Thank you.

I suspected that the tone was more severe, but wanted another to confirm
that.

> I seem to recall
> that both incubi and succubi are creatures of highly sexual nature,
> so your etymology indicates that Freyja may have a hidden side to
> her nature,

I didn't think Freyja's specific sexual nature was anything hidden. It's
prevelant throughout the entire body of literature. Loki accuses her of
sleeping with everyone in the room and farting while having sex with her
brother, Frey. The only defense given is by her father Njord who says,
(paraphrased) "So what?". Freyja is a divorcee and a mother. Her affections
are her own to manage.

Bringing it back on topic, all of Freyja's other names also appear to be
sexual. For example:

Syr = Sow (female pig) which had a different symbolism in Old Norse than it
does in America today [I can't speak for anywhere else]
Horn = a Horn (or corner or sharp angle or a small empty space) [This has
enough English euphemisms to satisfy any comic]
Gefion = The Giver [since Freyja has few, in any, tales of her giving things
away like King's do - it may appropriate to think of this as 'Giving
Herself']

I'm putting together a list of all of them for my website: www.freyja.com.

-Laz

----- Original Message -----
From: "hveenegaard" <hveenegaard@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 8:58 AM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: Mardoll - New


> --- In norse_course@..., <lazarus@...> wrote:
> > 'Mard-' is a conjugated form of 'Merja' according to one of my
> > Icelandic sources which means 'Squeeze'.
> > '-öll' is a conjugated form of 'Allur' which means 'All'.
> > This makes the possible interpretation (if not translation) of the
> > word Mardöll to be 'Squeezes-All', which in relation to Freyja
> > would make sense if it were a reference to her freedom with sexual
> > partners - as in: 'One who embraces everyone she meets'.
>
> Sounds like you've got something there that everybody else has
> missed. However, the meaning would have to be much stronger,
> because 'merja' doesn't really mean "squeeze", but rather "crush,
> squash, bruise". It is derived from the noun 'mar', meaning "bruise".
> The core meaning of 'merja' is actually "to crush someone so that the
> flesh is bruised". The victim is then 'marinn', i.e. "bruised". So we
> have 'marð-öll' = "she-who-is-black-and-blue-all-over", or perhaps
> "she-who-embraces-her-lovers-so-hard-that-they-turn-black-and-blue-
> all-over". Sounds as if Freyja likes a bit of rough, eh?
>
> The mar-word is also found in 'mara' = "an incubus, a demon who
> tramples crushes people in their beds at night". I believe this is
> where you get your word "night-mare" (i.e. night-crusher). In Icel.
> the nightmare is called 'martröð' ('mar'-treading). I seem to recall
> that both incubi and succubi are creatures of highly sexual nature,
> so your etymology indicates that Freyja may have a hidden side to
> her nature, hitherto unsuspected by most. Well, she did get up to
> some weird stuff with those midgets, but I always thought that was
> just a tall tale ...
>
> Regards
> Pelle
>
>
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
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