Winifred Hodge Rose
One of Frigg’s greatest powers is the ability (and the determination!) to create and maintain a healthy and fruitful condition of orderliness in both the material and the non-material domains. This ability is expressed in her matronage of householding and housekeeping, where she teaches and supports all functions having to do with the well-being of the family. This includes not only housekeeping per se, but the management of money and property, hospitality, child-raising and teaching, health, and family relationships.
Frigg’s ability to order these matters is not confined to the small scale of the individual household, though that is one essential aspect of it. The same kinds of wisdom, authority, and knowledge required to properly run a household are also needed to run a business, an organization, a city, state, nation, or an international organization. This is especially true when one remembers how much was done in the household during Heathen times. In addition to the functions householding still implies today, it also included the production of food, fiber, pharmaceuticals, and most other materials needed for daily living, and performed the functions of school, hospital, pharmacy, bank, nursing home, and many other operations that are now more often in the commercial sector rather than the household.
The differences between householding and these commercial and public undertakings are primarily one of scale, and do not relate to the basic nature of what one needs to know and do. Whether in the home or the organization, one must know how to organize materials and work functions, manage one’s finances, manage supply and production, train and supervise people, ensure good relations among people, plan for the future, and many other activities. The Greek word “economy” (oikonomia) simply means “the law/ordering (nomia) of the household (oikos)”; while “ecology” means “the science of the household.” The roots of these words reflect the overall unity between the work, functions and interactions occurring within the household, with those occurring outside it, at the larger scales of national economies and natural ecosystems. Differences of scale, while they may mean a lot to us, are not as significant to the deities since they are not bound by the limitations we are. Thus, for Frigg, one might say that either running a household, or running a nation, is simply “all in a day’s work!”
Frigg’s ordering function extends to all kinds of relationships: personal relations between individuals, kindred and kinship relationships, larger groups, and society at large. Frigg is the frithweaver, bringing about not only peace, but “right relationships” that can maintain themselves peacefully over time, without constant struggle, strife and grief.
In the prose Edda, Frigg is listed first among a large group of other Goddesses, who are considered by some to be her companions and co-workers, or possibly aspects of herself (pp. 29-31). These Goddesses are all concerned, in various ways, with this right ordering of relationships and life-activities.
Var ensures the sanctity of oaths and promises; without this sanctity, relationships become weak and chaotic, and often break down into vengefulness and resentment. Though the Edda apparently limits Var’s domain of oaths and promises to those between men and women in romantic relationships, I see that her power extends much further: business contracts, diplomatic treaties, the ‘social contracts’ that underlie trust in our public officials at all levels, and good-faith agreements of all kinds.
Sjofn and Ljofn support the smooth path of love and affection; I see their work supporting not only romantic and sexually expressed love, but all the different kinds of love, affection, friendship and caring.
Syn (whom I call the “Just Say No!” Goddess) ensures that we keep our healthy personal boundaries strong, knowing when and to whom and to what we must “say no” in order to preserve our integrity, dignity, health and peace of mind–and our relationships. She ‘closes and wards the door’ whenever this is necessary for our safety, privacy and peace of mind. Syn is also “appointed as a defence at assemblies (Thingsteads) against matters that she wishes to refute” (p. 30). This makes her the Goddess of defense attorneys and public defenders, among other things.
Syn defends against invasion of privacy and personal rights, whether this is done in person, over the internet, or any of the many other ways our privacy is invaded. The constant bombardment we all suffer from—advertising, influencers, politicians, the lot—creates disorder in our thoughts, our emotions, our homes, our families and friendships, in our country and in the world. We need divine help to just shut the door from time to time, and have a peaceful space to nurture ourselves and our relationships.
Following on this, Syn is a very helpful Goddess when we practice meditation, helping us to close the door on extraneous thoughts and scattered emotions, to reach the still space where her companion Vor holds sway, the Goddess of Awareness. To me, Syn is an important Goddess for the modern world, and I’d like to see her power grow. I’d like to see our Runemasters and other esoteric workers develop new and powerful ways to contact her and direct her power, and share that with the rest of us.
Snotra (Snow-tra) teaches us of courtesy, manners, protocol, diplomacy–and not just the superficial forms of them, but the wisdom and the social ethics that underlie them. The whole purpose of these ways of ordering social interactions is to maintain good relationships with each other: to reduce opportunities for strife and misunderstanding, and to smooth the path of friendliness and trust. This applies to the household, and all the way up the chain to diplomatic relations between countries.
When all these things we’re discussing here break down, vengefulness, social chaos, strife and war ensue, bringing danger to all. Hlin, the protector, provides a safe refuge from the breakdown of social order and the dangers of embittered relationships, until they can be healed or left behind.
Vor is Goddess of awareness; without awareness and understanding of other people, their environments and circumstances, it is difficult to maintain good relations with them. Just as important is awareness of ourselves, our biases, our motives, our habits, the effects our actions and words have on others. True awareness and understanding is a necessary basis for any efforts at ordering anything, at any level, if we don’t want to end up making situations worse than they were when we started. This includes anything from teaching self-discipline to children, to deciding to go to war on another nation. Full and clear awareness is the key to effective action.
Gna, Frigg’s messenger Goddess, can be seen as the process of communication between one person and another. Without this ongoing communication, relationships collapse into complete disorder. The relationships Frigg is concerned with–and has the power to help with–range from the intimate relations within a family and among Heathens, through the everyday social relations within our workplaces and neighborhoods, and all the way up to the diplomatic relations between different countries and cultures. And if we ever end up meeting with extraterrestrial beings, we could most certainly use the assistance of Frigg and her ladies then, as well!
Frigg extends her ordering abilities even beyond the household, work-sphere, and relationships at all levels. Working with Eire, another of her companion-Goddesses, Eire and Frigg order the interweaving strands of body, mind and soul to promote health and healing.
Frigg also orders knowledge and wisdom. She is said to “know all, though she does not speak it.” (Lokasenna vs.29, Poetic Edda). The “all” referred to in this quotation applies mainly to the knowledge of the Norns, the knowledge of Wyrd. As anyone who has tried to perceive Wyrd directly knows, this kind of information can seem to us like an impossibly confused and chaotic tangle of bits and pieces. To be able to translate “chaotic tangle of bits and pieces” into “true knowledge and wisdom” requires a very high degree of ordering power–an ability symbolized by Frigg’s spinning and weaving skills. Saga is seen as another of Frigg’s companions or aspects, and her skill is the ordering of disconnected bits and pieces of knowledge into the meaningful whole represented by history or by a tale, poem or song.
Fulla is Frigg’s sister, and though Snorri in the Edda describes Fulla as rather subordinate to Frigg, the fact that they are sisters, and other literary clues, shows that Fulla has greater power than Snorri describes. Fulla’s primary power is the gift of abundance, of Fullness: no small matter, and an attribute of the “Great Goddess” in every religion. In Snorri’s description, Fulla looks after Frigg’s possessions, and keeps her secrets. “Looking after Frigg’s possessions” must surely involve putting and keeping them in order. And what are Frigg’s possessions? Her power, her knowledge, her wisdom.
It is as though Fulla, with her task of ordering Frigg’s possessions, is the secret core of Frigg’s ordering powers. Thus, here we have the uniting of Frigg, whose name means “Beloved” (the essence of relationship) with Fulla, whose name means “Abundance,” both of them converging in the power of right ordering. This seems to hint that we should see these things as a unity: right ordering and right relationships lead to abundance and fullness–not only material fullness, but even more, they lead to emotional and spiritual fullness, as well.
It is important to understand that the power of right ordering underlies many of Frigg’s aspects, abilities and strengths, and is a key part of who she is, in terms of her character and personality. This common thread serves to tie together apparently unrelated aspects of her powers, some of which are represented by her companions. Understanding how and why she seeks to bring about order in all these different ways helps one see the underlying unity of her manifold works and purposes in Midgard.
More about Fulla
There is a reference to Fulla in the myth of Baldr. When Hermodhr visits Baldr and Nanna in Hel, Nanna gives him a gift of ‘finger gold’ to take back to Fulla, and gives fine linens for Frigg. These are the only two deities to whom Nanna sends gifts from Hel to Asgard, and her choice indicates a certain degree of equality between these two Goddesses, at least in Nanna’s affections (Gylfaginning in the prose Edda, p. 50).
‘Volla’ is mentioned as Frigg’s / Friia’s sister in the Old High German Second Merseberg Charm (Simek p. 278). “Voll” means “full” in German and is pronounced “foll”. There are a number of references to ‘Dame Abundia’ in Jacob Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology and other writings about folklore in Germanic lands. I think ‘Dame Abundia’ must be the same as Fulla / Volla: all of their names mean ‘fullness, abundance.’ All of these clues lead me to the conclusion that Fulla / Volla was in elder times a mightier and more highly-regarded Goddess than we now realize. Her relationship as sister to Frigg reinforces that impression. Volla is recognized as a Goddess in the Urglaawe branch of Heathenry.
Bookhoard
Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology. (J.S. Stalleybrass edition). George Bell & Sons, London, 1883.
Larrington, Carolyne, transl. The Poetic Edda, revised edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014.
Simek, Rudolf. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer, Cambridge. 1993.
Sturlason, Snorri. Anthony Faulkes, ed. Edda. Everyman, Charles E. Tuttle Co. Rutledge VT. 1995.
This article was first published in Lina: The Journal of Frigga’s Web, in the mid 1990s. It is also published at Friggasweb.org. Revised June 2020.