Njord

Njord, as depicted on a Norwegian stamp from April of 2004. See the homepage of the Norwegian Postal Service for more details.

In Norse mythology, Njord or Njordr (Old Norse Njörðr) is one of the Vanir and the god of wind, fertile land along the seacoast, as well as seamanship, sailing and fishing. The prose Edda says he has the power to calm the sea or fire. He is the husband of Skaði and father of Yngvi-Freyr and Freyja. Their mother was, according to the Heimskringla, Njord's own sister and lover. Apparently the Vanir, unlike the Æsir, had the custom of consanguineous marriage. His sister's name may also be Njord, according to the reconstruction of the name of a Teutonic goddess that Tacitus transliterated into Latin as "Nerthus" (= Njörðr). His dwelling is said to be Noatún 'Ship-town'. Njord is also a god closely associated with fertility, as are the Vanir in general.

Njord and his children joined the Æsir as Vanir hostages after the Æsir/Vanir war. Such hostages are considered part of the family of the aristocracy and rightful leaders, but are not free to leave so as to secure the mutual interests of the peace treaty.

Njord in a Norse Context

As a Norse deity, Njord belonged to a complex religious, mythological and cosmological belief system shared by the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples. This mythological tradition, of which the Scandinavian (and particularly Icelandic) sub-groups are best preserved, developed in the period from the first manifestations of religious and material culture in approximately 1000 B.C.E. until the Christianization of the area, a process that occurred primarily from 900-1200 C.E.^[1] The tales recorded within this mythological corpus tend to exemplify a unified cultural focus on physical prowess and military might.

Within this framework, Norse cosmology postulates three separate "clans" of deities: the Aesir, the Vanir, and the Jotun. The distinction between Aesir and Vanir is relative, for the two are said to have made peace, exchanged hostages, intermarried and reigned together after a prolonged war, which the Aesir had finally won. In fact, the most major divergence between the two groups is in their respective areas of influence, with the Aesir representing war and conquest, and the Vanir representing exploration, fertility and wealth.^[2] The Jotun, on the other hand, are seen as a generally malefic (though wise) race of giants who represented the primary adversaries of the Aesir and Vanir.

Balder, the second son of Odin and a member of the Aesir, is the god of spring, innocence and joy.

Attributes

Mythic Accounts

How Njord met Skadi

According to Rydberg, The Æsir regretfully killed Skadi's father, Weland-Thjazi, who had inflicted the Ice Age on the world. She put on her skis and skied all the way to Valhalla. The gods agreed that they would have to repay her in some way. She would be able to choose any of the males as her husband, but she was only allowed to look at the feet as she chose. She looked long at all of the feet, and she chose the cleanest pair, thinking that it must belong to Baldur. It wasn't Baldur, however, but Njord, whose feet were washed clean by the sea. Although they loved each other very much, their marriage wasn't the best. Skadi lived in a land of winter, but Njord didn't like being awakened all the time by the wolves, and he could hardly sleep anyway because it was so cold. Skadi couldn't take living in a spring forest, being awakened early by the birds. And she thought it was a little too warm. But they decided to live a week at each place, and it worked well for them.

Inter-religious Parallels

Njördr is the Old Norse equivalent of the goddess Nerthus described by Tacitus. It has been suggested (H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, 1964) that there was possibly originally a male and female pair of deities, Njord and Nerthus, with Freyja later replacing Nerthus. She also makes the point that there were other male/female pairings of Norse gods of whom little is known but their names, e.g. Ullr and *Ullin.

The comparative mythologist Georges Dumézil developed the idea introduced by Jacob Grimm that the hero Hadingus in Saxo Grammaticus' Danish History, Book I, might be an euhemerized version of Njord. This suggestion was used by science-fiction/fantasy writer Poul Anderson in his War of the Gods.

In Viktor Rydberg's idiosyncratic reconstruction of Norse mythology Njord was also known as Fridleif, the Lover of Frith (peace). With Hodur, he undertook a mission of peace to Weland and Egil, which they refused. He rescued his son Freyr from the giants later on. During the war between Æsir and Vanir, he led the attack on Asgard and won. While he was gone from Vanaheim, Loki tried to take over there, but Njord defeated him in battle and routed him.

Toponyms (and Other Linguistic Traces) of Njord

Several places in Norway seem to be named after the god Njord. The most notable ones are the parish and municipality of Nærøy in the county of Nord-Trøndelag (Norse Njarðøy - 'Njords island'), the parish of Nærøy in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, and the parish (and former municipality) of Norderhov in the county of Buskerud (Norse Njarðarhof - 'Njords temple'). Others are as follows:

Njarð(ar)heimr (Njords homestead), the name of seven farms in the parishes of Nærbø, Rygge, Suldal (2), Tanum, Tresfjord and Ølen. Njarð(ar)land (Njords land), the name of four farms in the parishes of Hesby, Masfjorden, Nærbø and Vistdalen. Njarð(ar)vík (Njords inlet), the name of four farms in the parishes of Bru, Edøy, Orkdal and Ølen. Njarð(ar)øy (Njords island), the name of three farms in the parishes of Hemne, Herøy and Øksnes. Njarðarhof (Njords temple), the name of a farm in the parish of Løten. Njarðarhóll (Njords hill), the name of a farm in the parish of Lade. Njarðarlog (Njords district), the former name of the island of Tysnes. Njarðarvin (Njords meadow/pasture), the name of a farm in the parish of Fet. (The names are given in the Norse form, and Njarðar is the genitive case of Njord. Some of the names, however, have the short form Njarð-, and it is questionable whether these ones are related to the name of the god Njord.)

Notes

↑ Lindow, 6-8. Though some scholars have argued against the homogenizing effect of grouping these various traditions together under the rubric of “Norse Mythology,” the profoundly exploratory/nomadic nature of Viking society tends to overrule such objections. As Thomas DuBois cogently argues, “[w]hatever else we may say about the various peoples of the North during the Viking Age, then, we cannot claim that they were isolated from or ignorant of their neighbors…. As religion expresses the concerns and experiences of its human adherents, so it changes continually in response to cultural, economic, and environmental factors. Ideas and ideals passed between communities with frequency and regularity, leading to and interdependent and intercultural region with broad commonalities of religion and worldview.” (27-28).
↑ More specifically, Georges Dumézil, one of the foremost authorities on the Norse tradition and a noted comparitivist, argues quite persuasively that the Aesir / Vanir distinction is a component of a larger triadic division (between ruler gods, warrior gods, and gods of agriculture and commerce) that is echoed among the Indo-European cosmologies (from Vedic India, through Rome and into the Germanic North). Further, he notes that this distinction conforms to patterns of social organization found in all of these societies. See Georges Dumézil's Gods of the Ancient Northmen (especially pgs. xi-xiii, 3-25) for more details.

Bibliography

Björnsson, Eysteinn (ed.). Snorra-Edda: Formáli & Gylfaginning : Textar fjögurra meginhandrita. 2005. http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/gg/
DuBois, Thomas A. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8122-1714-4.
Dumézil, Georges. Gods of the Ancient Northmen. Edited by Einar Haugen; Introduction by C. Scott Littleton and Udo Strutynski. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. ISBN 0-520-02044-8.
Grammaticus, Saxo. The Danish History (Volumes I-IX). Translated by Oliver Elton (Norroena Society, New York, 1905). Accessed online at The Online Medieval & Classical Library.
Lindow, John. Handbook of Norse mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2001. ISBN 1-57607-217-7.
Munch, P. A. Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes. In the revision of Magnus Olsen; translated from the Norwegian by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt. New York: The American-Scandinavian foundation; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1926.
Orchard, Andy. Cassell's Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. London: Cassell; New York: Distributed in the United States by Sterling Pub. Co., 2002. ISBN 0-304-36385-5.
Sturlson, Snorri. The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology. Introduced by Sigurdur Nordal; Selected and translated by Jean I. Young. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1954. ISBN 0-520-01231-3.
Snorri Sturluson. The Prose Edda. Translated from the Icelandic and with an introduction by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. New York: American-Scandinavian foundation, 1916. Available online at http://www.northvegr.org/lore/prose/index.php.
Turville-Petre, Gabriel. Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
"Völuspá" in The Poetic Edda. Translated and with notes by Henry Adams Bellows. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1936. Accessed online at sacred-texts.com.

External Links

Viktor Rydberg's "Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland" e-book
Njo̹rđr BookRags article

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[1] Lindow, 6-8. Though some scholars have argued against the homogenizing effect of grouping these various traditions together under the rubric of “Norse Mythology,” the profoundly exploratory/nomadic nature of Viking society tends to overrule such objections. As Thomas DuBois cogently argues, “[w]hatever else we may say about the various peoples of the North during the Viking Age, then, we cannot claim that they were isolated from or ignorant of their neighbors…. As religion expresses the concerns and experiences of its human adherents, so it changes continually in response to cultural, economic, and environmental factors. Ideas and ideals passed between communities with frequency and regularity, leading to and interdependent and intercultural region with broad commonalities of religion and worldview.” (27-28).

[2] More specifically, Georges Dumézil, one of the foremost authorities on the Norse tradition and a noted comparitivist, argues quite persuasively that the Aesir / Vanir distinction is a component of a larger triadic division (between ruler gods, warrior gods, and gods of agriculture and commerce) that is echoed among the Indo-European cosmologies (from Vedic India, through Rome and into the Germanic North). Further, he notes that this distinction conforms to patterns of social organization found in all of these societies. See Georges Dumézil's Gods of the Ancient Northmen (especially pgs. xi-xiii, 3-25) for more details.

[1]

[2]