TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

30G GODDESSES.
Reinh. clxxii, which I suppose means frau, fraulein (froiken), as
that -ghostly creature was elsewhere called muhmlein (aunty),
fraulein, donna, donnola, titles sure to be connected with myths,
and these would doubtless point in the first place to our goddess
and her worship. The Greeks said Galinthias was turned into a
weasel or cat (ya\eif), Ovid, metam. 9, 306 (see Suppl.).
In so far as such comparisons are allowable, Frigg would stand
on a line with Here or Juno, especially the pronuba, Jupiter s
spouse ; and Freyja with Venus, 1 but also with Isis who seeks
Osiris. Freyr and his sister Freyja are suggestive
of Liber and
Libera (Dionysus and Proserpina, or even her mother Demeter ; of
sun and moon). Mary could replace the divine mother and the
goddess of beauty ; verbally Frigg agrees better with Libera, and
Adam of Bremen s Fricco, if he was god of love, answers in name to
Liber, in character to Freyr.
The passage quoted from Paul Diac. is one of the clearest and
most convincing testimonies to the harmony between the German
and Norse mythologies. An author of Charles the Great s time
tells us that the Langobards named Wodan s wife Frea, and she is
called Frigg in the Edda. He cannot have drawn this from Norse
tradition, much less can his narrative through Saxo s intermediacy
have become the source of the northern faith.
But in favour of Freyja too we possess a weighty piece of
external evidence. The Edda makes her the owner of a costly
necklace named Brisinga men (Brisingorum monile) ; she is called
eigandi Brisingamens, Sn. 37. 119. How she acquired this
jewel from the dwarfs, how it was cunningly stolen from her by
Loki, is fully narrated in a tale by itself, Sn. 354357. In the
poets therefore Loki is Brisings J?iofr (Thorl. obs. 6, 41. 63) ; a lost
lay of the Edda related how Heimdallr fought with Loki for this
ornament, Sn. 105. When Freyja pants with rage, the necklace
starts from her breast (stauk J?at it micla men Brisinga), S?em. 71 b .
When Thorr, to get his hammer back, dresses up in Freyja s gar
ments, he does not forget to put her famous necklace on : hafi
1 In the Tanhauser, as sung in Switzerland (Aufsess. anz. 1832, 240-2 ;
Uhland s volksl. p. 771), instead of the usual dame* Venus we find precisely
frau Frene, and ace. to Staid. 1, 395 frein is there a collateral form olfrei
free.
be Verena the
A woman s name Vreneli is known from Hebel. Vrene may
martyr, or Veronica, v. Vreiie, Ben. 328.