THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 9

WHO WAS FRIGG?: THE INTERPRETATIO ROMANO OF VENUS AND THE REAL IDENTITY OF ODIN’S WIFE

The Norse goddess Frigg, wife of the sky-father Odin, is routinely equated with the Roman Venus.  The reason for this identification has to do with the very meaning of her name, and the fairly early rendering of the Roman dies Veneris, ‘day of Venus’, i.e. Friday, as OHG friatac, OE frigedeag, ‘Friday’.

The etymology of this goddess name is treated of fully in Vladimir Orel’s  A HANDBOOK OF GERMANIC ETYMOLOGY:

Proto-Germanic *frijjo, substantivized feminine of *frijaz; ON theon. Frigg OHG theon. Frija. Identical with Skt. Fem. Priya, ‘own, dear, beloved’.

Frigg is often confused with Freyja, but in reality the latter is derived from a totally different word, one which also contains the root found in the name of Freyja’s male counterpart, Freyr:

ON Freyja, ‘lady’, OS frua, ‘lady, mistress’, derived from *fraw(j)on; Goth frauja, ‘lord, master’, ON Freyr, OE frea, ‘lord, master’.

The important thing to remember with the interpretatio romano is that such an identification of a foreign deity with a Roman one was most often based on a perceived FUNCTION of the two deities under consideration, and is generally not a safe guide for determining the actual nature of the foreign god or goddess.  Hence we find Odin equated with Mercury because the former, like the latter, can operate as a pyschopomp, but also as Mars, because Odin has a pronounced martial side to his character.  These instances of interpretatio romano do not indicate that Odin IS Mercury or Mars.

The same is true of Frigg as Venus.  While her being the ‘Beloved or Dear One’ of Odin may suggest Venus-like attributes, such are not, in fact, found in the few mythic episodes that happen to mention her.  The relationship between Odin and Frigg is instead a contentious one and reads very much like that which existed between Zeus the Sky-Father and his consort Hera.  The only “evidence” for a Venus-like quality occurs when she is said to have slept with Odin’s brothers Vili and Ve.  But these brothers, as has long been known, are merely part of another triadic form of the sky god and so by sleeping with them Frigg is sleeping with a couple of different aspects of her proper husband, Odin.  The notion that she was in any sense wanton, then, is erroneous and either another trick played on us by the pagan priest-poets or an attempt by Christian scribes to besmirch the mother goddess’s reputation.

The mistletoe story includes a wonderful little “wink” for those “in the know”:  as this plant is SYMBOLIC of the lightning-weapon, it is immune to the pledge exacted by Frigg from everything not found in or originating from the sky.  That it IS Frigg who exacts the world-wide pledge certainly points rather strongly to her being the goddess of the earth.  For who else would have this kind of authority and power over everything that exists UNDER the heavens?

We know that in the Greek system the sky god Uranus (Ouranus) was paired with Gaia, ‘Earth’.  When Uranus was overthrown by Cronos, the goddess changed also – into Rhea, herself closely associated with the Phrygian Great Mother Cybele.  Scholars in general tend to view Cybele as an earth goddess.  Hera, who supplanted Rhea when Zeus came to power, has not been universally regarded as an earth goddess, but it is difficult to imagine why she would be anything else, given her predecessors and her marriage to yet another sky father.

In Norse religion, Zeus’s etymological counterpart – Tyr (*Tiwaz, OHG Ziu) – did not attain or retain a position of prominence.  His consort is not mentioned.  He seems to have been replaced at some point by Odin.  The loss of his solar hand to the lunar wolf Fenrir has been shown to have parallels “in many cultures as a punishment for perjury” (see Rudolf Simek’s DICTIONARY OF NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY).  Interestingly enough, in the Irish mythology we know it was the loss of the god Nuadha’s arm which disqualified him from the kingship.  Could it be that in part the story of the loss of Tyr’s hand was used as an explanation for the substitution of Odin as the chief sky father?  I suppose a case could be made for this, but we do have to remember that Odin himself gave up his sun-eye and so, in essence, is as disfigured in his own way as Tyr is maimed.

Thor’s mother Jord is, of course, quite literally ‘Earth’.  As Thor is the Viking equivalent of the Roman Jupiter and Jupiter is derived in part from the same root as both Zeus and Tyr, we have very clear evidence for the existence of the earth goddess in Norse myth.  An alternate name for Thor’s mother – Fjorgyn – has been the subject of serious debate.  Why?  Because a male form of this name also exists in the sources, a certain Fjorgynn, said to be the father of none other than Frigg herself!  Further confusion arises when attempts are made to connect Fjorgynn with the Lithuanian thunder god Perkunas and with the Gothic fairguni, something that has been done since Jacob Grimm’s time (see his TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY).

Gregory Nagy (see GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND POETICS, 1992) discussed in some detail the possible relationship between Fjorgynn, Perkunas and fairguni.  In brief, the development was both simple and complicated.  The original root of these words meant ‘[to] strike’, and this idea, linked to the lightning bolt, became attached to that which was struck, i.e. the oak tree.  A further development of the concept led to the final formation, meaning ‘[oak-] wooded mountain’.  As Nagy explains, the thunderstorm is frequently present atop mountains – indeed, it forms there – and if these mountains happen to bear oak trees, then they naturally would have come to be recognized as especially sacred to the thunder god.

Is there any way we can untangle this mess? I do not think it’s that difficult.  The thunderstorm is “born” in the mountains.  As such, the Fjorgyn who is Thor’s mother is not so much the Earth proper as she is the oak-mountain or, perhaps by extension, the wooded mountains of the Earth.  We can understand the relationship best this way: the goddess is the mountain, the oak on the mountain = the sky-father and between the two of them is the thunderstorm.

Frigg as the daughter of Fjorgynn the thunder/sky deity points to the Greek parallel again, where Rhea the Earth Mother is the daughter of Uranus and Gaia/Earth, and Zeus’s Hera is the daughter of Cronos and Rhea.