Downloads: 11
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Odin: The only one who could come even close to rival Loki's rhethorical skills. XD
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THANK YOU, ODIN, for pointing that important fact out at the end.
For reference, is Gefjon another name for Frigg?
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From what I understand, Gefjon, Frigg, and Freyja may all have descended from an earth/fertility goddess of an earlier religion. There are some similarities and overlaps that could be the result of a single proto-deity being split into multiple later versions. Gefjon doesn't appear a whole lot and she could be just another name Frigg, but they seem to be being treated as separate goddesses in the Eddas.
Actually, Loki's accusation that Gefjon slept with a white/fair guy in exchange for a brooch/necklace/jewel sounds more like a reference to something Freyja may have done—when her necklace, Brisingamen, was lost (*cough*stolenbyLoki*cough*) Heimdall, a.k.a. "the white god," retrieved it for her.
Also, it's not unheard of for skalds to call certain gods by the names of other gods for poetic/stylistic reasons or whatever, so it's possible that "Gefjon" could at some point have been used to refer to Frigg or someone else. I've never picked up on the name being used that way in my reading, but I could have missed it.
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Very interesting points. I knew that the Norse could get different names, as well as the matter of some being mentioned but never developed in tales, but I didn't know about the stylistic matter. My own experience with this story hasn't mentioned such a Goddess before, so I was curious.
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Snorri talks about the poetic use of name substitution in Skaldskaparmal of the Prose Edda, as one of the types of metaphor used in Norse poetry. I never really noticed it being used much outside of his discussion of it, but perhaps I'm just bad at recognizing it. Lokasenna is the only part of the Poetic Edda I remember Gefjon appearing, but she's mentioned in the Prose Edda a couple times. She's typically associated with farming and virgins/unmarried women. Overall she's pretty minor though. Easy to forget or omit.
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