When a Viking prayed before a sea voyage for wind, safe return and a full catch, he prayed to Njörðr. The god of the sea, the winds and prosperity is one of the oldest and most down-to-earth figures of the North – and the father of its two most radiant gods.
Njörðr belongs to the divine family of the Vanir. After the Æsir–Vanir war he came to the Æsir as a hostage – together with his children Freyr and Freyja. Only at Ragnarök, it is said, will he return to the Vanir. He is lord of sea and wind, giver of wealth and fertility.
Njörðr embodies the useful sea: trade, seafaring, fishing. Whoever called on him asked for prosperity and safe passage over the waves. His wealth was proverbial – „as rich as Njörðr" they said of a wealthy man.
“The eleventh is Nóatún; / there has Njörth / for himself a dwelling made; / the prince of men, / the blameless god, / rules the high-timbered shrine.”— Grímnismál 16, translation after Henry Adams Bellows (public domain)
Famous is his marriage to the giantess and hunting-goddess Skaði. As recompense for her father’s death she could choose a husband among the gods – but recognise him only by his feet. She chose the fairest feet, hoping for Baldr – and got Njörðr. The marriage failed over geography: Skaði loved the mountains, Njörðr the sea. They agreed on nine nights here, nine there – but Skaði could not bear the crying of the gulls, nor Njörðr the howling of the wolves. So they parted. (The division nicely mirrors the Norse year: nine winter months, three summer months.)
Njörðr’s name reaches far back: it is linguistically related to Nerthus, that „Mother Earth" goddess whose cult the Roman author Tacitus describes among the Germanic peoples as early as the 1st century. Some scholars suspect Njörðr grew out of such an older earth/fertility deity. Snorri reports that among the Vanir marriages between siblings were customary – a detail that fits an ancient fertility cult well.
Njörðr dwells in Nóatún („ship-enclosure") by the sea. His centre of worship lay in western Norway, where many place-names go back to him. Christian chroniclers report that among the heathen Danes many statues of „Neptune" were found – meaning, most likely, Njörðr. In Scandinavia some ancient footprints carved into rock are attributed to his cult.
Freyr · Freyja · The Vanir · Vanaheim · The Norse pantheon.
Grímnismál, Vafþrúðnismál, Lokasenna (Poetic Edda), English public domain: Henry Adams Bellows (1923). Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, Skáldskaparmál. Tacitus, Germania. Scholarship: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology; H. Ellis Davidson, Roles of the Northern Goddess.