Friggin Wednesdays

Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of the Vox Chaotica Council! It's FRIGG'S DAY! Except it isn't. It's technically Woden's Day, but my Frigg's Days are always jam packed with the most awesome people I know (hint hint)! But we're covering Frigg's day today, as one of the last Norse pantheon through the days of the week series! I! am! so! EXCITED! Aren't! You?!

Anyway, here's the first thing you have to know about Frigg (most Angles and Saxons know her as Frigga): she may or may not be the same goddess as Freyja. For those of us not in the know, Frigg is Odin's wife; Freyja is Freyr's sister or wife or maybe both...? (*cute child voices* EWW! Gross! *Cutter throws on a blazer and a garish tie, his thickest horn-rimmed glasses, and drops into his "I'm your teacher now" voice* But you have to remember kids, back before science was a thing, people didn't know it was bad to inbreed) Except when I checked that out, everyone's in agreement that Freyr and Freyja are twins and not crossing unfortunate boundaries.

Now, the only complete story involving Frigg that I know is the Death of Baldr. Also known as the Golden Æs, Baldr is son to Frigg and Odin (making him Thor's brother–not Loki. Lemme say that again. Loki and Thor are NOT brothers. Can you tell I was a bit angry at the Thor movies for that?). One night, Baldr wakes from a terrible dream which contains many omens prefiguring his death. He tells Frigg, who goes to Odin, who calls a moot of all the Æsir. Everyone thinks Baldr is the best (he is rather a nice chap–a bit boring because he's just a kind guy and there's no mention of him fighting or plotting or even really thinking at any point...), and so they hatch a plan to prevent Baldr's death.

Frigg goes around and talks to everything. Read that again because it's important. Everything: all animals, all diseases, all the elements, all the plants, all weapons, all houses, all people, all carpets, all ghosts, all forsaken N64s still sitting in the media cabinets of the last player's parents houses, everything. Excpet mistletoe. It was asleep or something when Frigg got to it and she thought, "Yeah, I'll get back to it. Lots of other people to get through..."

Here's where the rest of the story could have easily been avoided. Because these are the Norse gods, what game did they come up with to make Baldr feel better? If you guessed the Throw Everything At Baldr With The Intent To Kill Him And Watch It Harmlessly Bounce Off Him And Then Laugh game, then you're uncannily good at guessing, and you should make sure you aren't being tracked by The Shop.

So the gods played Throw Everything At Baldr With The Intent To Kill Him And Watch It Harmlessly Bounce Off Him And Then Laugh after every meal. The only one who didn't play was Hod, but he gets a free pass because he's blind, and we can all see how a blind man throwing deadly objects at people would be a bad idea.

Cue Loki, harbinger of mischief, wiliest Æs, father to Jörmungandr, Sleipnir, and Fenrir. Our not-so-lovely friend get jealous and eventually finds out that Mistletoe never made its promise to not kill Baldr, so he picks a sprig, sharpens the stalk, and goes to dinner per usual. Except when everyone starts hurling things like axes and boulders and angry dwarves at Baldr, Loki creeps into the corner where Hod is nursing his drink and says "I could guide your hand so you could throw something at Baldr, if you'd like." And Hod is all ecstatic because he never got to play in the Norse-god games like all the other norse-gods (his nose was too red–anyone who can tell me what that's a reference to gets 150 points). So Loki puts the mistletoe sprig in Hod's hand and helps him throw it at Baldr.

It hits Baldr in the heart and he dies. Frigg gets SUPER freaking table-flipping, arm-ripping, beercan-crushing enraged and chases Loki out of the hall. The other gods then spend a while chasing him (and transforming into all their animal shapes), eventually capturing him and tying him down to an altar underground, where a snake drips its venom onto his face for all eternity (read: until Ragnarök).

And thus the only story where Frigga isn't just dropped out of the story.

tl;dr Frigga is awesome, though not well documented. There's a reason she starts the weekend, but I fear that was lost to time, and the Christian take-over of Iceland in the early first millennium.