Jörð

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Jörð is the Norse goddess who is also the ground beneath everyone's feet, and the Prose Edda asks a curious question about her. In section 90 of Skáldskaparmál, the text wonders: "How shall earth be referred to?" The answer is a long chain of poetic images. It begins with "Ymir's flesh" and ends with the "floor and base of winds' hall". Between those two images sits a whole crowd of kin, lovers and in-laws. So who was this figure, whose name doubles as the word for soil? Was she a goddess of the Æsir, or was she something older and wilder? And why do the medieval writers, who preserved her, disagree about who her own family was?

  91116

• 2. Names Of The Earth

  ›

  Old Norse jǫrð means both "earth" and "land", so the goddess carries a plain common noun as her name. The word descends from a Proto-Germanic form written *erþō-, meaning earth, soil or land.

  Gothic airþa, Old English eorþ, Old Saxon ertha and Old High German erda all grew from that same root. The Ancient Greek word éra, also meaning earth, is possibly related too. Most likely the root is a cousin of another Proto-Germanic form meaning sand or soil. Echoes of it survive in Old Norse jǫrfi, which means sand or gravel, and in Old High German ero.

  She was not known only by this one name. Scholars consider Fjörgyn to be another name for the same goddess, since she too is described as the mother of the thunder god Thor. Skaldic poets also used Fjörgyn as a stand-in for "land" or "the earth". A third name, Hlóðyn, is most likely a synonym as well, though its origin remains unclear. It is often linked to the goddess Hludana, to whom Romano-Germanic votive tablets were dedicated on the Lower Rhine.

  The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus knew her too. In his Gesta Danorum he gives her name as Iuritha. That work was composed in the 12th century, earlier than the two Eddas, both of which belong to the 13th.

  10147138

• 3. Mother In Verse

  ›

  The Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century by an unknown individual or individuals, names Jörð in two poems. In Lokasenna, Thor is called Jarðar burr, which means "son of Jörð".

  Völuspá takes a different route. There Thor is called mǫgr Hlóðyniar and also Fjǫrgyniar burr, meaning child of Hlóðyn and child of Fjörgyn. Because the same son carries both titles, Hlóðyn must have been another name for Jörð.

  The Prose Edda is thick with her. In Skáldskaparmál, the list of kennings for Thor, which are poetic substitutes for a name, includes "son of Odin and Iord". Section 17 quotes Haustlöng by the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir, who calls Thor "the son of Iord" twice. The poem is quoted again in section 23. Section 18 quotes Þórsdrápa by Eilífr Goðrúnarson, in which Thor becomes "Iord's son".

  She also appears as a rival of other women. Section 19 lists kennings for the goddess Frigg, including "rival of Iord and Rind and Gunnlod and Gerd". Section 90, the long answer about how to name the earth, adds that earth may be called the daughter of Onar, the bride of Odin, and the mother-in-law of Sif. It cites verses by Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld and Þjóðólfr of Hvinir as proof.

  The Nafnaþulur section of Skáldskaparmál goes one step further and counts her among the names of the ásynjur, the goddesses. Counting her appearances is tricky, because the ordinary word jörð turns up all over the Prose Edda simply to mean the ground.

  129138

• 4. Daughter Of Night

  ›

  Section 10 of Gylfaginning gives Jörð a family tree that begins in Giantland. There lived a giant named Norfi or Narfi, who had a daughter called Night, black and dark like her ancestry. Night married a man called Naglfari, and their son was Aud. She then married someone called Annar, and their daughter was Iord.

  The long answer in section 90 seems to echo this family. It names the earth "daughter of Night" and "sister of Aud and Day".

  The manuscripts do not all agree, though. The philologist Haukur Thorgeirsson notes that the four manuscripts of Gylfaginning differ on how Night, Jörð, Day and Dellingr are related. In the oldest manuscript, known as U, Jǫrð is the wife of Dellingr and the mother of Dagr. In manuscripts R, W and T, that role belongs to Nótt instead.

  Haukur argues that the U version arose by accident. In his view, the writer of U, or of a manuscript before it, shortened a text much like the one in RWT. The slip then travelled into the Icelandic poetic tradition.

  Section 25 of Gylfaginning sets her in a different company altogether. It reckons "Thor's mother Iord and Vali's mother Rind" among the Asyniur, the goddesses. The same book that seats her among goddesses has also traced her back to a giant.

  189131611

• 5. Goddess Or Giantess

  ›

  The philologist Rudolf Simek describes Jörð as "an Æsir goddess, even though she is also called a giantess". That one sentence captures the tension in her sources.

  Simek also sees an older pattern behind her. In Indian mythology, Thor's counterpart Indra is fathered by Dyaus, the god of the heavens, and by the Earth. Thor, likewise, is the son of the Earth. Simek adds the proto-ancestor Tuisto to the comparison.

  The folklorist John Lindow draws a darker conclusion. He writes that "Jörd must have been a giantess in the beginning." If so, her bond with Odin should be read beside his other "strategically minded relationships with giantesses". Lindow suggests it was more likely a relationship outside marriage than a marriage, and perhaps not even a willing one on her part.

  Some 19th-century scholars went further still. They proposed that Thor's brother Meili should be understood as another son of Jörð.

  16171153