His paternal heritage may have
After his kindred.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Freya was so beautiful that all the gods, giants, and dwarfs longed for her love and in turn tried to secure her as wife. But Freya scorned the ugly old giants and refused to belong even to Thrym, when urged to accept him by Loki and Thor. She was not so obdurate where the gods themselves were concerned, if the various mythologists are to be believed, for as the personification of the earth she is said to have married Odin, the sky, Frey, the fruitful rain, Odur, the sunshine, etc., until it seems as if she deserved the accusation hurled against her by the arch-fiend Loki, of having loved and married all the gods in turn.
Worship of Freya.
It was customary on solemn occasions to drink Freya’s health with that of the other gods, and when Christianity was introduced in the North this toast was transferred to the Virgin or to St. Gertrude; Freya herself, like all the heathen divinities, was declared a demon or witch, and banished to the mountain peaks of Norway, Sweden, or Germany, where the Brocken is pointed out as her special abode, and the general trysting place of her demon train on Valpurgisnacht.
Chorus of Witches.
“On to the Brocken the witches are flocking—
Merry meet—merry part—how they gallop and drive,
Yellow stubble and stalk are rocking,