Njörðr

38. Tell me tenthly, since thou all the origin of the gods knowest, Vafthrûdnir! whence Niörd came among the Æsir’s sons? O’er fanes and offer-steads he rules by hundreds, yet was not among the Æsir born.

39. In Vanaheim wise powers him created, and to the gods a hostage gave. At the world’s dissolution, he will return to the wise Vanir.

“Yet Njord is not of the lineage of the Æsir, for he was born and bred in Vanaheim.”

Vafþrúðnismál asks where Njörðr came from, since he rules over temples and sacrificial places in great number but was not born among the Æsir. The answer is that powers made him in Vanaheimr, gave him to the gods as a hostage, and that at the world’s end he will go back to the Vanir. Grímnismál gives him a home at Nóatún.

Gylfaginning has him born and bred in Vanaheimr, given as a hostage in exchange for Hœnir, master of winds, sea and fire; sailors and fishermen call on him, and he is rich enough to give wealth to those who ask. His marriage to Skaði is told in Gylfaginning; see Njörðr and Skaði and Freyr and Freyja of the Vanir. Ynglinga saga says that among the Vanaland people he had married his own sister, which their law allowed, and that their children were Freyr and Freyja.

The poem says he was created; Snorri says he was born and bred. The two are not the same claim.

The sources used here do not explain his name. In Ynglinga saga he is “Njord the Rich”, the epithet being the saga’s. Gylfaginning says he is not of the Æsir by lineage yet lives among them as a god, and the poem says the same about his birth.

His home Nóatún has its own entry, as does Skaði’s home Þrymheimr; Njörðr’s marriage to her is told in Njörðr and Skaði. The accounts differ on his children’s mother: Ynglinga saga names his sister, and in Skírnismál Skaði calls Freyr “our son”.