Freya and the Lost Necklace

About the legend

Being

Freya (Norse goddess)

Cultural meaning

In Norse myth, Freya is one of the greatest of the goddesses. She belongs to the Vanir, a family of gods linked with the sea, the harvest and good fortune. She owns a cloak of falcon feathers that lets whoever wears it fly, and she rides in a chariot drawn by two cats. When she weeps, her tears are red gold. She has many names, among them Vanadís, 'lady of the Vanir', and the necklace Brísingamen is her most famous treasure.

Fun fact

Amber is tree resin that has hardened over millions of years. It is so light that waves can carry it, and storms still wash it up on beaches around the Baltic and the North Sea. People in the North traded amber across Europe for thousands of years, which is why it is sometimes called the gold of the North.

Cultural notes

Freya's necklace Brísingamen is named in the Eddic poem Þrymskviða and in Snorri Sturluson's Edda, and the Old English poem Beowulf mentions a 'Brosinga mene'. No one knows for sure what the name means: perhaps 'necklace of the Brísings', or something to do with fire or amber. The dwarf smiths and Loki's theft come from Sörla þáttr, a short tale in Flateyjarbók, a large Icelandic manuscript that two priests wrote around 1390. There the four dwarves, Álfrigg, Dvalinn, Berlingr and Grérr, will not sell the necklace for gold or silver; their price is that Freya spend a night with each of them. Loki then steals it for Odin as a fly and a flea, and Odin will only give it back if Freya makes two kings fight an endless battle. Heimdall's part comes from a much older poem, Húsdrápa, which the poet Úlfr Uggason recited at a wedding in Iceland in the late 900s, according to Laxdæla saga. Snorri quotes it in Skáldskaparmál: Heimdall and Loki meet in the shape of seals at a rock called Singasteinn, which is why poets call Heimdall 'seeker of Freya's necklace' and Loki 'thief of Brísingamen'. Snorri also describes Heimdall as the watchman of the gods, living at Himinbjörg by the bridge Bifröst, who needs less sleep than a bird, sees a hundred miles by night as well as by day and hears the grass grow.

About this retelling

Original story inspired by Norse myth A child-safe adaptation of the Norse myth of Freya and the necklace Brísingamen, drawn from the Prose Edda and Sörla þáttr.

Freya, the four dwarf smiths, the necklace Brísingamen, Loki's theft as a fly and a flea, and Heimdall winning the necklace back from Loki in the shape of a seal are all old. Heimdall does not appear in Sörla þáttr; he comes from the older poem Húsdrápa, and this retelling joins the two. The four acts of kindness, the farm family, the girl's amber and the village at the end were written for Nordic Tales instead of the adult price in Sörla þáttr, so that what Freya pays is something a child can understand and admire, and so that the story can show that what she gave away stays given. For children, the flea tickles Freya instead of biting her, and the seals' struggle is told as a patient chase with no blows.

Sources

• The Younger Edda (Gylfaginning), Rasmus B. Anderson translation — Snorri Sturluson
• Húsdrápa (quoted in Snorri's Skáldskaparmál) — Úlfr Uggason
• Sörla þáttr (in Flateyjarbók, GKS 1005 fol.) — Unknown (14th century manuscript)

Themes

• kindness
• generosity
• wisdom
• inner beauty
• Freya
• Brísingamen
• Norse mythology
• Asgard
• dwarves
• Loki
• Heimdall
• necklace
• kindness
• Prose Edda
• Sörla þáttr
• Viking

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