As all aquatic plants were supposed to belong to him, the marine sponge was known in the North as “Niörd’s glove,” a name which was retained until lately, when the same plant has been popularly called the “Virgin’s hand.”
CHAPTER IX.
FREY.
Frey, or Fro, as he was called in Germany, was the son of Niörd and Nerthus, or of Niörd and Skadi, and was born in Vana-heim. He therefore belonged to the race of the Vanas, the divinities of water and air, but was warmly welcomed in Asgard when he came thither as hostage with his father. As it was customary among the Northern nations to bestow some valuable gift upon a child when he cut his first tooth, the Æsir gave the infant Frey the beautiful realm of Alf-heim or Fairyland, the home of all the Light Elves.
“Alf-heim the gods to Frey
Gave in days of yore
For a tooth gift.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
The god of fairyland.
Here Frey, the god of the golden sunshine and the warm summer showers, took up his abode, charmed with the company of the elves and fairies, who implicitly obeyed his every order, and at a sign from him flitted to and fro, doing all the good in their power, for they were preëminently beneficent spirits.
