[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.]
NÄR: The Fertile and Nourishing Mother Earth, Her Brother Partner, and their Nine Daughters
The siblings När and Nor, Earth and Oceansaremost often known by their Icelandic names, Njärd and Njord. Both of them were taken as hostages to Asgård.[1]
In the Old Germanic/Vanir world, sisters and brothers may have formed sibling parental pairs for the bringing up of her children. Tacitus records that
“children are held in the same estimation with their mother’s brother, as with their father. Some hold this tie of blood to be most inviolable and binding, and in receiving of hostages, such pledges are most considered and claimed, as they who at once possess affections the most unalienable, and the most diffuse interest in their family”.[2]
In other words, the Romans imbued with patriarchal standards, would have been alarmed or severely puzzled, when realizing it more effective to capture the nephew of a chieftain as hostage than his biological son.[3]
This custom, frequently mentioned in old Germanic contexts, is incorrectly labeled as sibling marriages. Deliberately or from lack of understanding, this institution has long been misunderstood both by the Asirs, and by Roman as well as modern scholars. We find that a more correct labeling of the phenomenon would be sibling based parenthood. In indigenous or isolated matrilineal cultures in e.g. Greenland, Africa, and Tibet, this family structure, also labeled avunculate, still exist or have existed until very late.[4] Evidence of the existence of a similar matrifocal and matrilineal culture, based on sibling parenthood, seems to be testified also for Old Scandinavia. Although not comprehending the phenomenon and function of the sibling based parenthood, writers like the Roman Tacitus, the Danish Saxo and the Icelandic Snorri all give examples of this old Germanic custom. They state for the Germanic and Vanir tribes that Germanic children are given their mothers’ name as last name,[5] and report that children are raised in their maternal clans and taken care of by mothers and maternal uncles (her brothers). Further, it seems that one uncle in particular, chosen by the sister, would share the responsibility of raising and securing her children.
Tracing the mother line backwards to Stone Age, it may not be that self-evident that earlier cultures used young women as gifts of alliances and sent them away to marry, as often postulated, bearing the European Middle Ages in mind. By means of Scandinavian Stone Age pottery, archeologist F. Hallgren has shown that pottery design displays extremely local patterns for centuries in a row. One pattern was totally unfamiliar to neighboring settlements. As pottery was a female occupation, manufactured and decorated by female hands (fingerprints), it seems that women passed on their skill to their daughters, who in turn apparently did not leave the settlement to marry young elsewhere – they stayed. Design and patterns of any specific settlement is not found elsewhere.[6]
Organizing family-life in a matrilocal and matrilineal system would grant certain advantages. It secures a safe and lasting fundament for the childrens upbringing; and at the same time, this organizing gives women and men alike full freedom to choose their lovers, for longer or shorter periods of time. A matriarchal custom would allow women the full control over the number of children she wishes to give life to, and also with whom. She is free to invite a man of her choice, when she wishes. As will be exemplified soon below, the given left-overs from folk-traditions and even certain written recourses, Scandinavian women seem to have been the sole and sovereign choosers of lovers until very late in history.
At any rate, this system would imply awesome differences from the traditional, modern Western system of formal marriages. Westrern concepts like maidenhood is defined in relation to marriage, and understood as the pre-matrimonial period. Given that also sexuality in matrimonial systems is reserved exclusively for marriage, this system will automatically coin concepts like staying virgin. This stands in opposition to the matriarchal system: Firstly, without the concept of marriage, maidenhood understood as a pre-matrimonial is invalid. Secondly, without marriage as the rightful forum for sexuality, (staying) virgin fail to signify inexperience of sexuality and love-making. Thus, rather than a young unmarried woman denying herself the joy of eroticism, maidenhood (Sw. vara mö) should be linked to motherhood, to the experience of childbearing and birth-giving. Or, in other words, the term, maiden would signal a free and independent young woman, owning her body and sexuality at her choice,but not yet a mother.
The treasure of ancient Swedish ring-dances, still vividly in use, remembers in innumerable songs that once women were sovereign choosers of their lovers. Also, this archaic way granting women to choose their beloved, is preserved in all folk- and fairytales, where a princess invites men to come on a certain day, and then lining up for her to choose her darling prince among them.[7] As late as in the medieval Saga of Olav Tryggvason, this ancient tradition of women as sovereign choosers of lovers is still practiced and testified; When the Norwegian viking, King Olav Tryggvason, arrives in Scotland, he learns that queen Gyda (Gydja/priestess or Völva/Shaman queen) will choose a man for herself at thinge, the official counsel place. Olav heads there and everybody lines up in a ring. Gyda walks around the ring and talks to each and one of them after which she proclaims in front of her chosen man: “I will choose you, if you will have me!” King Olav is the fortunate one to be chosen by her, and deeply honored.[8]
Summing up, if neither sexual relations, nor biological children constituted the concept of fatherhood, any legislation concerning marriage, status, or heritage is irrelevant.[9] All men and lovers had obligations in their own mother-tribe. Subsequently, men were parental uncles long before they became acknowledged by law as biological fathers. Surprisingly to the Eurocentric mind, in a world without any ideas about an institution of biological fatherhood, many, to us familiar concepts will totally lack meaning, to them, inclusively words like father, husband, forefathers, and Father God.[10]
Asirs, Snorri, Tacitus and Caesar – all of them were bewildered by the Germanic siblinghood system.[11] The Romans imbued with patriarchal standards were alarmed when realizing it more effective, if you really want to have a fling at a chieftain, to kill, not his biological son, but his nephew.[12] Today, view is still clouded by a lot of scandalizing and eroticizing about the institution of sibling marriages.[13] Often it is found labelled as the widespread custom of incestuous marriages in the Old Germanic world. But the impressively tall, healthy and muscular Germanic individuals, so famous also in the Roman army, could never have been the result of a firmly established custom of inbreeding. On the contrary. Only a few generations sprung from entirely incestuous sibling-marriages, would have resulted in a genetic disaster. In order to show how firmly established the custom of sibling parenthood once may have been, we will, for most of the Vanir mothers identify also their brother-partners, chosen for parenthood, and also their elected darling lovers.
The Sibling Parents, När and Nor
In Vanir cosmology När and Nor are the Earth and Seawater (Oceans), the two main components of our planet, living together in an affectionate sibling pair, parenting all sprouting life on earth.[14] They will caressingly meet along the shores and beaches, constantly playing “where I am, you are not”. Obviously, salt water and fertile earth will not have babies together.[15] Both of them choose other lovers for breeding.[16] But what När and Nor will do together, is taking parental responsibility as tender care-takers for all the living on our planet, on land, and in the seas. In legend, När and Nor raises nine daughters. [17] Fröja/Fröa (growth, seeds) is one of them. The others are Eir (Healing), Bjärt (Shine), Blid (Mild), Fred (Peace), Frid (Inner Peace), Vän (Beauty), Hjälp (Help), Glans (Brilliance). But, if not Nor, whom then does När take for her lover? Well, not only the beautifully shining names of När´s daughters give us a clue, but also other signs, e.g. her sun-chariot (Fig. 23), hint to Lokke (Lug), meaning waving warm sunbeams, as her beloved, with whom she each summer begets new children on the green earth.[18]
Whereas their Icelandic names, Njord and Njärd, have no meaning in Scandinavian languages, Nor and När are still current words. Nor has connotations to sea-water, meaning bay or strait. Since old, Nor is associated with fishing and sailing for trading.[19] In Asir mythology his fate is foretold, and it is related to the Ragnarök. Ragnarök is traditionally translatedas Twilight-of-the-Gods, and generally understood as The Last War or The End of the World. Still, ragna (deriving from PIE *regs, later the IE raja, rig, rik, rex, reg[20]) means king/ruler; and rök is a common Scandinavian word meaning, smoke. Literally,Ragna-rök means the-final-war-in-which–all-powerful-hierarchical-rulers-will-at-last-disappear-in-smoke.[21] This understanding is well supported by the medieval texts stating a list of who will die and, most relevant here, who will survive and continue to live; first the World Tree[22] will stand strong after Ragnarök,[23] as will Vanaheim and the Wise Vanirs; the sea, and the Ida-slätter (the Ida Plains) from where the green vegetation will continue to grow anew every spring;[24] also ordinary humans, personified in Liv and Livtraser will live on. Loke, the sun will in the lead of them all.[25] And for the foretold fate of Nor; when Asgård has eventually fallen in the last war of rulers, he will leave Asgård, where he has long been kept hostage, and now peacefully return home to Noatun (Safe-harbor-of-ships) in Vanaheim, where he was born – to re-unite with his beloved sister, När, the Mother Earth.[26]
När would, by all means, be the Old Scandinavian name for Mother Earth, personifying all procreative powers.[27] She is not goddess of the living or the earth; instead the Earth is the nourishingholder and sustainer of all living.[28] The name, När/Nerthus has scholarly been linked to the Celtic nertos, power (of vegetation).[29] The term, när, encapsulates different meaning like; nourish, near, fertile(nære, nær, næring), with side-connotations like bære (bear); lære (teach); kære (care) (Danish). När appears with different names for instance Frigg, Fold, or Jör, Jord, meaning Earth.[30] Under the name Frigg, theveryMother Earth was taken as wife to Odin himself.[31] In Swedish folklore, the constellation Orion is known as Frigg´s spindle. When the Great Mother turns her spindle, she makes the Earth spin.[32] Nerde, Nerta and Närte are other spellings, which Tacitus transcribes as Nerthus, giving us solid testimony that the Hyperboreans venerated a beloved Mother Earth icon as the center of an earth-bound ritual 2000 years ago.[33]
In springtime, Tacitus reports, När (or her sacred representation) will ride in a wheeled chariot drawn by heifers (virgin cows) from village to village, and over the fields to bless the pregnant earth (Fig. 23). In Denmark, oral legends tied to specific holy sites still remembers Her and her golden sun-chariot glittering at the bottom of the holy lake in the magic days of Equinox/Midsummer (Hellesø, Dk).[34] Chariot-rituals were known amongst Goths and Swedes (Svear), and have been performed in many different places almost up to present.[35]
Some skepticism only, about the closing scene in Tacitus; after having completed her blessing-tour, the male slaves, who washed her image, Tacitus says, was sacrificed and put into the holy lake.[36] This spectacular closing scene seems to contradict the basically egalitarian, low-stratified and peaceful society. The scene may therefore either reflect the similar Roman traditions, the lavatio-ritual of the Magna Mater (Cybele) in the river Almo,[37] (or perhaps having associations to the castrated Galli-priests?), perhaps depict a Roman misunderstanding or libel; or if true, it may attest a stratification of hierarchical society beginning to gain foothold in the North. For the very concept of offerings, Fabech argues that the concept as such is problematic;[38] and Bäckman states that to indigenous cultures the concept of offerings isaltogether alien; when returning things to nature like milk, food, gold works etc., it is a friendly sharing of plenty, and never a question of offerings in any of the classic meanings, namely giving in the intention or wish to receive something back in the future, or to manipulate divine powers to do or donate something.[39] Right up to the patriarchal take-over, the old rituals of sharing and depositions of elaborated gifts in lakes and bogs lived on.
In Scandinavia, hundreds of geographical places bear the name of the Mother Earth; Närsta, Närsjö, Närsäter, Närke, Närlunda, Närtuna, Närs, När, etc., are witnessing still about the former widespread Mother Earth-based ritual in spring.
An unconditional connection between Tacitus’ account of När/Nerthus blessing the earth and birthing all life; and the standing picture stone from the parish of När onGotland cannot easily be proved, but the connection seems to be more than a coincidence.
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(To be Continued)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen.
[1] Jesper Lauridsen, ed. Den ældre Edda. (Odin hos Vaftrudner), (Vafþrúðnismǫ́l) trans. Jesper Lauridsen. Heimskringla. no: 2013, Stanza 39. http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Odin_hos_Vaftrudner.
[2] From Tacitus on Germany http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2995/2995-h/2995-h.htm, [190701],( Cap. 20).
[3] Inspiration also from Mogensen, Himlasagor, 22f.
[4] Sunny Bergman, Sunny side of Sex: The Kingdom of Women (Choo Waihong. Publ. IB Tauris, 2013) YouTube, about the Musuo people.
[5] Loki Leufeyson. Loki´s mother is Leuf-ey /Lövö (Leaf-island), a well-known example from the Eddas is in Jónsson, Gudelære (Gylfaginning), Cap. 32. See also Saxo, Danmarks Krønike I: 40, 109, 140, 159, 179, 236, 277. Mogensen, Himlasagor, 20.
[6] Hallgren, Fredrik. 2008. Identitet i praktiken. Lokala, regional och överregionala sammanhang inom nordlig trattbägarkultur. (Uppsala Universitet: Institution för arkeologi och antik historia). 196-197
[7] e.g. Sju vackra flickor i en ring.
[8] Finnur, Jónsson, ed., Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla – Nóregs konunga sǫgur (Olav Tryggvasons saga). trans. Jesper Lauridsen, 2012. (København: G. E. C. Gads Forlag, 1911), Cap. 32. http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Olav_Tryggvasons_saga
[9] Mogensen, Himlasagor, 19.
[10] Interestingly, the word father does not mean biological father. The word father derives from the Proto-Indoeuropean pater and more than a loving (biological) dad besides the mother, the epithet designated the head-leader or top-master exercising autocratic authority over hierarchical institutions. The Roman Jupiter originates from Dies Piter (father light/day); Caesar was Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar Pater Patriae Divus; the Christian pope is pater, as was the top-leader of the Mithras sect named pater patrum, which for Odin was translated into the Scandinavian as Al-fader. Pater was also the old man of the house ruling over his extended family. Mogensen, Himlasagor, 19-20. Hedeager, Iron Age Myth, 7. Kaliff and Sundqvist, Oden Mithras, 51, 105. Näsström, Forntida, 195.
[11] Karl Gjellerup, ed. Den ældre Eddas Gudesange. (Loke-Trætten), trans. Karl Gjellerup. (København: P.G. Philipsens Forlag. 1895),32, 36. Jónsson, Ynglingesaga,Cap. 4. Tacitus, Germania, Cap.20. Caesar, Bello Gallico. 1963. Mogensen, Himlasagor, 20.
[12] Tacitus, Germania, Cap. 20-1. Mogensen, Himlasagor, 22f. Even Odin learns the Nine greatest magic songs from his maternal uncle, in Olof Hansen, Den ældre Edda.(Den Højes Taler), (Havamál), trans.Olaf Hansen, (København 1911), XII 140. http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Den_H%C3%B8jes_Taler
[13] Näsström, Fornskandinavisk, 46.
[14] Other pair-constallations are suggested by other authors e.g. När – Ull or När – Frö. The idea is widely shared. Elgqvist, Njordkultens. 72, 90. Jónsson, Ynglingesaga, Cap. 4.
Parallels to the pre-mythological Greek pair, Demetar (da-jord, meter-mother) and Poseidon (master of the sea) from Näsström, Forntida, 147.
[15] In Asgård, Nor was tricked into an impossible marriage with the skiing Vanir maiden, the disa Skade/Skate/Skädja. Jónsson, Gudelære (Gylfaginning), Cap. 22.
[16] We suggest Ran, Mother of the Sea to be Nor’s beloved. In Asgård Ran was married to Ägir, a Poseidon type of god.
[17] The word föda means both to give birth, to feed, and to raise children, the latter used for to both males and females. The Old Testament has a similar use of the Hebrew verb yld – giving birth (intransitively), and parenting (transitively), from Carol Meyers, Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 106.
[18] Elgqvist, Njordkultens, 65, 71, 74. Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen. Lokes uppsåt, (Unpubl. article on Loki, Lokke, Lug, 2017).
[19] Elgqvist, Njordkultens, 25, 88. Näsström, Fornskandinavisk, 79. Nor was not protector of sailing Viking.
[20] Ola Wikander, Ett träd med vida grenar: De indoeuropeiska språkens historia (Stockholm: Nordstedts förlagsgrupp AB, 2007), 67. Näsström, Forntida, 73.
[21] Jónsson, Gudelære (Gylfaginning), Cap. 50.
[22] Ygg-drasil (Horse of the Dreadful “Odin”) is a noa-name meaning Odin’s (wooden) horse that he rode for nine days. This means that the Vanir World Tree would have hade another name, originally. Medievals texts also suggest, Mimameid (Mimer´s Tree), Leråd (conifer).
[23] Thøger Larsen, ed. Den ældre Edda.Nordens Gudekvad. (Fjålsvid-Kvadet). (Fjölsvinnsmál), trans. Thøger Larsen (København 1926). 21. http://heimskringla.no/wiki/S%C3%A5ngen_om_Fjolsvinn, Jónsson, Gylfaginning, 50.
[24] Jónsson, Gylfaginning, 64-66.
[25] Jónsson, Gylfaginning, 52. Lauridsen, Ældre Edda, Vafþrúðnismǫ́l, Cap. 47. Gjellerup, ed. Ældre Eddas, (Völuspá), stanza 52.
[26] Jesper Lauridsen, Den ældre Edda. (Odin hos Vaftrudner), (Vafþrúðnismǫ́l), trans. Jesper Lauridsen. (Heimskringla, 2013), Stanza 39. http://heimskringla.no/wiki/Odin_hos_Vaftrudner.
[27] Elgqvist, Njordkulten, 26.
[28] Green, Druids, 24 explains for the personification of the natural spirits that e.g. Taranis was not a god of thunder, instead he WAS thunder. The Sami do not talk to the goddess of fire, instead they talk TO THE FIRE (as an entity). We agree with this understanding, and it fits in our discussing about all the original Vanir icons, meaning that they are not goddesses of fertility, growth etc, nor protectors or guardians of fertility, but they ARE fertility, growth etc.
[29] Elgqvist, Njordkulten, 26.
[30] Karl G. Johansson, ed. Snorres Edda (Skáldskaparmál), trans. Karl G. Johansson. (Stockholm: Fabers Förlag, 1997), Cap. 23, 24
[31] Johansson ed., Snorri Sturlason, Snorres Edda (Gylfaginning), Cap. 9, 19. John Kraft, Hednagudar och hövdingadömen i det gamla Skandinavien (Upplands-Bro: Upplands-Bro Kulturhistoriska Forskningsinstitut, 1999).
[32] Vilhelm Leche, et al., Nordisk familjebok. (Stockholm: Nordisk familjeboks forlags AB, 1904, 1908), 1411-1412, Frigg.
[33] Tacitus, Germania, Cap. 40.
[34] Mads Lidegaard, Danske søer og vandløb fra sagn og tro (København: Nyt Nordisk Forlag, Arnold Busch, 1999). Jens Raben, Kan Als være Nerthus-Øen? En lille Betragtning i henhold til Tacitus’ „Germania“ Kap. 40. In Fra Als og Sundeved, no. 10, (1936) 93-105. Henrik Ussing, Det gamle Als (København: J. H. Schultz forlag A/S, 1926), 245.
[35] Elgqvist, Njordkultens, 23.
[36] If connected – the smooth hands of sacrificed bog-men may indicate their priestly status rather than hardworking slaves. Sjöö, Norse Goddess, 36.
[37] Elgqvist, Njordkultens, 23.
[38] Charlotte Fabech, Centrality in Old Norse mental Landscapes. A Dialoge between arranged and natural places? in Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives: Origins, changes and interactions, ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere, 98-134 (Lund, Nordic Academic Press, 1999).
[39] Louise Bäckman, interviewed by Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen. Spring 2014-5 and July 2017.