Gullgubber

The word gullgubbe means "little old man of gold" and is taken from a report published in 1791 by Nils Henrik Sjöborg,[1] in which he said that villagers in Ravlunda, Scania, who found them in the dunes called them guldgubbar.

[5] Many of the gullgubber that have been found in Norway and Sweden depict a man and a woman facing each other, sometimes embracing, sometimes with a branch or a tree visible between them.

[8] A common interpretation of the motif of the man and woman on the gullgubber is that it symbolises the sacred marriage between the Vanir-god Freyr and the jötunn Gerðr, which we know of from the Eddic poem Skírnismál.

[9] Some have interpreted the tree branch as a reference to the grove, Barri, where Gerðr agrees to meet Freyr; others have noted its resemblance to the Garden Angelica, a plant associated with fertility.

[11] From historical sources, for example, we know that the Yngling line traced its ancestry to Fjölnir, son of Gerðr and Freyr.

[15] Recent attempts have been made to interpret the gestures of the couples depicted on gullgubber in terms of medieval sources such as the Sachsenspiegel, as denoting betrothal, for example.

Gold foil figure from c. AD 700, found at Aska in Hagebyhöga, Sweden, in 2020.
6th–7th-century gullgubber from Sorte Muld , Bornholm
A "wraith" gullgubbe