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 ...

, Njörun (

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 ...

: ''Njǫrun'' , sometimes modernly anglicized as ''Niorun'') is a goddess attested in the ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...

'', written in the 13th century by

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of th ...

, and various

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does (). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (a ...

s (including once in the ''

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems in alliterative verse. It is distinct from the closely related ''Prose Edda'', although both works are seminal to the study of Old Norse ...

''). Scholarly theories concerning her name and function in the pantheon include

etymological Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

connections to the Norse god

Njörðr In Norse mythology, Njörðr (Old Norse: ) is a god among the Vanir. Njörðr, father of the deities Freyr and Freyja by Sister-wife of Njörðr, his unnamed sister, was in an ill-fated marriage with the goddess Skaði, lives in Nóatún (myth ...

and the Roman goddess

Nerio In ancient Roman religion and myth, Nerio (or Neriene) was an ancient war goddess and the personification of valor. She was the partner of Mars in ancient cult practices, and was sometimes identified with the goddess Bellona, and occasionally wi ...

, and suggestions that she may represent

the earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is ...

or be the unnamed

sister-wife of Njörðr In Norse mythology, the sister-wife of Njörðr is the unnamed twin sister and wife of the god Njörðr, with whom he is described as having had the (likewise incestuous) twin children Freyr and Freyja. This shadowy goddess is attested to in the ...

Attestations

Njörun is listed (after Bil) as an ásynja within the ''

'' book ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

''. No further information other than her name is provided there.Faulkes (1995:157). In addition, the name occurs in

s for women in poetry by

Kormákr Ögmundarson Kormákr Ögmundarson (Old Norse: ; Modern Icelandic: ) was a 10th-century Icelandic skald. He is the protagonist of '' Kormáks saga'' which preserves a significant amount of poetry attributed to him. According to ''Skáldatal,'' he was also the ...

Hrafn Önundarson Hrafn (; ) is both a masculine byname, and personal name in Old Norse. The name translates into English as " raven". The Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken ...

and

Rögnvaldr Kali Ragnvald, Rögnvald or Rognvald or Rægnald is an Old Norse name (Old Norse ''Rǫgnvaldr'', modern Icelandic ''Rögnvaldur''; in Old English ''Regenweald'' and in Old Irish, Middle Irish ''Ragnall''). Notable people with the name include: * Ragnval ...

as well as in '' Krákumál'' and verses in ''

Íslendinga saga ''Íslendinga saga'' ''(Saga of Icelanders)'' makes up a large part of ''Sturlunga saga'', a compilation of secular contemporary sagas written in thirteenth-century Iceland. The ''terminus ante quem'' of the compilation is disputed (between the o ...

'', ''

Njáls saga ''Njáls saga'' ( ), also ''Njála'' ( ), or ''Brennu-Njáls saga'' ( ) (Which can be translated as ''The Story of Burnt Njáll'', or ''The Saga of Njáll the Burner''), is a thirteenth-century Icelandic saga that describes events between 960 a ...

'' and '' Harðar saga''.Finnur Jónsson (1931:429). ''Eld-Njörun'' (meaning "fire-Njörun") occurs in women kennings in poetry by

Gísli Súrsson Gísli () is an Icelandic and Faroese masculine given name. Gisle is the Norwegian variant of the name. Notable people with the name include: * Gisli (contemporary musician), Icelandic solo musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist ...

and Björn Breiðvíkingakappi while ''hól-Njörun'' occurs in a somewhat dubious kenning in a stanza by

Björn hítdælakappi Bjorn, Bjorne (English, Dutch), Björn (Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, and German), Bjørn (Danish, Faroese and Norwegian), Beorn (Old English) or, rarely, Bjôrn, Biorn, or Latinized Biornus, Brum (Portuguese), is a Scandinavian male given name, or ...

. ''Draum-Njörun'' (meaning "dream-Njörun") is cited in the ''Poetic Edda'' poem ''

Alvíssmál Alvíssmál (Old Norse: 'The Song of All-wise' or 'The Words of All-wise') is a poem collected in the ''Poetic Edda'', probably dating to the 12th century, that describes how the god Thor outwits a dwarf called Alvíss ("All-Wise") who seeks to ...

'' as a word from the language of the dwarfs for the night. The same word occurs in ''

Nafnaþulur ''Nafnaþulur'' (Old Norse: ) is a subsection of the ''Prose Edda'', the last part of the ''Skáldskaparmál''. It is a listing in verse of names that may be used in poetry for various items, such as gods A deity or god is a supernatural bei ...

''.

Theories

Njörun is a "mysterious ... figure" of whom nothing else is known; Andy Orchard suggests that she may be fictitious.Orchard (1997:119). Several scholars have suggested that the stem syllable in her name, ''Njǫr-'', may represent the element *''ner-'' as in

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

' earth-goddess

Nerthus In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with a ceremonial wagon procession. Nerthus is attested by first century A.D. Roman historian Tacitus in his ethnographic work ''Germania''. In ''Germania'', Tacitus records that a group of G ...

(*''Ner-þuz''), whose name is etymologically identical with that of the Norse god Njǫrðr, and that Njörun may therefore be a name for

. Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon additionally suggests a connection with the Roman goddess

. The possible etymological connection with ''Njǫrðr'' and ''Nerthus'' suggests that Njörun may be a preserved name for the

, who is highly unusual in the Old Norse context in being unnamed. As was noted by Albert Morey Sturtevant, ''Njǫrun'' and ''

Gefjon In Norse mythology, Gefjon (Old Norse: ; alternatively spelled Gefion, or Gefjun , pronounced without secondary syllable stress) is a goddess associated with ploughing, the Danish island of Zealand, the legendary Swedish king Gylfi, the legend ...

'' are the only female names recorded in Old Norse texts that have the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

''-un''.Sturtevant (1952:167). Two other god-goddess pairs distinguished by suffix are preserved in the Old Norse corpus,

Ullr In Norse mythology, Ullr (Old Norse: ) is a Æsir, god associated with skiing. Although literary attestations of Ullr are sparse, evidence including relatively ancient place-name evidence from Scandinavia suggests that he was a major god in ear ...

and Ullin and Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn, and there is a possible third example in

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 ...

Phol and Volla.Hopkins (2012:42; 43 note 5).

Notes

References

* Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989). ''Íslensk orðsifjabók''. Orðabók Háskólans. * Faulkes, Anthony (Trans.) (1995). ''Edda''.

Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin and history The term ''everyman'' was used ...

. *

Finnur Jónsson Finnur Jónsson (May 29, 1858 – March 30, 1934) was an Icelandic philologist and Professor of Nordic Philology at the University of Copenhagen. He made extensive contributions to the study of Old Norse literature. Finnur Jónsson was born a ...

(1913). ''Goðafræði Norðmanna og Íslendinga eftir heimildum''. Hið íslenska bókmentafjelag. * Finnur Jónsson (1931). ''Lexicon poeticum''. S. L. Møllers bogtrykkeri. * Hopkins, Joseph (2012)
"Goddesses Unknown I: Njǫrun and the Sister-Wife of Njǫrðr"
''

RMN Newsletter ''RMN Newsletter'' is a peer-reviewed and open access academic journal published on a bi-annual basis by the University of Helsinki’s Department of Folklore Studies. Published in both digital and print editions, ''RMN Newsletter'' covers topics r ...

''; volume 5. pp. 39–44. * Orchard, Andy (1997). ''Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend''. Cassell. * Sturtevant, Albert Morey (1952). "Regarding the Old Norse name Gefjon" as published in ''Scandinavian Studies''; volume 24 (number 4, November). ISSN 0036-5637 {{DEFAULTSORT:Njorun Ásynjur Earth goddesses