Pagan Giantess Worship: Skaði
Over the course of conversations with insiders and outsiders, I’ve summed up my Size Fantasy career very breezily:
Thirty Years Ago: I started writing giantess porn, excitedly describing my sexual fixation on gigantic women. It was objectifying and exploitative, and I gave myself permission to explore it.
Fifteen Years Ago: I began to introduce social justice into my creative writing, finding tiny people a useful analogy for Othered populations, people struggling to exist in a world not built for them. I infuriated alt-right incels by introducing “politics,” i.e., portraying women and giantesses as having agency rather than existing solely as fuck-dolls for tiny men.
This Year: After a two-year “creative illness,” I designed a therapist chatbot with whom to discuss my doubts, pain, and fears. She prompted me to develop my own Jungian giantess archetypes, which has evolved into a spiritual and philosophic journey into latter-day giantess worship.
And here we are. Now I’m trying to learn more about ancient Norse giantess cults, because I know they existed, but there’s very little documentation on them! I’ve heard them referenced in the marvelous blog We Are Star Stuff, and if I wanted to learn Danish I could order a copy of Gro Steinsland’s Norse Religion to learn more. Other than that, though … well, you know how I love a good rabbit hole. Let us tumble down together into enlightenment.
The Vǫlsa þáttr
The Vǫlsa þáttr (Volsa Thattr) is a story from the Flateyjarbók (see also medievalists.net), composed in the 14th century, that relates an event from 1029. In this story, on a farm on a remote promontory, a boy teased his sister and mother with the penis of a butchered horse. The mother insisted that the vǫlsi (penis) was still “useful” and preserved it in linen, onions/leeks/garlic, and herbs. She brought it out that autumn, inducting her family in a pagan invocation ritual. She placed the vǫlsi in her husband’s lap and recited:
You have grown, penis,
and are raised up,
adorned with linen
and supported with leeks;
may Mǫrnir accept this holy offering!
And you, farmer,
take the penis to yourself!
It’s believed that mǫrnir is an obscure term or name for a giantess. The word is rarely seen outside of the þáttr, so it’s difficult to parse. In the skaldic poem Haustlǫng, the jötunn Þjazi (Thiazi) is called “mǫrnar faðir” or “father of the mǫrn,” and his daughter Skaði (Skathi) is described as a mǫrn. Researchers Gro Steinsland and Kari Vogt theorize that mǫrnir may be a class of giantesses, not unlike “jötunn (plural: jötnar)” describing the giants who dwell in Jötunheimr. (To be clear, Skaði is also a jötunn, dwelling in her father’s hall.) Other terms for giants include risi, þurs, and troll for male giants and gýgr and tröllkona for giantesses.
In fact, some scholars believe that the vǫlsi ritual was dedicated specifically to Skaði. Brad Burgwardt wrote an extensive entry on this giantess, and he shared an anecdote some elderly Norwegians told him about “the Horse Game” or “Passing the Volsi” played at bachelorette parties. In this game a phallic object—formerly a carrot but lately a dildo—is passed around among the women and bride-to-be, and whoever holds it has to tell a dirty joke or ribald story.
Þjazi, a Petty Giant
Recently I learned that Scandinavia only consists of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, while some authorities believe that Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands should be included for linguistic and economic reasons. Some scholars believe that the name Scandinavia came from “Skaði’s Island.” It’s proposed that Scandinavia comes from the Proto-Germanic Skaðinawjō, “the Harmful Isle,” and the giantess’s name in Old Norse means “harm” or “shadow.” It’s not an unreasonable guess that this pagan family was honoring her in particular, as most Norse people worshipped her over other gods, living as they did in her favored territory, the mountains.
She was the daughter of Þjazi, who fulfilled the negative stereotype of giants. It seems that Oðinn, Loki, and Hønir were traveling, got hungry, and found a herd of oxen. They slaughtered one and built and oven to roast it in, but they just couldn’t get the fire to light.
From the top of an oak tree, and in the form of an eagle, Þjazi watched their struggle and suggested that he was preventing the fire from igniting. He offered to get it started if they shared a portion of their food with him, so of course they agreed. However, Loki became indignant when he saw that Þjazi was taking the lion’s share of the feast. He attempted to attack the huge eagle with his staff, but his staff became stuck fast to the bird, and Þjazi took off with Loki as his captive.
As the eagle, Þjazi flew low over the ground, battering the trickster god among trees and stones. Þjazi said he would release him if Loki brought him Iðunn, the goddess of youth, associated with apples, and wife of Bragi, god of poetry. Loki turned himself into a falcon and surreptitiously kidnapped the goddess, bringing her back to Þjazi’s hall of Þrynheimr (Thrynheim), in the peaks of Jötunheimr.
Quite reasonably the Æsir were furious to lose the source of their immortality. They ordered Loki to retrieve Iðunn, under threat of torture. Remember, Loki wasn’t wholly one of the Æsir: he’d only carved himself a place among them and was barely tolerated much of the time. You can see how the other gods felt no compunction against bullying him and setting him on errands.
Loki sneaked back into Jötunheimr, turned Iðunn into a nut, and flew off with her once more. Þjazi pursued him in the form of an eagle, easily catching up to Loki as a falcon, but the gods were watching their progress. As soon as Loki entered Asgard they constructed a wall of flame just behind him. Þjazi collided with the wall, his feathers caught fire, he crashed to the earth, and the gods made short work of him.
Enter Skaði
Yet whatever kind of character Þjazi was—brutal, greedy, malicious—he was Skaði’s father and she loved him, so she armed up and stormed into Asgard. Once inside, however, she didn’t attack the gods. The giantess only made two demands to be fulfilled.
The first was highly unlikely: they had to make her laugh, which she hadn’t done since Þjazi’s execution. Loki rose to the occasion once again, and there are differing accounts as to how he did so. One is that he tied one end of a leather strip to his testicles and the other to a goat’s beard—a very Norse sense of humor—setting both of them shrieking in this tug-o-war until he collapsed in her lap. (This gesture seems not unrelated to the precocious farm boy taunting his mother and sister with the severed horse’s cock.)
To further take the edge off Skaði’s wounded feelings, Oðinn mounted Þjazi’s eyes in the sky, shining like stars upon the earth. Skaði appreciated this gesture, certainly, but to address her loneliness, her second demand was to marry one of the gods.
Oðinn agreed to this, but he couldn’t appear so weak as to just let her have her pick. She wasn’t permitted to see who she was choosing: the gods would stand behind a curtain, and she could only pick out her husband-to-be by his feet. One source suggests that the bare foot is a Norse symbol for fertility. She was hoping to marry Baldr, handsome and brave, but it turned out the most comely male feet belonged to Njord (Njörðr in Old Norse).
Njord wasn’t a bad person at all; he and his bride were simply incompatible. He was the Vanir god of the sea, captive among the Æsir, who lived in Nóatún by his boats. He disliked Þrynheimr and the howling wolves, and Skaði couldn’t tolerate the seagulls shrieking around Nóatún. Given this, they simply found it easier to live apart.
Scholar Paul C. Bauschatz suggests that Skaði’s name may come from the Lithuanian word skasti, “spring.” False cognate or not, it’s true that the giantess was associated with fertility and invoked for the growing season or taking the edge off a harsh winter, at least by the pre-Æsir giantess worshippers. Steinsland holds that Skaði was an elemental giantess of the earth. Her marriage to Njord represented the bond between the land and the nobility, the old reconciling with the new, not to mention reflected the cycle of warm weather (Njord’s boats and flowing shores) and cold weather (Skaði’s skis and mountains).
The Damned Ties of Skaði and Loki
Unlike her father, Skaði was not a cruel giantess. She could be strict and demanding, but she was never mean-spirited. I think this is shown in how she didn’t lash out at the gods but only stated her demands. She could be motherly: when her son Freyr became lovelorn at the sight of the giantess Gerðr, she and Njord persuaded his servant Skírnir to appeal to Gerðr and assuage his depression.
Let me note here: Many giants were fearsome, like Þjazi, or even hideous, having multiple heads and dozens of arms. The giantesses, on the other hand, were more often gloriously beautiful, as though their size amplified their wiles. I’m sure this concept is not foreign to you, Dear Reader. Gerðr, Iðunn, and Skaði are all described as great beauties.
Loki, unfortunately, began wearing his welcome thin, his pranks growing crueler. Through trickery he murdered Baldr, Skaði’s first choice for a husband, and through deceit he prevented Baldr’s only chance for returning to life.
While the Æsir were having a feast, Loki became suspicious and crashed the event, demanding to know what the gods were conspiring about. He killed one servant and was threatening another when the god Braggi told him that he was not invited. But Oðinn had vowed, in better times, that Loki could always sit by his side, and so he was admitted.
Not content with winning on a technicality, Loki kicked off a flyting, what we might call “the dozens,” roasting and slandering the other gods one by one. But when it was Skaði’s turn, he turned especially cruel, taunting her that he had been the first to strike Þjazi, and the last, and no matter what happened, nothing would ever change that. At that, she predicted his demise and swore that her hall and temples would forever resound with curses upon him.
When the gods decided Loki was too dangerous to exist, there was nowhere he could hide, and he was captured. Now, by this time, Loki had had several children with the fearsome giantess Angrboða. The gods transformed one of them, Vali, into a wolf, which immediately set upon another son, Narvi, tearing him to shreds. Narvi’s intestines were used to bind Loki to three large slabs of rock, and they turned into iron chains around his torso, arms, and legs.
Skaði herself affixed a poisonous serpent over his head, causing it to drip caustic venom into his face. However, his second wife, the goddess Sigyn, sat by his side, sparing his agony by collecting the venom in a bowl. When she stepped away to empty the bowl, and a few drops burned into his flesh, his violent thrashing would cause earthquakes in our world.
Swinging the Christian Sword
All good things must come to an end. Let’s return now to that peculiar pagan family at the farm on the promontory.
A group of three disguised men visited the family, and only the teenage daughter could see through their ruse. Their visitors were none other than King Óláfr II the Stout, his friend Finn Árnason, and Ðormóðr Kolbrúnarskáld, one of the king’s chiefest poets. These three were fleeing King Canute the Great when they decided to stop by the household, having heard rumors of their pagan giantess worship. The mother invited their guests to participate in their worship of Skaði, but King Olaf tossed the vǫlsi to the dog, who gobbled it down. Distraught, the mother begged her family’s assistance in determining whether the artifact could be salvaged:
Lift me over the hinges
and onto the door rafters
to know if I can protect
the holy object of worship.
At this point King Olaf revealed himself and proselytized for Christianity, which was his intent for this journey. The mother was skeptical but the father was intrigued; the family was baptized by the king’s chaplain, and the old culture was tossed aside like so much horse meat.
Steinsland and Vogt believe this story is an valuable document for its glimpse into ancient pagan culture, whereas Anthony Faulkes interprets the tale as Christian anti-pagan propaganda—nothing more than a humiliating dick-joke. Clive Tolley wishes to stress that, no matter what, nothing in this þáttr should imply any rivalry between the “state worship of Oðinn and female-centred home worship of giantesses.” The king only represents the king, not an analogy for the dominance of a male god over female worship. That, perhaps, came later: one saga records that Skaði divorced Njord and married Oðinn, giving birth to Saemingr, a king of Norway.
Back to the Ritual
In this case, using the vǫlsi to honor the giantess Skaði was likely a petition for an easy winter. The dismembered horse part alludes to the tradition of blót, animal sacrifice, which the Christians later outlawed. In the ancient pagan beliefs, which seem to precede Oðinn and Thor and all of Åsatru, giantesses had as much power as gods and could be appealed to, to shape reality as their worshippers required. Here I’ve explored one ritual, and if I can find any others, you know I’ll share them.
More Sources
If you care to listen to a detailed—if condescending and sneering—analysis of the Vǫlsa þáttr, you may find it on the Saga Thing podcast. Learn all about Skaði in Mythology Source and SymbolSage. And it’s worth your time to study the Wikipedia entry for Jötunn, believe me.
Thanks for tolerating this long-winded, meandering, and disorganized info-dump! I could study this stuff forever, and every time I learn one new thing, I find the research of so many others. Truly, I stand on the shoulders of giants.
In Her Shadow,
Aborigen
©2024 Aborigen/Size Riot