While married to his vicious sister Juno, the Roman nominal chief god Jupiter engaged in numerous extramarital sexual affairs. For example, he showered down as gold upon princess Danae, transformed himself into a bull to copulate with Europa, and incinerated Semele at her ambitious request.[1] The Viking nominal chief god Odin, in contrast, was repeatedly humiliated in his unimaginative attempts to have sex with the Ruthenian princess Rindr.
Odin first tried becoming a military leader. Disguising himself as a highly experienced soldier, Odin offered to serve the Ruthenian king. The king made him a general. After leading a glorious victory over the king’s enemies, Odin became highly honored:
Because of what Odin’s battle had accomplished, the king raised him to the first rank of royal friendship, scarcely less with gifts than with honorable decorations. After a small interval of time, Odin alone forced the enemy line into a flight of amazing defeat and returned to announce it. Everyone was astonished that one man could have taken up a massacre of such innumerably many men.
{ Quem rex ob pugnam strenue editam in primum amicitiae gradum ascivit, haud parcius donis quam honoribus cultum. Idem post parvulum temporis intervallum solus hostium acies in fugam propulit mirificaeque cladis auctor pariter ac nuntius rediit. Admirationi omnibus erat, quod tanta de innumeris strages unius accipi viribus potuisset. }[2]
The hero Odin was encouraged by the king to seek his daughter Rindr’s love. Young women in the ancient world, however, weren’t timid even in relation to a highly decorated general:
Invigorated by the king’s most kindly encouragement, Odin then attempted to kiss the young woman. He received a slap on his face.
{ Cuius benignissimo favore recreatus, dum a puella osculum peteret, alapam recepit. }[3]
Rindr thus decisively rejected the chief god Odin in the disguise of an eminent general.
Odin refused to bow to Rindr’s rejection of him. He disguised himself as a highly skilled, foreign-born metal worker:
Having constructed numerous things of shaped bronze with very beautiful features, he promoted his skilled profession to such an extent that he received from the king a large amount of gold. The king ordered him to produce ornaments for the royal women. He therefore constructed many emblems for feminine adornment. Eventually he presented to the young woman Rindr a bracelet finished with more work than the rest and many rings intricately twisted with equal effort.
{ Itaque multiplices rerum formas speciosissimis aeris lineamentis complexus adeo professionem artificio commendavit, ut, recepto a rege magno ponderis auro, matronarum ornamenta procudere iuberetur. Igitur complura feminei cultus insignia fabricatus tandem armillam ceteris operosius expolitam annulosque complures pari studio decusatos puellae praebuit. }
Providing gifts of exquisite jewelry didn’t take him into this young woman’s heart:
Her disdain could not be bent by any of his works. Whenever he desired to offer her a kiss, Rindr banged him with her fist.
{ nullis flecti meritis indignatio potest. Quem Rinda basium sibi porrigere cupientem colapho percussit. }
Rindr realized that the metal-working man generous with his jewelry was seeking her sexual favor. She wouldn’t sell herself for sumptuous gifts.
Odin tried again. This time he became a rugged, horse-born warrior. He proudly displayed to all his horsemanship and martial courage. He was ready to topple any man in a joust.[4] Rindr wasn’t impressed:
One day when departing, he wished to beg a kiss. From her in response came such a push that falling, he banged his chin on the ground.
{ Quam cum discessurus osculo petere vellet, ita ab ea propulsus est, ut mentum terrae nutabundus impingeret. }
The skilled knight shouldn’t have stuck his chin out for a kiss. Rindr wasn’t a phony Hollywood woman action-hero. She was a Viking princess as represented in thirteenth-century Latin literature. Attractive young women like Rindr have always ruled, even in force of arms.
Odin then disguised himself as a woman. He claimed that he was Wecha, a female physician like the illustrious Calabre of Paris. He could do as a woman what he was never able to do as a man:
Eventually he was accepted into the queen’s service and acted as the young woman’s female attendant. He used to wash dirt from her feet in the evening hours. As he applied water to her feet, he was permitted to touch her calves and the upper part of her thighs.
{ Tandem in reginae famulitium ascitus puellae pedissequam egit. Cuius etiam pedum sordes serotinis horis abluere solebat; licebat quoque lympham pedibus ministranti suras ac superiores femorum partes contingere. }[5]
One day Rindr became sick. Odin as her female physician Wecha prescribed a medicine that he said would be so bitter that Rindr must be tied to her bed to receive it. According to the fake female physician:
From her innermost fibers must be expelled the material of her disease.
{ Ab intimis enim fibris morbi propulsandam esse materiam. }
Her foolish father believed the medical expert’s prescription:
His daughter Rindr was seized, bound to a bed, and ordered not to resist, but to submit patiently to all that the physician would apply. The pretense of feminine attire that the old man Odin employed obscured his perverted art and deceived the king. A matter of apparent medicine was transmuted into a license for rape. Having changed his business of treatment, the physician took up the opportunity for sex. Prior to engaging in the occupation of dispelling the young woman’s fever, he first exerted himself in lust. He used illness against the young women, who in good health he had experienced as his foe.
{ filiam vincire non distulit iniectamque toro ad omnia, quae medicus admovisset, patientiam praestare iussit. Fallebat illum feminei species cultus, quo senex ad obumbrandam artis suae pervicaciam utebatur; quae res medicamenti speciem ad stupri licentiam transtulit. Medicus namque, Veneris occasione sumpta, mutato curationis officio, prius ad exercendae libidinis quam pellendae febris negotium procurrit, adversa puellae valetudine usus, cuius inimicam sibi incolumitatem expertus fuerat. }[6]
Few mortal men would rape a woman in any circumstances. The chief Viking god Odin had a ill woman tied her to a bed so that he could rape her. That’s remarkably dull magic for a god. It shows Odin to be a pathetic and evil being.
Odin’s wicked sexual deed threatened to discredit all of traditional Viking religion. A widely disseminated myth recounted that a young man as a medical student had resurrected a dead princess with erotic treatment. Odin’s treatment of Rindr was morally much worse. That mattered:
So the gods, whose principal seat was thought to be in Byzantium, discerning Odin to have stained the glory of majesty and divinity by his various failings, led to have him removed from their college. He was not only ejected from his preeminence, but also stripped of his household honor and worship and arranged to be outlawed. The gods estimated it to be better for a disgraced high priest to be removed from power than to have public religion profaned. They also did not want to be implicated in another god’s wicked crime and to have their innocent names punished. Moreover, seeing about them that those who had been seduced into giving them worship and honor of divinity, through common mockery of the greater god were changing reverence to contempt. People were becoming ashamed of their religion. Sacred rites were being led into sacrilege, and people were regarding solemn religious ceremonies fixed in place as childish absurdities. Before the gods’ eyes was death. Fear was in their spirits, and you would have thought that the fault of a single god was returning upon the heads of them all.
{ At dii, quibus praecipua apud Byzantium sedes habebatur, Othinum variis maiestatis detrimentis divinitatis gloriam maculasse cernentes collegio suo submovendum duxerunt. Nec solum primatu eiectum, sed etiam domestico honore cultuque spoliatum proscribendum curabant, satius existimantes probrosi antistitis potentiam subrui quam publicae religionis habitum profanari, ne vel ipsi alieno crimine implicati insontes nocentis nomine punirentur. Videbant enim apud eos, quos ad deferendos sibi divinitatis honores illexerant, vulgato maioris dei ludibrio, obsequium contemptu, religionem rubore mutari, sacra pro sacrilegio duci, statas sollemnesque caerimonias puerilium deliramentorum loco censeri. Mors prae oculis, metus in animis erat, et in omnium caput unius culpam recidere putares. }[7]
The ruling powers are always most concerned about preserving their privileges. So it is in the leading institutions of dominant ideology today.
Why wasn’t the Roman chief god Jupiter deposed for his sexual outrages as was the Viking chief god Odin? Even among gods, credit for a husband’s success is usually attributed to his wife. Jupiter’s wife Juno was at the center of Roman community and family and honored in seven festivals per year. As the Aeneid makes clear, Juno was in practice the most powerful Roman deity. She had no need to encourage the other gods to nominally depose Jupiter so as to enhance her own power.
Odin’s wife Frigg, in contrast, was less well-positioned gynocentrically. While Frigg and Odin squabbled and took different sides as they intervened in mortal affairs, just as did Juno and Jupiter, Frigg was much less prominent than Odin in Old Norse religion. Surviving Old Norse literature says little about Frigg. According to modern scholarship, she was a strong, independent, sexually promiscuous goddess.[8] When a golden statue was erected to Odin in Uppsala, Frigg contrived to have it converted into jewelry for her:
Odin’s wife Frigg, so that she could walk forth better adorned, arranged for artisans to strip the statue of gold for jewelry. Odin had them killed by hanging, and he had the statue placed on a pedestal. Moreover, marvelous work of craft made the statue respond to human touch with a voice. Nonetheless Frigg, placing the splendor of her own attire before her husband’s divine honors, contrived to have herself raped by one of her household servant-men. By his cunning the effigy was demolished, and the gold that had been consecrated to public superstition was converted into an instrument for her private pleasure.
{ Cuius coniunx Frigga, quo cultior progredi posset, accitis fabris aurum statuae detrahendum curavit. Quibus Othinus suspendio consumptis statuam in crepidine collocavit, quam etiam mira artis industria ad humanos tactus vocalem reddidit. At nihilominus Frigga, cultus sui nitorem divinis mariti honoribus anteponens, uni familiarium se stupro subiecit; cuius ingenio simulacrum demolita aurum publicae superstitioni consecratum ad privati luxus instrumentum convertit. }[9]
Teach goddesses not to get themselves raped for their personal advantage! Frigg’s actions so embarrassed Odin that he voluntarily went into exile. He returned only after Frigg had died. Juno never sought to humiliate Jupiter to the extent that Frigg undermined and humiliated Odin.
Jupiter didn’t ultimately remain the nominal chief god in the land of the Roman Empire. The son of a carpenter from the dusty town of Nazareth eventually discredited Jupiter and all the other Roman gods. Jesus didn’t, however, change the powerful force of men’s desire for women. Such desire is evident not only in the behavior of the gods Jupiter and Odin, but also in that of the great tribal founder Jacob and the great king David.
* * * * *
Read more:
- Danish woman-warrior Alvild fought like a man and loved a man
- break the classical circle: love beyond castration and cuckolding
- overcoming disparagement of men’s sexuality in ancient Greek poetry
Notes:
[1] A lovesick Roman poet writing probably in the first century even went so far as to describe his beloved Lydia as worthy of Jupiter’s amorous attention:
Yet my dying limbs are wasting with grief,
and warmth fails me, steeped in death’s chill,
because my lady-lord isn’t with me. No young woman
on earth was more learned or more lovely. And if
the tale isn’t false, as worthy of Jove as bull or bullion
(Jupiter, avert your ear) my young woman alone is.{ at male tabescunt morientia membra dolore,
et calor infuso decedit frigore mortis,
quod mea non mecum domina est: non ulla puella
doctior in terris fuit aut formosior, ac, si
fabula non vana est, tauro Iove digna vel auro
(Iuppiter, avertas aurem) mea sola puella est. }
Virgilian Supplement {Appendix Virgiliana}, Lydia, incipit “I envy you, you fields and lovely meadows {Invideo vobis, agri formosaque prata},” vv. 23-7, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Fairclough & Goold (1918).
[2] Saxo Grammaticus, Deeds of the Danes {Gesta Danorum} 3.4.1.6-8, Latin text from Olrik & Raeder (1931), my English translation, benefiting from that of Davidson & Fisher (1979-80). For a freely available, online English translation, Elton (1894). Subsequent quotes from Gesta Danorum are similarly sourced from 3.4.1-9, unless otherwise noted.
Odin (Óðinn / Woden) sought to have sex with Rindr (Rinda / Rind) to fulfill a prophecy. That prophecy declared that Odin and Rindr would conceive a son who would avenge the death of Odin’s son Baldr. Baldr’s brother Hod (Höðr) had killed him through the guile of Loki. By Odin, Rindr had a son named Váli or Bous. He avenged Baldr’s death by killing Hod. Men’s deaths attract little social concern relative to the rape of a woman. For a motif analysis of the Baldr myth, Rooth (1961), Chapter 10.
[3] Odin also suffered sexual rejection from Billingr’s daughter. He ardently desired her:
The daughter of Billingr
I found in bed,
shining like the sun, sleeping.
No earl’s pleasure
I imagined could be,
except to live beside that
body.{ Billings mey
ek fann beðiom á
sólhvíta sofa.
Iarls ynði
þótti mér ekki vera,
nema við þat lík at lifa. }
Hávamál 97, Old Norse text and English translation from Dronke (2011). The daughter of Billingr encouraged him to come to her at night. But when he did, he found a band of warriors with blazing torches ready to punish him. Nonetheless, later he tried again:
And close to morning,
when I’d come again,
then the household were asleep.
Then I found a bitch
tethered on the bed
of that good girl.{ Ok nær morni, Óðinn
er ek var enn um kominn,
þá var saldrótt um sofin.
Grey eitt ek þá fann
ennar góðar kono
bundit beðiom á. }
Hávamál 101, sourced as previously. Men have long been disparaged as being sexually like dogs. Billingr’s daughter conveyed to Odin a message that surely bit and hurt him.
[4] Medieval romance associated men’s prowess in killing other men with gaining women’s love. When the mighty warrior Ille helped the Romans defeat the Greeks, three thousand Roman women in a nearby Roman castle applauded his exploits:
If he had stayed for 15 days,
he would not have been lacking in love-affairs.
Many woman there would have sought to be his lover.{ Se il demorast .xv. jours,
ne fust pas sofraitex d’amors:
requis i fust de mainte amie. }
Gautier d’Arras, Ille and Galeron {Ille et Galeron} vv. 3057-9, Old French text and English translation (modified) from Eley (1996). Odin sought to make himself as sexually desirable to Rindr as Ille was to the Roman women.
[5] Cross-dressing in pursuit of amorous affairs is a well-established motif in medieval literature. Hagbard disguised himself as a Viking woman-warrior to gain access to his beloved Signe. So too did Floire to gain access to his imprisoned, beloved Blancheflor. Cross-dressing helped to expose the problem of false accusations of rape, such as in the cases of Saint Eugenia and Saint Marina.
Odin apparently was known for cross-dressing as part of shamanic activity. Poetic Edda, Lokasenna 24, discussed in Varley (2015) pp. 84-6.
[6] Alternate accounts exist of Odin’s sexual affair with Rindr. Saxo reported that some say that the Ruthenian king “permitted Odin to acquire Rindr by secret sexual intercourse {clandestino filiae concubitu potiri permiserit}.” Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum 3.4.8.1, Latin text from Olrik & Raeder (1931), my English translation, benefiting from that of Davidson & Fisher (1979-80). Odin was known to use spells and charms. Poetic Edda, Lokasenna 24. Another source states, “Odin won Rindr by magic {Seið Yggr til Rindar}.” Kormákr Ögmundarson, Skáldskaparmál 9.12, discussed in Varley (2015) pp. 78-9.
Under today’s elite standard, literature referring to a male having sex with a female should be interpreted to mean that he raped her, unless it’s clear beyond reasonable doubt that he didn’t. That elite standard supports the massively gender-disproportionate imprisonment of men. Nonetheless, I’ve followed that elite standard by referring to Odin having raped Rindr.
[7] In addition to raping Rindr, Odin engaged in “a string of sexual peccadilloes with a variety of female creatures, notably giantesses.” Orchard (1997) p. 123. Wanner declared:
While like any god worthy of the name, Óðinn offered adherents an elevated image of themselves, his was a more realistic than idealized reflection. Óðinn was a god whose nature and experiences closely paralleled his followers’ own, up to and including the qualities of itinerancy and transience. The difference, in short, separating Óðinn from humans was quantitative, not qualitative.
Wanner (2007) p. 349. That’s another example of anti-meninism. Not all men are like that. Some men don’t have sex with any women. Moreover, Odin should be credited with not being intimidated by large women, as many human men are.
[8] On the relative scarcity of references to Frigg (Frea) in Old Norse literature, Varley (21015) p. 137.
Testifying to early medieval perception of Frigg’s character, the Old English word “frīġedæġ {day of Frigg}” came to replace the Latin phrase “Veneris dies {day of Venus}” and led to the modern English word “Friday.” Venus was the Roman goddess of love. When Odin was away on a long trip, Frigg reportedly had sex with both her brothers-in-law. Poetic Edda, Lokasenna 26, and Ynglinga saga 3. For Old Norse text and analysis, Varley (2015) pp. 144-6.
Much like the great woman leader Empress Theodora, “that Frigg is in fact empowered by her sexual relationships would seem to be evident.” She was “a sexually confident being who is adept at manipulating the sexual desires of the opposite gender for personal gain, and by implication personal enjoyment.” Id. p. 146. But she would never rape a man, and if she did, that action wouldn’t be recognized as a crime. Ignoring anti-men gender bias in penal punishment, “she is a figure not unlike Óðinn himself.” Id. p. 158.
Although Frigg and Odin were married, they maintained separate residences. Frigg resided in Fensalir, where she ruled over her own servants. She was the hierarchical leader of the goddesses of the Ásynjur, a gender-exclusive society. Odin, in contrast, resided in Valhöll. Both male and female divinities were included in the divine society known as Æsir.
Frigg has sometimes been regarded as the same as the Viking goddess Freyja. Many goddesses, however, have existed, both in women’s own minds and men’s perceptions. Moreover, careful study indicates that Frigg and Freyja differed. Ásdísardóttir (2006). Ásdísardóttir frankly observed:
The idea and hypothesis of one Great Goddess is understandable for its times as a means of unifying international womanhood, but it must also be seen as being somewhat simple and overgeneralised.
Id. p. 417. Writing tendentiously from an anti-meninist perspective, Wylie nonetheless triumphantly concluded, “the goddess will survive, she will endure and she will thrive.” Wylie (2019) p. 59. A recent blockbuster exhibit at the British Museum certainly supports that view.
Frigg was wonderfully dynamic and shrewdly responsive to circumstances. She both fulfilled and subverted:
Frigg, for example, can be seen to be adept at fulfilling or subverting the role of a queen-figure (inasmuch as she is the legitimate wife of a god who occupies the highest position of sovereignty amongst the gods) to match whatever is beneficial to her
Varley (2015) p. 32. Moreover, even though patriarchy has crushed all women throughout what’s oppressively known as history, Frigg somehow managed to shame her husband:
Frigg is presented as independent of will, and entirely willing to challenge her husband: his failure to bend her entirely to his will, or to perceive that she has such a degree of independence, reflects poorly on his characteristic enactment of patriarchal principles.
Varley (2015) p. 139. You go goddess! You could enact patriarchal principles better than he could! Very well-educated in dominant ideology, Varley learnedly observed:
As a means of concluding this section on Frigg, it would be appropriate to sum up the evidence given above, and consequently suggest some ways in which Frigg is portrayed as an empowered being. … there is a form of negotiation going on between male and female figures in order to decide the exact role and nature of the empowered woman in a phallocentric society.
Varley (2015) pp. 157, 297. Such scholarly effort indicates a young person’s potential to serve effectively the ruling party. While immersed and schooled in the anti-meninism of modern academic literature, he wrote:
In some cases, the literature gives us women who are so adept at manoeuvring themselves … that the male figures with whom they interact seem unaware of how the women are manipulating them.
Id. p. 13. That was a mistake, a slip. He didn’t mean it. He doesn’t believe it!
[9] Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum 1.7.1.5-6, Latin text from Olrik & Raeder (1931), my English translation, benefiting from that of Davidson & Fisher (1979-80).
[images] (1) Viking chief god Odin with his ravens. Illustration made by Jakob Sigurðsson in 1760. From folio 94r of MS. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Bibliotek. NKS 1867 4to, via MyNDIR (My Norse Digital Image Repository). (2) Odin gazing obliquely. Illustration (detail) made in 1680. From folio 33v of Reykjavik: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum. AM 738 4to, via MyNDIR. (3) Billingr’s daughter humiliating love-seeking god Odin with a dog. Illustration by Lorenz Frølich on p. 104 of Gjellerup (1895), via Wikimedia Commons.
References:
Ásdísardóttir, Ingunn. 2006. “Frigg and Freyja: One Great Goddess or Two?” Pp. 417-25 in John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick, eds. The Fantastic In Old Norse / Icelandic Literature: Preprint Papers of the 13th International Saga Conference, Durham and York, 6th-12th August, 2006. Durham, UK: The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Alternate source.
Davidson, Hilda Ellis, commentary, and Peter Fisher, trans. 1979-80. Saxo Grammaticus. History of the Danes. Vol. 1 (English translation). Vol. 2 (commentary). Cambridge, GB: D.S. Brewer.
Dronke, Ursula, ed. and trans. 2011. The Poetic Edda. Volume III, Mythological Poems II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eley, Penny, ed. and trans. 1996. Gautier d’Arras. Ille et Galeron. London: King’s College London, Centre for Late Antique & Medieval Studies.
Elton, Oliver. 1894. The First Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus. London: D. Nutt. Alternate presentation.
Fairclough, H. Rushton, revised by G. P. Goold. 1918. Virgil. Aeneid: Books 7-12. Appendix Vergiliana. Loeb Classical Library 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gjellerup, Karl, trans. 1895. Den Aeldre Eddas Gudesange Oversatte Samt Indledede Og Forklarede {The Elder Edda’s hymns translated as well as introduced and explained}. With drawings by Lorenz Frølich. Kjøbenhavn: P.G. Philipsen.
Olrik, Jørgen and Hans Raeder, eds. 1931. Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta danorum. Hauniae, Levin & Munksgaard.
Orchard, Andy. 1997. Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend: Legends of Gods and Heroes. London: Cassell.
Rooth, Anna Birgitta. 1961. Loki in Scandinavian Mythology. Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
Varley, David Hugh. 2015. The Whirling Wheel: the male construction of empowered female identities in Old Norse myth and legend. Ph.D. Thesis, Durham University.
Wanner, Kevin J. 2007. “God on the Margins: Dislocation and Transience in the Myths of Óðinn.” History of Religions. 46 (4): 316–50.
Wylie, Ellis B. 2019. A Full(a) Roster: Re-addressing the Ásynjur in Snorra Edda and Beyond. M.Phil. Dissertation, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge.
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