The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

(Simek, 1993; Ásgeir B. Magnússon, 1989). She may have represented the land, Earth
Goddess, or even the sun or moon. In the poem Skírnismál, Freyr describes her glowing
arms, their light reflected in the sea and the sky. Her name is one of the most common
endings in Islandic women’s names, my name, Valgerður, being one; another is
Þorgerður, the name of one of the last Norse goddesses. I will return to the saga of
Þorgerður Hörgabrúður in the last chapter, but it may well be that Gerður, wife of Freyr,
as another bride of the Vanir, lived on in Þorgerður Hörgabrúður.
Sýr – Goddess of transformation
Before Freyr fell in love with and married Gerður and before Freyja became
Óðinn’s lover or Óður’s weeping wife, he was the boar and she was Sýr, the sow, and
their people were Svíþjóð, the people of the Sow. The sow and the boar were among the
most powerful images of the Goddess of Old Europe, surviving into Indo European Celtic
and Norse cultures and thus the Islandic. Clay sculptures of pigs from the beginning of
the Neolithic age have been retrieved, so there is evidence for the reverence of the sow or
pig for at least 8000 years (Gimbutas, 1991, p. 229). She was linked with fecundity,
fertility, abundance, mother earth and agriculture. The sow is a symbol of life and
regeneration. As we see from Snorri, Sýr was one of Freyja’s many names and both she
and her brother Freyr ride a boar. The boar is just as old as the sow, but the boar was a
symbol of death and possibly rebirth, or maybe even some nurturing underworld aspect.
In the 7 th millennium BCE Catal Hüyük death shrines in Turkey, James Mellaart found
breast reliefs molded over tusked lower jaws of boars (Mellaart, 1965, p. 20; Gimbutas,
1991, pp. 254-255). The boar is also present as a symbol of death at the Lepenski Vir
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