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Norse mythology series Njord, made of stainless steel.
Highly detailed execution of jewelry in the Norse mythology series.
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This pendant honors Njord.
In Norse mythology, Njord is one of the Æsir, or gods. He is associated with fertility, wealth, shipping and fishing, and according to myths he can also calm the sea and extinguish fire.
Njord is the father of Frey and Freya and lives in the hall Noatun, which means the ship yard. Njord belongs to the Vanir family of gods, and he comes to Åsgard as a hostage, exchanged as part of the peace negotiations after the war between the Vanir and the Aesir.
Njord and Skade
Njord is married to the jötunn woman Skade. The myth of this marriage is told in Snorri's Skaldskaparmål and Gylvaginning. Skade demands atonement from the Æsir after they kill her father, the jötunn Tjatse. The Æsir offer her a husband from among them, but she is only allowed to see the legs of all the candidates. Skade desires Balder, the most beautiful of all the Æsir, so she chooses the most beautiful pair of legs, but it turns out that they belong to Njord.
The marriage becomes difficult, because Njord wants to live by the sea, and Skade longs for the mountains. They try to alternate between staying nine nights in Njord's hall Noatun and nine nights in Skade's hall Trymheim, which she has inherited from her father in the mountains. Neither of them is happy with the arrangement, and in the end Skade moves up into the mountains to hunt and ski.
According to the Ynglingesaga, however, Njord was married before he came to the Æsir and entered into marriage with Skadi. When he lived with the Vanir, he was married to his sister, and with her he had two children, Frøy and Frøya. The saga states that such marriages are permitted among the Vanir, but not among the Æsir. This is what Loki mocks Njord for during the feast at the merman Æge, told in the poem Loketretten.
Fertility god Njord
Njord, Frøy and Frøya are gods and form a group of fertility deities. Worship of these deities was widespread throughout Scandinavia, as can be seen from place names derived from Njord, such as Norderhov and Nærøy.
The myth of Njord and Skade's unhappy marriage can be interpreted as a fertility myth, where the couple's changing residence between the barren mountains and the fertile coast can be seen as the deity traveling away in winter and returning in summer, thus laying the foundation for the seasons. The cult surrounding these fertility deities probably varied according to the seasons and the growth cycles of the crops.
Njord is associated by several researchers with so-called "phallus stones" or "sacred white stones". These are phalluses carved from light-colored stones such as white quartz, quartzite or marble. The stone phalluses are interpreted as part of a fertility cult, and they have often been found near graves or churches built near older cult sites or near places with names derived from Njord. The stones are dated to 400-600 AD and may refer to an older cult around the fertility god Njord.
Njord is the Norse deity that can be traced back the furthest, as the name is a masculine form of Nerthus, who according to the Roman writer Tacitus was a Germanic goddess. During the Viking Age, it seems that Frey gradually took over her father Njord's functions as a wealth and fertility deity.
Chain 4 mm. 60 cm
Weight 37g
Diameter 35 mm.