giantess
Skaði
A giantess who came to Asgard armed to avenge her father Þjazi, accepted a husband instead, and went back to the mountains to hunt on skis when the marriage to Njörðr failed.
Skaði is a giantess who became one of the goddesses. She enters the myths with a weapon in her hand: after the gods killed her father Þjazi for stealing Iðunn, she "took helm and birnie and all weapons of war and proceeded to Ásgard, to avenge her father" Skáldskaparmál 1 (see The theft of Iðunn and her apples).
The settlement
The gods bought her off. She could choose a husband from among them, but only by looking at their feet. She chose the most beautiful pair, saying "I choose this one: in Baldr little can be loathly", but they belonged to the sea-god Njörðr Skáldskaparmál 1. Her second condition was that they make her laugh, and Loki managed it by tying his genitals to a goat's beard in a tug-of-war. Odin added a gift: he threw Þjazi's eyes into the sky as two stars Skáldskaparmál 1. Hárbarðsljóð gives that deed to Thor instead Hárbarðsljóð 19. See Skaði chooses a husband.
Mountain and sea
The marriage failed over where to live. Skaði wanted her father's mountain home, Þrymheimr; Njörðr wanted the sea. They tried nine nights in each, and each hated the other's home. In Skaði's verse:
Sleep could I neveron the sea-beds,For the wailing of waterfowl;He wakens me,who comes from the deep—The sea-mew every morn.Gylfaginning 23
She returned to Þrymheimr, where she goes on snowshoes with a bow and hunts, and is called the "Snowshoe-Goddess" Gylfaginning 23. Grímnismál still calls her "the god's fair bride", living "In the home that her father had" Grímnismál 11, and Snorri says plainly that she "departed from Njördr" Skáldskaparmál 6.
Enemy of Loki
Skaði never forgives Loki, who boasts in Lokasenna that he was "first and last at the deadly fight" when Þjazi was killed Lokasenna 50. She tells him the gods will bind him on rocks with his own son's guts Lokasenna 49, and when that happens it is Skaði who fastens a poisonous snake above his face Gylfaginning 50 (see The binding of Loki). Outside the Eddas, Snorri's Ynglinga saga says she later lived with Odin and bore him sons, one of them an ancestor of Norwegian earls.
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.
Now Skadi, the daughter of the giant Thjazi, took helm and birnie and all weapons of war and proceeded to Ásgard, to avenge her father.
I choose this one: in Baldr little can be loathly.
Sleep could I never on the sea-beds, For the wailing of waterfowl
Now Skathi abides, the god's fair bride, In the home that her father had.
On the rocks the gods bind thee with bowels torn Forth from thy frost-cold son.
Where the sources disagree or fall silent
- Who threw Þjazi's eyes into the sky. Snorri says Odin did it as part of her compensation (Skáldskaparmál 1); in Hárbarðsljóð Thor claims the deed (Hárbarðsljóð 19).
- Whether Loki's claim that Skaði invited him to her bed (Lokasenna 52) refers to a lost story or is simply an insult.
In modern culture
Not from the medieval sources.
Skaði's skis and bow have made her a favourite figure in modern Scandinavian winter imagery. A moon of Saturn, Skathi, is named after her.
