Gefjon

In Norse mythology, Gefjon (Old Norse: [ˈɡevˌjon]; alternatively spelled Gefion, or Gefjun [ˈɡevjon], pronounced without secondary syllable stress) is a goddess associated with ploughing, the Danish island of Zealand, the legendary Swedish king Gylfi, the legendary Danish king Skjöldr, foreknowledge, her oxen children, and virginity.

The Prose Edda and Heimskringla both report that Gefjon plowed away what is now lake Mälaren, Sweden, and with this land formed the island of Zealand, Denmark.

[4] Albert Murey Sturtevant notes that "the only other feminine personal name which contains the suffix -un is Njǫr-un, recorded only in the þulur [...], and among the kvenna heiti ókend.

Whatever the stem syllable Njǫr- represents (perhaps *ner- as in *Ner-þuz>Njǫrðr), the addition of the n- and un-suffixes seems to furnish an exact parallel to Gef-n : Gefj-un (cf.

"[5] The suffix of the name may stem from the Norse 'hjón',[6] literally 'the joined', meaning a household, a loving couple, or even the crew on a ship, particularly a skeið.

[15] At the beginning of the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, Gefjun is listed among nine goddesses who attend a banquet for Ægir on the island of Hlesey (modern Læsø, Denmark).

[18] In addition, Gefjun appears in a kenning for the völva Gróa ("ale-Gefjun") employed in the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvinir's composition Haustlöng as quoted in chapter 17 of Skáldskaparmál.

[19] In chapter 5 of Ynglinga saga (as collected in Heimskringla), a euhemerized prose account relates that Odin sent Gefjun from Odense, Funen "north over the sound to seek for land."

In several works, including Breta sögur (based on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae) the goddess Diana is glossed as Gefjon.

[24] A reoccurring theme in legend and folktale consists of a man or, more often, a woman who is challenged to gain as much land as can be traveled within a limited amount of time.

[25] Hilda Ellis Davidson points out a tale from Iceland that features a female settler "whose husband had died on the voyage out, establishing her claim to a piece of land by driving a young heifer round it."

Davidson notes that in Landnámabók, this is recorded as a recognized method for a woman to claim land, and the work further details that "she might not possess more than she could encircle in this way between sunrise and sunset on a spring day."

Davidson points out that in eastern Europe, a custom is recorded in Russia where women with loosened hair and clad in white would assemble and drag a plough three times around their village during serious disease outbreaks.

Davidson states that "Gefjon with her giant sons transformed into oxen seems a fitting patroness of ceremonies of this kind.

"[27] Davidson finds similar elements and parallels in non-Germanic traditions, such as a folktale regarding the Lady of the Lake from Wales recorded in the 19th century.

[27] A woman was recorded in 1881 as having claimed to recall that people once gathered at the lake on the first Sunday of August, waiting to see whether or not the water would boil up as an indication that the Lady and her oxen would make an appearance.

The possibility of such an interpretation follows upon the discovery that the name Gefion, by which early Danes called their female chthonic deity, may occur in the Old English poem five times.

Freyja, desired by gods, giants and dwarves alike, acted as dispenser of bounty and inspirer of sexual love between men and women like the Greek Aphrodite.