In ancient Norse culture, Freyja was a major goddess. She was connected to the seasonal cycles. She brings abundance to harvests, and riches to people. She was a fertility goddess too. She was pictured as a provocative woman, blue-eyed, blond, and beautiful whom gods and men both desired. Like Venus of the Romans, she was the goddess of Love, but also of Lust. She was strong willed and would brook no nonsense. The elder tree is associated with her, as is the rose flower. Many birds and beans are associated with her also. Her cart is pulled by two cats. In one of the representations of this goddess we see her on a winged horse in flight, her legs and thighs showing.
Freyja was a Vanir deity and queen of the Valkyries. She reigned from a huge hall known as Folkvang. In ancient mythologies, gods and goddesses were often belligerent. Thus Freyja and friends used to fight with another group to which Odin belonged. When she defeated her enemies, she used to carry them away to a huge hall which was known as Sessrumnr. Freyja used to unite former wives and husbands after their death. This is why, in ancient times, the women of that culture used to accompany their men to battle-fields, there to die with their brave husbands.
It is said that Freyja once strayed into a world where only dwarfs live. There she saw four dwarfs making a most marvelous gold necklace. She wanted to have it. They would give it to her on condition she would spend a night with each one of them. This she did and thus acquired the necklace which is called Brisingamen. That necklace became Freyja’s talisman.
According to another legend her lover Odur once left her. She went everywhere in search of him, shedding tears all over. These are the tears that still come from trees as precious amber. Often mythology is also ancient science.
January 8 is also Feast Day for St. Gudula (7th century) who is the patron saint of Belgium. She is said to have come from a noble family, but she gave it all up in her quest for the Divine. She used to visit a church in Meerzeele and used to go to pray at pre-dawn hours. Once her lantern was extinguished by evil forces, but she was undeterred by that.
After she died, her body was removed from place to place, and was eventually placed in the famous Church of St. Michel in Brussels, in the middle of the 11th century. Later it was moved to a church which was dedicated to her name. Five hundred years later, a heretic mob pillaged the church and scattered her relics in hate and disrespect. Such behavior is not unusual in history.
The members of that fierce mob are long forgotten, but her church in Brussels is still there. It has undergone a magnificent renovation and continues to be visited not only by the devout, but by hundreds of tourists also.
Spurts of Thought 