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Brísingamen – Freyja’s Necklace

Treasures Freyja with the necklace Brísingamen

The most beautiful piece of jewellery in the world belongs to the most beautiful of the goddesses: Brísingamen, the golden necklace of Freyja. No other treasure binds beauty, desire and power so closely – and none has a story of so many layers.

The name Brísingamen is made up of men (“neck-ornament, necklace”) and brísingr – perhaps “the flaming, the glowing”, or the name of the dwarf kin of the Brísingar. Literally, then: “the neck-ornament of the Brísingar” or “the flaming adornment”. In poetry it is the very image of Freyja’s radiant beauty.

The Acquisition: Four Dwarves and a Price

The fullest account stands in the Sörla þáttr (a late tale of the Flateyjarbók). According to it, Freyja saw a necklace of incomparable beauty being made by four dwarves – Alfrigg, Dvalinn, Berlingr and Grér. She offered gold and silver, but the dwarves wanted a different price: that Freyja spend one night with each of them. And so she won Brísingamen. This late, moralising Christian version deliberately paints the heathen goddess in a dubious light – a point worth bearing in mind as one reads.

Source & caution. The acquisition story comes from the Sörla þáttr (14th c.), that is, from Christian times – it is not a “pure” heathen tradition but literarily coloured. Older and briefer, the Þrymskviða and the Húsdrápa mention the necklace. Standard reference: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology.

Loki’s Theft and Heimdall’s Fight

Like almost every treasure, Brísingamen too draws the envy of Loki. In one tradition Loki steals the necklace; the watchman Heimdall confronts him. The two turn into seals and fight over the treasure on a cliff in the sea, until Heimdall wins it back for the goddess. This image – two gods as seals, wrestling over a piece of gold – is one of the most idiosyncratic of the whole mythology, and is already named by the skald Úlfr Uggason in the Húsdrápa (10th c.).

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Brísingamen on Thor’s Bridal Journey

The necklace makes a cheerful appearance in the Þrymskviða: when Thor disguises himself as Freyja to fetch back his stolen hammer from the giant Þrym, Brísingamen is put on him too – part of the bridal costume. That of all beings the bearded thunder-god should be adorned with Freyja’s famous necklace is one of the funniest moments of the Edda.

Myth & interpretation. Brísingamen is more than jewellery: as an attribute of Freyja it binds beauty to fertility and power. Some scholars see in the “flaming necklace” an old sun- or sky-symbol. What is certain: an outstanding neck-ornament was a real gift of status in the Viking Age – richly decorated bead necklaces and golden collars are found in noble women’s graves. The treasure of the goddess thus had an earthly model.
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Read more with us

All the treasures of the Edda in overview · Freyja · Heimdall · Loki · Draupnir.

Sources & literature

Sörla þáttr (Flateyjarbók, 14th c.: acquisition of the necklace). Poetic Edda: Þrymskviða (bridal journey). Úlfr Uggason, Húsdrápa (10th c.: Heimdall and Loki as seals). Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda, c. 1220. English public domain: Henry Adams Bellows (1923). Scholarship: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology; John Lindow, Norse Mythology (2001).

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