*''Fraujaz'' or *''Frauwaz'' (

Old High German Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...

''frô'' for earlier ''frôjo, frouwo'',

Old Saxon Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...

''frao, frōio'', Gothic ''frauja'',

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''frēa'',

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

''freyr''), feminine *''Frawjōn'' (OHG ''frouwa'', Old Saxon ''frūa'', Old English ''frōwe'', Goth. *''fraujō'',

''freyja'') is a

Common Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bra ...

honorific An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an Honorary title (academic), h ...

meaning "

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the Peerage o ...

", "

lady ''Lady'' is a term for a woman who behaves in a polite way. Once used to describe only women of a high social class or status, the female counterpart of lord, now it may refer to any adult woman, as gentleman can be used for men. "Lady" is al ...

", especially of

deities A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

. The epithet came to be used as a proper name of two separate deities in

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

Freyr Freyr (Old Norse: 'Lord'), sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested Æsir, god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, prosperity, fair weather, and good harvest. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was ...

and

Freyja In Norse mythology, Freyja (Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a char ...

Etymology

The term's etymology is ultimately from a

PIE A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...

''*pro-w-(y)o-s'', containing ''*pro-'' "in front" (cf. ''

first First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

'', ''

Fürst ' (, female form ', plural '; from Old High German ', "the first", a translation of the Latin ') is a German language, German word for a ruler as well as a princely title. ' were, starting in the Middle Ages, members of the highest nobility who ...

'' and Sanskrit '' purohita'' "high priest", lit. "placed foremost or in front"). Variants indicate ''n''-stems ''*fraujan-'', ''*frōwōn-''. The feminine *''frawjōn'' "lady, ''domina''" in Old English is attested only in a single isolated occurrence as ''frēo'' "woman" in the translation of the fragmentary

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

'' poem, in the alliterating phrase ''frēo fægroste'' "fairest of women". The stem was confused from early times with ''* frīj-'', which has variants ''frēo-, frīo-, frēa-'' (a contraction of ''*īj-'' and a following back vowel) beside a less frequent ''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 complementary

Direct use

In both Old Norse and Old High German the female epithet became a female honorific "

", in German ''

Frau ''Honorifics'' are words that connote esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person. In the German language, honorifics distinguish people by age, sex, profession, academic achievement, and rank. In the past, a distinction was ...

'' further weakened to the standard address "Mrs." and further to the normal word for "

woman A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or Adolescence, adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functi ...

", replacing earlier ''wîp'' (English ''

wife A wife (: wives) is a woman in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until their marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgment; or until death, depending on the kind of marriage. On t ...

'') and ''qinô'' (English ''

queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

'') "woman". Just as Norse ''Freyja'' is usually interpreted as a hypostasis of ''* Frijjō'' (

Frigg Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wetl ...

), Norse ''Freyr'' is associated with ''

Ingwaz Old Norse Yngvi , Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ing 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 accurat ...

'' (

Yngvi Old Norse Yngvi , Old High German Ing/Ingwi and Old English Ing are names that relate to a Lists of deities, theonym which appears to have been the older List of names of Freyr, name for the god Freyr. Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic Ingw ...

) based on the Ynglingasaga which names ''Yngvi-Freyr'' as the ancestor of the

kings of Sweden This list records the Monarchy of Sweden, monarchs of Sweden, from the late Viking Age to the present day. Sweden has continuously been a monarchy since the country's consolidation in the Viking Age and early Middle Ages, for over a thousand year ...

, which as Common Germanic ''*Ingwia-fraujaz'' would have designated the "lord of the

Ingvaeones The Ingaevones () or Ingvaeones () were a Germanic cultural group living in the Northern Germania along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, and Lower Saxony in classical antiquity. Tribes in this area included the Angles, ...

. The epithet came to be used as the proper name of two separate deities in

and

. Both Freyr and Freyja are represented zoomorphically by the

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), also called swine (: swine) or hog, is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is named the domestic pig when distinguishing it from other members of the genus '' Sus''. Some authorities cons ...

: Freyr has ''

Gullinbursti Gullinbursti (Old Norse), meaning "Gold Mane" or "Golden Bristles") is a boar in Norse mythology. When Loki had Sif's hair, Freyr's ship Skíðblaðnir, and Odin's spear Gungnir fashioned by the Sons of Ivaldi, he bet his own head with Brokkr ...

'' ("golden bristles") while Freyja has '' Hildisvíni'' has ("battle-pig"), and one of Freyja's many names is ''Syr'', i.e. "sow". For Old Norse, Snorri says that ''freyja'' is a ''tignarnafn'' (name of honour) derived from the goddess, that grand ladies, ''rîkiskonur'', are ''freyjur''. The goddess should be in Swed. ''Fröa'', Dan. ''Frøe''; the Swed. folk-song of Thor's hammer calls Freyja ''Froijenborg'' (the Dan. ''Fridlefsborg''), a Danish one has already the foreign ''Fru''. The Second Merseburg Charm may have ''Frûa'' = ''Frôwa'' as the proper name of the goddess, although the word in question is difficult to read and usually read as ''Frija'';

. Although Saxo is silent about this goddess (and her father) scholars expect that he would have called her ''Fröa''. In

Germanic Christianity The Germanic peoples underwent gradual Christianization in the course of late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By CE 700, England and Francia were officially Christian, and by 1100 Germanic paganism had also ceased to have political influence ...

, the epithet became a name of

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

, translating , ' (Gothic ''frauja'', Old English ''frēa'', Old High German ''frô''). Grimm attaches significance to the avoidance and the grammatical peculiarities of the lexeme in OHG: :"the reference to a higher being is unmistakable, and in the Middle ages there still seems to hang about the compounds with ''vrôn'' something weird, unearthly, a sense of old sacredness; this may account for the rare occurrence and the early disappearance of the OHG. ''frô'', and even for the grammatical immobility of ''frôno''; it is as though an echo of heathenism could still be detected in them."

Other cognates and derivatives

Old Norse ''Freyr'' would correspond to a Gothic *''fráus'' or *''fravis'', instead of which Ulfila has ''fráuja'' (gen. ''fráujins'') to translate , pointing to a proto-form ''*frawjaz'' in North Germanic, but a ''*frauwaz'' in West Germanic and Gothic. In Old High German, the full form *''frouwo'' was already lost, the writers preferring '' truhtîn'' and '' hêrro'' "lord". In

Old Low German Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europ ...

it survives in the vocative, as ''frô mîn!'' "my lord!". The

Heliand The ''Heliand'' () is an epic alliterative verse poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means "savior" in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "savior"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase ...

has ''frô mîn the gôdo'', ''waldand frô mîn'', ''drohtîn frô mîn'', besides ''frôho'' (gen. ''frôhon'') and ''frâho'' (gen. ''frâhon''). Old English ''freá'' (gen. ''freán'', for ''freâan'', ''freâwan'') is more common in

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

, as in ''freá ælmihtig'' (

Cædmon Cædmon (; fl. c. 657–684) is the earliest English poet whose name is known. A Northumbrian cowherd who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (now known as Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy of St. Hilda, he was orig ...

1.9; 10.1), and it also forms compounds: ''âgendfreá'', ''aldorfreá'', ''folcfreá'' and even combines with ''dryhten'' (''freádryhten'', Cædm. 54.29, gen. ''freahdrihtnes'', Beowulf 1585, dat. ''freodryhtne'' 5150). Along with OHG ''frô'', there is also found an indeclinable adjective ''frôno'', which is placed before or after substantives, to impart the notion of lordly, high, and holy. For example in ''der frône bote'' "the angel of the Lord", conspicuously avoiding the genitive singular (*''frôin bote''). It survives in Modern German as ''Fron-'' in compounds such as ''Frondienst'' "

socage Socage () was one of the feudal duties and land tenure forms in the English feudal system. It eventually evolved into the freehold tenure called "free and common socage", which did not involve feudal duties. Farmers held land in exchange for ...

", whence also a verb ''frönen''. The word occurs in

given names A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...

, such as Gothic Fráuja or Fráujila, OHG Frewilo, AS Wûscfreápossibly an old epithet of Woden; Grimm. "seems suitable to Wôden the god or lord of wishing" Old English ''freáwine'' in

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ) is an Old English poetry, Old English poem, an Epic poetry, epic in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 Alliterative verse, alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and List of translat ...

is an epithet of divine or god-loved heroes and kings, but Freáwine (Saxo's ''Frowinus'') is also attested as a personal name, reflected also as OHG ''Frôwin'', while the Edda has uses ''Freys vinr'' of Sigurðr and Saxo says of the Swedish heroes in the Bråvalla fight that they were ''Frö dei necessarii''. Skaldic fiörnis freyr, myrðifreyr'' ( Kormakssaga) means "hero" or "man". In the same way the Kormakssaga uses fem. ''freyja'' in the sense "woman, lady".

In popular culture

In Total War: Rome II, Fraujaz is one of the six principal deities of the

Suebi file:1st century Germani.png, 300px, The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Suebian peoples in red, and other Irminones in purple. The Suebi (also spelled Suavi, Suevi or Suebians ...

, along with Thunaraz, Frijjō, Teiwaz,

Wōdanaz Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Emp ...

and Austo.

References

Sources

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He formulated Grimm's law of linguistics, and was the co-author of the ''Deutsch ...

, ''

Teutonic Mythology Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Ge ...

''
ch. 10
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