The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths — John Shaqi
The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern MythsColum, Padraic
General
The Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths
Colum, Padraic
Mythology, Norse -- Juvenile literature
But Freya did not cease to think upon them and upon the things of gold
they had. "Why should Odur know I went to them?" she said to herself.
"No one will tell him. And what difference will it make if I go to them
and gain some lovely thing for myself? I shall not love Odur the less
because I go my own way for once."
Then one day she left their palace, leaving Odur, her husband, playing
with their little child Hnossa. She left the palace and went down to the
Earth. There she stayed for a while, tending the flowers that were her
charge. After a while she asked the Elves to tell her where the mountain
was on which the Three Giant Women stayed.
The Elves were frightened and would not tell her, although she was queen
over them. She left them and stole down into the caves of the Dwarfs. It
was they who showed her the way to the seat of the Giant Women, but
before they showed her the way they made her feel shame and misery.
"We will show you the way if you stay with us here," said one of the
Dwarfs.
"For how long would you have me stay?" said Freya.
"Until the cocks in Svartheim crow," said the Dwarfs, closing round her.
"We want to know what the company of one of the Vanir is like." "I will
stay," Freya said.
Then one of the Dwarfs reached up and put his arms round her neck and
kissed her with his ugly mouth. Freya tried to break away from them, but
the Dwarfs held her. "You cannot go away from us now until the cocks of
Svartheim crow," they said.
Then one and then another of the Dwarfs pressed up to her and kissed
her. They made her sit down beside them on the heaps of skins they had.
When she wept they screamed at her and beat her. One, when she would not
kiss him on the mouth, bit her hands. So Freya stayed with the Dwarfs
until the cocks of Svartheim crew.
They showed her the mountain on the top of which the Three banished from
Asgard had their abode. The Giant Women sat overlooking the World of
Men. "What would you have from us, wife of Odur?" one who was called
Gulveig said to her.
"Alas! Now that I have found you I know that I should ask you for
nought," Freya said.
"Speak, Vana," said the second of the Giant Women.
The third said nothing, but she held up in her hands a necklace of gold
most curiously fashioned. "How bright it is!" Freya said. "There is
shadow where you sit, women, but the necklace you hold makes brightness
now. Oh, how I should joy to wear it!"
"It is the necklace Brisingamen," said the one who was called Gulveig.
"It is yours to wear, wife of Odur," said the one who held it in her
hands.
Freya took the shining necklace and clasped it round her throat. She
could not bring herself to thank the Giant Women, for she saw that
there was evil in their eyes. She made reverence to them, however, and
she went from the mountain on which they sat overlooking the World of
Men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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