Studia Islandica - 01.06.1963, Side 83

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Nerthus was a deity of the same nature as these. Nerthus and
Njord are the same name, and the author believes that Nerthus
was originally Njord’s homonymous sister and wife (cf. Frey and
Freyja) and that her priest impersonated the god. In Tacitus’ time
the northern goddness may, like her eastern counterparts, have
been regarded as more powerful than her mate, which explains
why only her name is recorded. In Icelandic sources Njord appears
either as a god of fertility or as a god of navigation. The author
points out that this latter function is most naturally explained on
the assumption that the original vehicle of the fertility god was
a ship. The many Scandinavian rock carvings depicting festivities
on or around ships support this interpretation.
Chapter IV deals with Frey. All our sources agree that this god
was worshiped primarily as the giver of fertility — both in people
and in nature — and that ritual marriage was a principal element
in the rites associated with his worship. Frey was worshiped
throughout the North, but there is nevertheless abundant evidence
that the center of gravity of his cult was in Upsala and the sur-
rounding region. The ancient Swedish dynasty of the Ynglings,
whose seat was in Upsala, were said to be descended from Frey
and seem to have had a function resembling that of the god him-
self. At any rate they were held responsible for plentiful crops and
were even sacrificed in case of crop failure and famine. From this
it may be concluded that the kingship of the Ynglings was con-
sidered to be of a divine nature and that the kings were even re-
garded as taking the place of the fertility god himself.
Chapter V begins with a review of the Icelandic sources relat-
ing to the worship of Freyja. There follows a discussion of the
ancient dísablót (sacrificial festival in honor of the female deities
known as dísir) of the Swedes at Upsala, which seem to have been
an established custom before the Viking Age. A reference to this
festival survives in the name Distingen (Assembly of the dísir),
which the Swedes still give to an annual fair at Upsala, the time
of the fair having in heathen times been the same as that for the
religious festival and the popular assembly. From a comparison of
Ynglinga Saga, Ynglingatál and Historia Norvegiae it appears
that on three different occasions ancient Swedish kings were to
be sacrificed to some goddess or dís or, in one case, the king’s own
wife, in order to secure a good crop or put an end to a famine. In
this connection Historia Norvegiae speaks of Ceres and Diana, but
this is clearly an “interpretatio romana” of the names of a Scandi-
navian goddess or goddesses, and we inevitably think of Freyja,
one of whose names was Vanadís. The author thinks these accounts
can most naturally be explained as reminiscences of sacral king-
ship where the king was the hypostasis of the fertility god at the
side of the fertility goddess. The chapter ends with a discussion