[5] Sýr: This name for Freyja can hardly mean anything but ‘sow’, and it refers to her function as a goddess of fertility (Turville-Petre 1964, 176; ARG II, 328). Pigs were associated with Freyja as well as with her brother Freyr (see Yngvi-Freyr in Þul Ása I l. 7, Þul Ása II l. 4), and in Hyndl 5-7, this goddess is said to be riding her boar Hildisvín to Valhǫll. For other suggested interpretations of this name (e.g. as dea Syria, the goddess of Syria), see ÍO: Sýr 3. In skaldic poetry the name occurs as a determinant in kennings for ‘gold’ and as a base-word in kennings for ‘giantess’ and ‘valkyrie’.
References
- Bibliography
- Turville-Petre, Gabriel. 1964. Myth and Religion of the North. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
- ÍO = Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon. 1989. Íslensk orðsifjabók. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
- ARG = Vries, Jan de. 1956-7. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. 2 vols. 2nd edn. Berlin: de Gruyter.
- Internal references
- Not published: do not cite ()
- Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ása heiti I’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 754. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3187> (accessed 19 April 2024)
- Elena Gurevich 2017, ‘ Anonymous, Ása heiti II’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 760. <https://skaldic.org/m.php?p=text&i=3189> (accessed 19 April 2024)