Gerðr

Also Known As: Old Norse Gerðr, also written Gerd, Gerda or Gerth; the name is usually linked to the word for a fenced or enclosed piece of ground
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Norse Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: Gerðr is a jötunn’s daughter of such beauty that the light from her raised arms fills the sky and the sea, and she becomes the wife of the god Freyr.
Role in Mythos: She is the woman Freyr sees from Odin’s high seat and cannot live without, and the price of winning her is the sword he will lack at Ragnarök.
Relation to Humans: The myths give her no dealings with mortals, but a later saga makes her the wife of Freyr as a king of the Swedes and the mother of his heir Fjölnir. Poets used her name as a plain word for “woman” in their kennings.

A woman crosses a yard in the far north, lifts her hands to the latch of a door, and the whole world lights up. Sky and sea take the glow from her bare arms. Far away, on a seat he has no business sitting in, a god sees it and is finished.

The god is Freyr, and the seat is Hliðskjálf, the high place from which Odin looks over every world. Freyr climbed into it one day and turned his eyes north toward the land of the jötnar. What he saw there was Gerðr, daughter of Gymir, walking from her father’s hall. Snorri Sturluson, writing in Iceland around 1220, calls her the most beautiful of all women and treats what happened next as a punishment for the trespass. Freyr came down sick with wanting. He would not speak, would not sleep, would not drink, and nobody dared ask him why.

She is a giant’s daughter. Her father Gymir keeps a rich hall in Jötunheimr, and her mother Aurboða comes of the mountain giants. One Eddic poem adds that the family were kin to Þjazi, the jötunn who once stole the goddess Iðunn. None of this fits the usual picture of a giantess. Gerðr is given no great size, no cave, no club. She has a hall with a fence around it, serving maids, a father with more gold than he needs, and a brother whose death she fears to hear of. The poem that tells her story has her living like a chieftain’s daughter in a household that wants for nothing.

That poem is Skírnismál, and it is the whole of her myth. Njörðr and Skaði, worried by his silence, send his servant and friend Skírnir to find out what is wrong. Freyr tells him, and says that neither gods nor elves would wish the two of them together. Skírnir agrees to go courting on his master’s behalf, for a price: the horse that will carry him through dark, flickering fire, and the sword that fights of its own accord. Freyr hands both over. Skírnir rides through the night across wet fells, finds savage dogs tied at the gate, shouts past a herdsman sitting on a mound, and makes so much noise that the ground shakes in Gerðr’s hall.

She has him brought in and offered mead. Then she asks whether he is elf, god or Vanir, and how he came through the fire. He is none of them, he says, and gets to business. He offers her eleven apples, all gold, if she will call Freyr dearest to her. She refuses. He offers the ring that lay on the pyre of Odin’s son, the one from which eight rings of equal weight drip every ninth night. She tells him flatly that gold is not scarce in Gymir’s house.

Then the wooing turns ugly. Skírnir draws the bright, thin blade and offers to take her head off, and her father’s after it. She says she will not be forced. So he puts the sword away and takes up a wand, and begins to curse. She will sit on an eagle’s hill at the edge of the world, staring toward the realm of the dead. Food will sicken her. She will be a thing people stare at. She will weep, and rave, and wither like a thistle crushed in the last of the harvest. A three-headed frost giant named Hrímgrímnir will have her down below the corpse-gate, and the only drink brought to her there will be goat’s piss. Odin is angry with her, he says, and Freyr will hate her. Last, he says he will cut a rune for her, the one called Thurs, and three more beside it for lust, frenzy and unbearable craving. He adds that he can scrape them off again as easily as he carved them, if he has cause.

That is when she gives way. She greets him and holds out a frost-cold cup of old mead, and says she never thought she would come to love one of the Vanir. She names the place herself: a still grove called Barri, which they both know. In nine nights she will meet Njörðr’s son there. Skírnir rides home, and Freyr does not even let him unsaddle before asking. When he hears the answer, his whole reply is a complaint about the wait. One night is long, two are longer, and half of such a night has often felt to him longer than a month.

The texts say she is beautiful. They do not say she was willing.

What she is afterwards the poems leave thin. Snorri lists her among the goddesses, and seats her with them at the sea giant Ægir’s feast. In Ynglinga saga, where the gods are retold as ancient kings of Sweden, she is Freyr’s queen and the mother of Fjölnir, who rules after him. Her name served poets as a stock word for a woman. No story tells of her married life, and none says what becomes of her when the gods fall.

Her name seems to mean something like fenced ground, and on that hint readers since the nineteenth century have taken the tale as a farmer’s myth: a bright god of sun and growth winning the shut, cold earth. It may be so. The poem itself never says it, and the thing it dwells on longest is a list of threats.

Her power in the story is the one moment at the door. The light from her arms reaches across every world and undoes a god who had peace, harvests and wealth in his gift. She can also say no, and does, three times, to apples, to gold and to a drawn sword. Her limit is the wand. Against the promise of madness, a monster’s bed and the carved rune she has no answer, and nobody comes to help her: not the father Skírnir has just offered to kill, nor the dogs at the gate.

The cost falls on Freyr. The sword that fought by itself went to Skírnir as the fee for the errand, and never came back. Freyr later killed the giant Beli with a stag’s antler for want of anything better. Loki throws the bargain in his face at a feast, saying he bought Gymir’s daughter with gold and paid for her with his blade. And when the sons of Muspell ride at the end of the world, Freyr goes out to meet Surtr without it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Gerðr in Norse mythology?

Gerðr is the daughter of the jötunn Gymir and his wife Aurboða, and she becomes the wife of the god Freyr. Snorri Sturluson calls her the most beautiful of all women and counts her among the goddesses. Her story is told in the Eddic poem Skírnismál and in the Prose Edda.

How did Freyr win Gerðr?

Freyr saw Gerðr from Odin’s high seat Hliðskjálf and sent his servant Skírnir to court her. Gerðr refused eleven golden apples, a gold ring and a threat with a sword. She agreed only after Skírnir threatened her with a wand, a string of curses and carved runes, and she promised to meet Freyr in nine nights at a grove called Barri.

Is Gerðr a giantess or a goddess?

Gerðr is both. She is born a jötunn, the daughter of the giants Gymir and Aurboða, and lives in Jötunheimr. After her marriage to Freyr, Snorri Sturluson lists Gerðr among the goddesses.

Why did Freyr lose his sword because of Gerðr?

Freyr gave his sword, which could fight by itself, to Skírnir as payment for courting Gerðr. Because of this Freyr had to kill the giant Beli with a stag’s antler. At Ragnarök Freyr faces Surtr without the sword.

Did Gerðr and Freyr have children?

Ynglinga saga, which retells the gods as early kings of Sweden, says Gerðr and Freyr had a son named Fjölnir who ruled after his father. The Eddic poems name no children for them.