“Freya transported the chosen slain to Folkvang, where they were duly entertained, and where she also welcomed all pure maidens and faithful wives, that they might enjoy the company of their lovers and husbands even after death. The joys of her abode were so enticing to the heroic northern women that they often rushed into battle when their loved ones were slain, hoping to meet with the same fate; or they fell upon their swords, or were voluntarily burned on the same funeral pyre as the beloved remains.
“As Freya was inclined to lend a favorable ear to lovers’ prayers, she was often invoked by them, and it was customary to indite love songs in her honor, which were sung on all festive occasions, her very name in Germany being used for the formation of the verb freien, i. e., ‘to woo.’”
FREYA.
From Guerber’s Myths of Northern Lands.
When the conception of the mother goddess of antiquity began to decay, a new faith spread and under a new name the old ideal was revived as Mary, Mother of God, Maria Theotokos; the star of the sea, or Stella Maris; and the Italian fishermen sing to her the beautiful lines,
“O sanctissima, O piissima,
Dulcis mater amata.”
THE ORIGIN OF WOMAN.
THE problem of womanhood has found different expressions in different ages. In prehistoric times all great questions were answered mythologically. Cosmogeny and anthropogeny, including gynecogeny, were expressed in stories of gods, while in later periods the same facts remained and found different solutions in religious dogmas and still later in scientific investigations.