Ásynjur
Fulla
Frigg's maidservant and confidante, who carries her mistress's coffer, minds her shoes and knows her secrets; poets called gold 'Fulla's snood'.
Fulla is the goddess closest to Frigg: not her equal but her personal servant. Snorri lists her fifth among the Ásynjur and gives her the most detailed description of any minor goddess. She is a maiden who wears her hair loose with a golden band around her head; she carries Frigg's ashwood box, looks after her shoes, and "knows her secret counsel" Gylfaginning 35.
In the stories
Fulla has a small but real part in two stories. In the prose that opens Grímnismál, Frigg wagers with Odin about their two foster-sons and sends "her maid-servant, Fulla" to warn King Geirröðr against a visiting magician Grímnismál, prose 2. The warning is a trick that sets up Odin's ordeal between the fires (see Odin as Grímnir between the fires). Fulla is the messenger who makes it work.
In Snorri's account of Hermóðr's ride to Hel, Nanna, dead with Baldr, sends a linen smock to Frigg "and to Fulla a golden finger-ring" Gylfaginning 49.
She is also listed among the goddesses at Ægir's feast Skáldskaparmál 1, and Snorri calls Frigg "Mistress of Fulla" Skáldskaparmál 19.
Fulla's snood
Her golden headband passed into poetry. Snorri lists "Snood of Fulla" among the kennings for gold Skáldskaparmál 32 and quotes a verse by Eyvindr Skáldaspillir that uses it Skáldskaparmál 36. That a court poet could call gold by her hair-band suggests that Fulla's appearance was familiar to his audience, though no story about the band survives.
In the sources
Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.
The fifth is Fulla: she also is a maid, and goes with loose tresses and a golden band about her head; she bears the ashen coffer of Frigg, and has charge over her footgear, and knows her secret counsel.
Frigg sent her maid-servant, Fulla, to Geirröth.
And Nanna sent Frigg a linen smock, and yet more gifts, and to Fulla a golden finger-ring.
Fulla's shining Fillet, The forehead's sun at rising
In modern culture
Not from the medieval sources.
Fulla's name is sometimes given to the 'Volla' of the Old High German Second Merseburg Charm, where Volla is named as the sister of Frija (Frigg). This is a long-standing comparison, not a statement in the Norse sources.
