Ingunar-Freyr is the
name given to Freyr in the ''
Lokasenna
''Lokasenna'' (Old Norse: 'The Flyting of Loki', or 'Loki's Verbal Duel') is one of the poems of the '' Poetic Edda''. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki. It is written in the ljóðaháttr metre, typical for wisdom verse. ''Lo ...
''
(43) and in the ''Great saga of Saint Olaf''.
It is often assumed that ''Ingunar'' is the West-Germanic equivalent of the Scandinavian ''
Yngvi
Old Norse Yngvi , Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ingƿine are names that relate to a theonym which appears to have been the older name for the god Freyr. Proto-Germanic *Ingwaz was the legendary ancestor of the Ingaevones, or more acc ...
''.
The meaning of ''Ingunar'' remains uncertain. It could be related to the
Ingaevones
The Ingaevones were a West Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Frisia in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, Frisii, Chauci, S ...
, a Germanic tribe. Another solution is to understand Ingunar as the genitive form of Ingun, who would be a fertility goddess.
[Schröder, Franz Rolf. 1941. ''Untersuchungen zur germanischen und vergleichenden Religionsgeschichte''. Vol. 1, ''Ingunar-Freyr''. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.]
A close form, ''frea Ingwina'' ("lord of the friends of
Ing
Ing, ING or ing may refer to:
Art and media
* '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film
* i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group
* The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes''
* "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...
") is used in ''
Beowulf''
(1319), where it refers to the Danish king
Hroðgar
Hrothgar ( ang, Hrōðgār ; on, Hróarr) was a semi-legendary Danish king living around the early sixth century AD.
Hrothgar appears in the Anglo-Saxon epics ''Beowulf'' and ''Widsith'', in Norse sagas and poems, and in medieval Danish chroni ...
.
References
{{Norse mythology
Freyr