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the Welschingen-B bracteate (IK 389).
the Oberwerschen-B bracteate (IK 311).

*Frijjō ("Frigg-Frija") is the name or epithet of a Common Germanic love goddess, the most prominent female member of the *Ansiwiz (gods), and often identified as the spouse of the chief god, *Wōdanaz (Woden-Odin).

The two Old Norse goddesses Freyja and Frigg appear to be reflected by only a single goddess in West Germanic and likely derive from a single Common Germanic goddess, one of whose epithets was *frijjō "beloved" and *frawjō "lady". Freyja "Lady" is thus considered a hypostasis of the chief "Frigg-Frija" goddess, together with other hypostases like Fulla and Nanna derived from skaldic epithets, similar to Odhr besides many other aspects in skaldic tradition deriving from Odin.

Contents

Name

The theonyms in West Germanic are Anglo-Saxon *Frīg, Old High German Frīja, Low German (Lower Saxony) Frike, Freke (Fru Freen, Fru Frien, Fru Freke, Fru Frick, Fuik, Frie)1 and Lombardic Frea. The name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess is attested only in the name of the weekday, although frīg (strong feminine) as a common noun meaning "love" (in the singular) or "affections, embraces" (in the plural) is attested in poetry.2


The weekday Friday is named after for the goddess (Old English frigedæg a translation of Dies Veneris).

The Germanic word *frawjō for "lady, domina", often used of goddesses, Old English frēo "woman",3 Old Saxon frī- "woman, wife", is unrelated in origin, 4 but was confused from early times, especially in Old English, where the stem of *frīj- appears as frēo-, frīo-, frēa- (a contraction of *īj- and a following back vowel) beside a less frequent stem form frīg- (/fri:j-/), by development of a glide between ī and a following front vowel. The two forms would originally have figured in complementary distribution within the same paradigm (e.g. masculine nominative singular frēo, masculine genitive singular frīges), but in attested Old English analogical forms are already present and the distribution is no longer complementary5

The etymology of Frigg-Frīja ultimately derives from PIE *prih-y(a)h, cognate to Sanskrit priya "dear, beloved",6 which however in Germanic split into two etymons, one covering the semantic field of "love, courtship, friendship" (English friend), the other the field of "freedom" (English free).7

The linguistic discussion of these names is complicated by issues of Germanic Verschärfung. Old Norse Frigg, friggjar-dagr is related to frakkr "free, bold", cognate to Old English frēo, Gothic freis "free". The velar is discussed as "aberrant" by Austin (1946), traced to an Indo-European laryngeal.8 In this view, Frigg and Frija have the exact same etymology, one featuring the "aberrant velar":

PIE *prihj- > Germanic *friγj- > West Germanic *frijj- > frīj- but North Germanic *friggj-.9

This laryngealist view of the sound law is not accepted by all linguists, see Holtzmann's Law.

The epithet of *frawjō "lady" (Freyja, Frea, OHG frouwâ, Goth. *fraujô) is motivated by that of *frawjaz "lord" (Freyr, OHG frô, Goth. frauja, Anglo-Frisian freá, frôho). The Merseburg charm has Frûâ = Frôwâ as the proper name of the goddess.

Friday (dies Veneris) in ON is called both Freyjudagr and Frîadagr, in Faröese Frujggjadeâ, in OHG. never *Frouwûntac, but Frîatac, Frîgetac, now Freitag, in AS. Frigedæg.

Grimm: Langobardic Frea accords with the OHG. Frîa, not only identical with Frigg, but the original form of the name; it has less to do with Freyja and the AS. masc. freá.clarification needed

Grimm: We gather from all this, that the forms and even the meanings of the two names border closely on one another. Freyja means the gladsome, gladdening, sweet, gracious goddess, Frigg the free, beautiful, loveable; to the former attaches the general notion of frau (mistress), to the latter that of frî (woman).clarification needed Holda, from hold (sweet, kind) and Berhta from berht (bright, beautiful) resemble them both. The Swedish folk-song, in naming Froijenborg, calls her den väna solen, the beautiful sun.

Characteristics and iconography

Frigg-Frija is often associated with weaving, combining the aspects of a love goddess and a domestic goddess.10

The "woman" type of bracteates11 has been identified as depicting this goddess. There are five known bracteates of this type, IK 259 (Großfahner-B), IK 311 (Oberwerschen-B), IK 350 (site of discovery unknown, reportedly from "south-western Germany"), IK 389 (Welschingen-B), IK 391 (Gudme II-B).12 In all of these bracteates, the female figure depicted is holding a cross-shaped staff, interpreted as a distaff. IK 350 is additionally decorated with a number of crosses, and IK 259 has additional swastikas. Iconographically related are five gold bracteates found in Hüfingen, Bavaria (Pesch 2007:126).

In Sweden and some parts of Germany, the asterism of Orion's Belt is known as her distaff or spindle.13

Fulla is named as Frija's sister in the Merseburg charms. In Norse mythology Fulla appears as one of a train of sixteen goddesses. These goddesses have been theorized as each performing a task representing an aspect of Frigg's, among them also Freyja.

Variuos female figures in medieval folklore have been traced to Frigg-Frija: the Saxon Fru Freke, Gode, Perchta (Bertha), Holda (Holle). According to Rudolf Much,

"Jordh, Frigg, Freyja, Nerthus, Fulla, Nanna, and others are essentially the same, personifying life, producing nature."14

References

  1. ^ The k isn't a reflex of Old Norse ggj (as implied by Paul Hermann 1903), but a diminutive, as it were Frija-ke, Frea-ke (Elard Hugo Meyer, Mythologie der Germanen 1903).
  2. ^ OED s.v. "Friday".
  3. ^ attested only in a single isolated occurrence in the translation of the fragmentary Old Saxon Genesis poem, in the alliteratinf phrase frēo fægroste "fairest of women": OE Genesis B 457 Oððæt he Adam on eorðrice, godes handgesceaft, gearone funde, wislice geworht, and his wif somed, freo fægroste.
  4. ^ *frawjō derives from PIE *pro-w-y-ah, containing *pro- "in front". Garrett S. Olmsted, The Gods of the Celts and the Indo-Europeans (1994), p. 80; Gerhard Köbler, Gotisches Wörterbuch (1989) ISBN 9789004091283, p. 165.
  5. ^ OED s.v. "free"; A. Campbell Old Eng. Gram. (1959) §410.
  6. ^ Wodtko et al., Nomina im Indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg (2008) ISBN 978-3-8253-5359-9, s.v. "preyH", pp. 568-573.
  7. ^ Gothic frijôn translates φιλειν, αγαπαν "to love". Anglo-Saxon freogan, freon Old Saxon friehan. Also cognate are the Germanic terms for friend. The Old High German verb frijôn "nubere, uxorem ducere, woo, to take a wife" (Modern German freien) contrasts with frijan "liberare". It is foreign to Upper German, and was probably adopted from Low German (Grimm).
  8. ^ William M. Austin, A Corollary to the Germanic Verscharfung, Language, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1946), pp. 109-111.
  9. ^ Henry Lee Smith, Jr., The Verscharfung in Germanic, Language, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1941), pp. 93-98.
  10. ^ Mythological Women: Studies in Memory of Lotte Motz, 1922-1997, Fassbaender, 2002, ISBN 9783900538736, p. 70; M. J. Enright, The Goddess Who Weaves. Some Iconographic Aspects of Bracteates of the Fürstenberg Type. In: FMSt 24, 1990, 54-70.
  11. ^ Frauenbrakteaten, type B7, also called Fürstenberg or Oberwerschen type.
  12. ^ Alexandra Pesch, Die Goldbrakteaten der Völkerwanderungszeit: Thema und Variation, Walter de Gruyter, 2007 ISBN 9783110201109, 125-128.
  13. ^ Edwardes and Spence (1913); in Swedish both Friggerock "Frigg's distagg" and Frejerock "Freyja's Distaff", see Schön, Ebbe. (2004). Asa-Tors hammare, Gudar och jättar i tro och tradition. Fält & Hässler, Värnamo. p. 228.
  14. ^ cited after Edwardes and Spence (1913).
  • Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, ch.13
  • M. Scheller, Vedisch ‘priyá-’ u. die Wortsippe ‘frei, freien, Freund’ (1959)
  • D. H. Green, Lang. & Hist. Early Germanic World (1998) 39-41.
  • Jan de Vries, Studien over germaansche mythologie, VII: De skaldenkenningen met de namen der godinnen Freyja en Frigg, Tijdschrift voor nederlandsche taal- en letterkunde 53 (1934), 210-217.
  • Marian Edwardes, Lewis Spence, Dictionary of Non-Classical Mythology (1913); 2003 reprint ISBN 978-0766144538, 2005 reprint: ISBN 978-1596053427, pp. 70f.

See also

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