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Gefjun

The goddess who ploughed the Danish island of Zealand out of Sweden with four oxen, her sons by a giant. Snorri also calls her a virgin who receives women who die unmarried.

Gefjun is the first divine figure to appear in Snorri's Gylfaginning. King Gylfi of Sweden promised a wandering woman, as payment for entertaining him, as much land as four oxen could plough in a day and a night. She was Gefjun, "of the kin of the Æsir". She brought four oxen from Jötunheim, her own sons by a giant, and her plough cut so deep that the oxen dragged the land out to sea. She set it down and named it Selund (Zealand, the island where Copenhagen stands). The hole left behind became the lake called Lögr in Sweden, whose bays match the headlands of Zealand Gylfaginning 1. (Brodeur's text here reads "the soils of a certain giant", evidently a misprint for "sons".) Snorri supports the story with a verse attributed to the early poet Bragi Gylfaginning 1.

Later, in his list of goddesses, Snorri gives a different picture: "she is a virgin, and they that die maidens attend her" Gylfaginning 35. In Lokasenna she tries to stop the quarrel between Loki and Bragi; Loki retorts that a fair boy once gave her a necklace and she lay with him, and Odin warns that she sees all fates "Even as I" Lokasenna 19-21. Snorri lists her among the goddesses at Ægir's feasts Skáldskaparmál 1 Skáldskaparmál 33. Outside the Eddas, Snorri's Ynglinga saga tells the ploughing story again and marries her to Skjöldr, a son of Odin and ancestor of the Danish kings.

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.

And the plow cut so wide and so deep that it loosened up the land; and the oxen drew the land out into the sea and to the westward, and stopped in a certain sound. There Gefjun set the land, and gave it a name, calling it Selund.
Gylfaginning 1 Gefjun's ploughing, which opens Gylfaginning.
Gefjun drew from Gylfi gladly the wave-trove's freehold, Till from the running beasts sweat reeked, to Denmark's increase
Gylfaginning 1 The skaldic verse, attributed to Bragi the Old, that Snorri cites for the story.
The fourth is Gefjun: she is a virgin, and they that die maidens attend her.
Gylfaginning 35 Snorri's entry for her in the list of goddesses.
For the fate that is set for all she sees, Even as I, methinks.
Lokasenna 21 Odin warns Loki that Gefjun knows fate as he does.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

In modern culture

Not from the medieval sources.

The Gefion Fountain in Copenhagen (1908) shows Gefjun driving her four oxen as they drag Zealand out of the sea.

Myths with Gefjun

Loki's flyting at Ægir's feast Thrown out of the sea-giant Ægir's feast for killing a servant, Loki walks back in and insults every god and goddess in turn, until Thor comes home and threatens him with the hammer.

Related

Gylfi The legendary king of Sweden who, disguised as the wanderer Gangleri, questions three mysterious lords in Ásgard; their answers make up Snorri's Gylfaginning. Odin Óðinn Chief of the Æsir: a one-eyed god of wisdom, poetry, magic, war and the dead, who gave an eye and hanged himself on a tree for knowledge, and who dies at Ragnarök. Loki The giant-born trickster counted among the Æsir: father of Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent and Hel, contriver of Baldr's death, bound until Ragnarök. Frigg Odin's wife and the foremost of the goddesses: she knows the fates of all but never speaks them, and her failed attempt to protect her son Baldr is the hinge of Norse myth. Freyja The Vanir goddess of love, wealth and the slain: daughter of Njörðr, owner of the necklace Brísingamen, who takes half of those who fall in battle to her hall Fólkvangr.