[Namron] Re: Namron Digest, Vol 31, Issue 22

[Ulf Gunnarsson]

Ara wrote:
> Ulf, I scored as Njord, who is that?
> 

Njord is a sea god, or more exactly, a boat-user's god.  He and his two
children, Frey and Freyja, were the hostages exchanged by the Vanir with
Odin's Aesir to end the long war between the two sets of gods.

Njord ended up married to someone he didn't quite expect.  A giant name
Thjazi ran afoul of the gods and was killed (it's another story).  Well,
one day the giant's daughter, Skadi, showed up and was quite mad about
it.  She was ready to take them all on.  To make amends, and get out of
a wrongful death suit for killing her father, the gods decided to let
her pick one of the unmarried men as her husband.  But she had to do
this blindfolded.  Well, she already had been scoping them out and knew
that Baldar was absolutely "to die for".  So peeking out from under her
blindfold she could see their feet, and she picked the one with the
cleanest, prettiest feet.  Which was, unfortunately, Njord.

Now, Njord loved the sea, and Skadi the mountains.  They tried to live
first at one's place, then at the other's.  She loved the snow and ice,
which he had always associated with life-threatening problems.  He loved
the burst of the waves, but the seagulls kept her awake.  Countless
other differences came between.  So they soon parted.

Oh, on top of getting a husband, her dead dad's eyes got thrown up into
the heavens as part of the wereguild, where they still are today and are
called "Thjazi's Eyes".  And finally the god's had to make her laugh,
which she considered impossible, what with her dad dead and everything.
But Loki turned into a goat and danced around her until she was laughing
quite against her will.


Ulf Gunnarsson
(For more about this, please read Skaldskaparmál, which is a classic.)