Skaði

The daughter of the jötunn Þjazi. In Skáldskaparmál it is told how she went to Ásgarðr to avenge her father's death, but is offered compensation by the Æsir:

In Lokasenna, Loki says that he was first and foremost among those who slew her father, and then claims that she invited him to her bed, although he accuses all the goddesses present of having taken lovers. It was Skaði who fastened a venomous serpent over the bound Loki so that venom should drip from the serpent onto his face.

Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning says that her marriage to Njörðr was not a happy one. She wished to return to her mountain-halls at Þrymheimr, which she had inherited from her father, while he preferred to remain at his seaside home of Nóatún. They make a compact on these terms: they would spend nine nights in one place, then the next nine in the other. When they returned from Þrymheimr to Nóatún, Skaði sang this lay:

Sleep could I never on the sea-beds,

For the wailing of waterfowl;

He wakens me, who comes from the deep—

The sea-mew every morn.

So Skaði returned to the hills, where she became associated with skiing, archery, and hunting. Snorri writes that she goes for the more part on snowshoes and is called Snowshoe-Goddess or Lady of the Snowshoes. According to a stanza from Eyvindr skáldaspillir's Háleygjatal, preserved in Ynglinga saga, Skaði afterwards married Odin and had many sons by him. One of these sons was Sæmingr.

It is unknown if she is also the mother of Freyr and Freyja. In the first stanza of Skírnismal she refers to Freyr as "our son" and in Lokasenna all four are present at Ægir's feast. Elsewhere it is stated that Njörðr had Freyr and Freyja after Skaði had left him or that he had them by his own sister.

Skaði is listed among the Ásynjur in the Nafnaþulur, along with other giantesses such as Rindr and Gerðr.

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