This is the last Norse mythology post I’ll do for a little while, but I saved a cool character for today (pun intended, since she’s a frost giant!). She’s the goddess of winter, hunting, and skiing - Skadi!
Skadi is an interesting figure in Norse mythology. Her name translates to “destruction”, but she’s not actually a bad guy in the myths. Instead, Skadi marries a god and stays faithful to the Æsir afterwards, aiding them in capturing and imprisoning one of their oldest enemies. Let me tell you about it.
In a story that takes place before this one, Skadi’s father is killed by the gods after stealing something from them. The item is reclaimed, and the gods return to Asgard thinking all is well. Unfortunately for them, Skadi isn’t the sort of daughter to sit by quietly and let her father’s death go unavenged. She girds herself in armor, takes up arms, and storms Asgard itself in search of vengeance.
The gods are a little nervous when they see Skadi, so they attempt to work out a deal with her. A common practice of the time was a blood price - the family of one who was slain would be paid money to compensate them for their loss. The gods offer Skadi a blood price of gold in exchange for her father’s death. The goddess scoffs at their offer; she is her father’s only heir, and he left her quite a tidy sum of gold upon his demise. After some consideration, Skadi decides upon a blood price she will accept - a husband of her choice from amongst the gods.
Still intimidated by her warlike stance, the gods agree to her demands. However, they tell Skadi that she must choose her husband without seeing his face: all she will be allowed to see are his feet.
(One of the gods, Balder, was famed for his beauty. If Skadi had been able to see all of the gods, and take her choice from amongst them, she likely would have picked the handsomest. By only allowing her to see the feet of the gods, all stood an equal chance of being picked.)
Skadi agreed to this strange condition, but had one final demand to make. Before she would put her thirst for revenge aside, the gods had to make her laugh. The death of Skadi’s father had made her bitter and cold, and she wanted to feel joy again.
Once the terms had been agreed upon, the gods set up a curtain. All of the gods stood behind it, so that only their feet were visible. Skadi was then shown the feet and told to pick her husband.
One set of feet immediately stood out to Skadi. They were the cleanest and most beautiful of the bunch, so she assumed they must belong to Balder. Desiring him for her husband, she immediately swore that she would marry whoever those feet belonged to.
Skadi was to be disappointed. (Insert joke about cold feet here.) It was Niord, god of the sea, who stepped out from behind the curtain. In retrospect, it makes sense that his feet would be the cleanest of all - he probably spent more time in the water than any of the other gods!
(If you’re interested, Niord is a Vanir and the father of Freyr and Freya.)
Frustrated at having sworn to marry a god other than Balder, Skadi demanded that the gods meet her other condition. They must make her laugh.
Loki was prepared for this demand. The trickster god had been partly responsible for the death of Skadi’s father, so he took it upon himself to be the one to make Skadi laugh. For some reason, Norse mythology features strange creatures drawing chariots for the gods. Freyr has his giant golden boar; Freya has a chariot pulled by cats; Thor...well, Thor has two billy goats.
Loki “borrowed” one of these goats and immediately began to play with it in front of Skadi.
(In my mind, it looks something like this...)
(...combined with this!)
The two rumpused around and had so much fun that Skadi could not help but laugh. Her demands met, the goddess put aside her anger at the gods and became one of them.
As a wedding present for she and Niord, Odin took the eyes of Skadi’s father and placed them in the sky as two bright stars.
The marriage was not without its challenges. Skadi hated Niord’s home by the sea, and Niord hated her home in the freezing, snow-coated mountains. The duo split their time between the two homes, and did find some happiness together. In fact, when Niord’s son Freyr became lovesick for his future wife, Skadi worried for him just as much as her husband did. Cool step-mom, right?
There is one more part to Skadi’s story that I’d like to tell you about. Eventually, Loki became truly evil. He arranged for the death of Balder - an event that was the first sign of Ragnarok. When the gods realized what Loki had done, they hunted him down. The trickster was eventually captured and imprisoned. Skadi put the final touch on his prison - a snake from her homeland that she wrapped around a branch draped above Loki’s head. The snake was wound so tightly around the branch that it began to drip venom in its agony...straight onto Loki’s face. Ouch!
Perhaps Skadi was simply doing her duty as one of the gods. Or, perhaps she was still a little in love with Baldr. Vengeance is a dish best served cold, right? And Skadi is the daughter of a frost giant. I think that the snake was her revenge for his death.
What do you guys think?
I believe I’ve mentioned before that World of Warcraft’s Wrath of the Lich King expansion draws quite a lot from Norse mythology. If you look, you’ll find Skadi there - though for some reason this goddess is a male in the game! WoW’s Skadi is one of the bosses of Utgarde Pinnacle, and drops a much-desired blue dragon mount. Interestingly, he appears to be a frost giant - perhaps as a tribute to the mythological Skadi’s father.
I hope you guys enjoyed the post! I am still planning on doing a series on Celtic mythology, but events with my grandmother have left me without as much time to research as I had hoped for. I’ll probably do a couple of fairy tale and Greek mythology posts before I get around to that series. I apologize for this, but I’ll do my best to keep things interesting!
Got a request or suggestion? Have questions or comments for this post? Please post below or email me!
I’ll see you guys in a week! Stay cool!
Skadi is such a wonderful goddess :)
ReplyDeleteI agree! I am particularly fond of her interactions with her step-children.
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