Norse goddess of hunting, skiing and winter
Skaði
Skaði is a giantess whom Norse tradition counts among the Æsir, associated with bowhunting, skiing, winter and mountains. Her story, built around revenge for her father's death and a failed marriage to Njörðr, makes her a key figure in the northern myths about the gods.
The myth
According to the tales, Skaði was the daughter of the giant Þjazi. When the Æsir killed her father after he had abducted Iðunn, she set out for Asgard, armed, to avenge him. The gods tried to appease her with compensation: Odin set Þjazi's eyes in the sky as stars, and she was allowed to choose a husband from among the gods by looking only at their feet. She thought she recognised the feet of Baldr, but they belonged to Njörðr, god of the sea and wind, and so she was wed to him.
The couple never fitted together. In Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Skaði wanted to live in Þrymheimr, her father's mountain home, while Njörðr preferred Nóatún by the sea. They agreed to alternate nine nights in each place, but neither could bear the other's home: he disliked the howling of wolves, she the screeching of gulls. They parted, and Skaði returned to the mountains, where she travelled on skis and shot with her bow. For this she is also called Öndurguð and Öndurdís, the 'ski god' and 'ski goddess'.
In the tale of Loki's punishment, Skaði also appears: she fastens a venomous serpent above the bound trickster's face. In Lokasenna she trades cutting words with Loki, who accuses her of having been warmer in his bed. According to the Saga of the Ynglings, she later married Odin and bore him several sons.
Legacy
Some scholars argue that in the earliest period of Norse religion Skaði was venerated as a goddess of the hunt, a rival in importance to Frigg and Freyja, though her cult later declined. Her name appears in some of the oldest place names in Scandinavia. It is linked etymologically to words meaning 'harm' or 'shadow', and one theory, less widely accepted, proposes that the name Scandinavia derives from hers.
Ancient sources: The Poetic Edda (Grímnismál, Skírnismál, Lokasenna, Hyndluljóð), the Prose Edda (Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál) and Heimskringla.
In art
Literature and theatre
- Lokasenna