“If she (the betrothed woman) wants to break the betrothal within twelve months, and says she has been betrothed against her will, he can use his witnesses against her words and get her. If he lacks witnesses then she and also her father and mother, or their nearest kinsmen if they do not exist, shall assure it is against her will with an oath, and pay the betrothed man as much as was promised. If this takes place after the wedding she loses her third” (Frostath., iii. 22).
“If the man to whom a woman is betrothed becomes sick he shall send word half a month before (the wedding) to the man who has betrothed the woman that he will not come to the wedding on account of his health, and the woman need not be brought home to him though it was agreed, and the reasons must be told. Then the wedding shall not be before the same time next year, unless the man wants it before, and then word must be sent half a month or more before, and he shall keep the wedding at his sole cost. If he does not recover in the next twelvemonth the betrothal is dissolved, unless both wish otherwise” (Gragas, i. 310).
The wedding generally took place at the home of the bride; very seldom at the bridegroom’s: on the wedding-night the mund became the wife’s personal property.
After the marriage the bride and bridegroom were hjón, a word which means man and wife; and then the wife became an eiginkona (own woman, wife, spouse) and hùsfreyja (housewife), and enjoyed the rights belonging to that position.
“Illugi lived at Hólm in Akranes. He was tall and strong and wealthy; he went on a wooing-journey to Ölfusvatn, and asked for Thurid, the daughter of Grimkel by his first wife. Grimkel answered favourably, for he knew Illugi; the betrothal was performed there; Hörd (Grimkel’s son by Signy) was not present at this. In the tvimanad (September) the wedding-feast was to be at Ölfusvatn, and when the appointed day came Illugi made ready to go with thirty men” (Hörd’s Saga, ch. ii.).
No rings were exchanged or given either at the betrothal or the wedding. That the bride had a special dress for the bridal ceremony seems to be certain, though in no Saga have we a description of a bridal dress; but from several passages we see that the bride was hvit-földud (white-folded), and lin-bundin (linen-bound, enveloped in linen), which implies that the bridal dress was white.
“It is told that the first evening of the wedding the brides (King Svein’s, and that of Sigvaldi, Jarl of the Jomsvikings) had their head-dress (fald) low down so that their faces could not be distinctly seen; next morning they were very merry and did not wear any skuplas.”[[13]]
This bridal linen was a long wide head-dress hanging down the back from the top of the head, or a kind of veil. In Thrymskvida the bride wore such a head-dress, which was fastened on the head with an ornament. At the waist a bunch of keys was placed to show her authority as mistress of the household, and on her breast she had an ornament.
The jötun Thrym had got Thor’s hammer and would not give it back, unless Freyja were married to him. Thor was disguised as Freyja, and sent as a bride to Thrym; he got hold of the hammer, and crushed Thrym and the jötnar.
Then said Thor,