Arriving as a claimant
After the gods kill Þjazi, his daughter Skaði comes to their stronghold wearing armor and carrying weapons. She seeks redress for her father’s death. The settlement includes a husband chosen from among the gods, but she may inspect only their feet. Expecting the most beautiful feet to belong to Baldr, she chooses Njörðr instead.
Another condition is that the gods make her laugh. Loki achieves this through an embarrassing contest with a goat. Odin also places Þjazi’s eyes in the sky as stars. The scene begins with threatened vengeance and ends in compensation, humor, and a new connection between households; it does not portray Skaði as an intruder with no recognized claim.
Source: The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing) · Skáldskaparmál, “Brage’s Talk,” chapter III, “How Njord got Skade to Wife,” in Anderson
Two incompatible homes
Gylfaginning describes the couple’s unsuccessful attempt to divide their residence between Njörðr’s coastal Nóatún and Skaði’s mountain Þrymheimr. They agree on alternating stays, but the sounds each finds natural torment the other. Njörðr dislikes the wolves in the mountains; Skaði cannot sleep beside the sea birds.
Skaði returns to her father’s dwelling, where she travels on skis and hunts with a bow. Grímnismál likewise associates her with Þrymheimr, formerly Þjazi’s home. Her place among the gods therefore does not erase her inherited household or preferred landscape. The texts offer a specific disagreement over living conditions, not a universal claim that all sea and mountain beings must be enemies.
Sources: The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing); The Poetic Edda (1923 translation) · Gylfaginning, chapter VIII, §23 in Anderson; Grímnismál 11
A different marriage in royal history
Ynglinga saga supplies another trajectory. After leaving Njörðr, Skaði marries Odin and has sons with him, including Sæmingr. The saga connects that son with a line of rulers and cites poetry in support of the ancestry. The focus has shifted from the gods’ domestic arrangements to the prestigious origins of a ruling family.
That account should remain identified as a separate literary setting. It cannot be used to silently fill every gap in the Edda’s version, nor does it prove the historical descent of rulers from a deity. Reading both witnesses gives Skaði more than one narrative future while preserving the different work that marriage and ancestry perform in each text.
Source: Ynglinga saga, Finnur Jónsson’s Old Norse edition · Ynglinga saga, chapter 8 in Finnur Jónsson’s edition
- Period / witness
- Medieval Old Norse literature; the Poetic Edda survives chiefly in thirteenth-century copies, and Snorri’s Edda was composed around the 1220s. Mythic events have no historical date.
- Recording context
- Preserved through medieval Icelandic writing and later copies, in a Christian literary culture. Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda dates to c.1270. These recording circumstances do not locate the origin of an oral story.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
Explore time & place →Read the sources
These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
The Younger Edda / Prose Edda (1901 printing) ↗
Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241); translated by Rasmus B. Anderson (1846–1936) · 1901 printing of Anderson’s translation (copyright 1879); medieval work composed in Iceland around the 1220s
Edition & rights noteThe Poetic Edda (1923 translation) ↗
Anonymous Old Norse poets; translated by Henry Adams Bellows (1885–1939) · 1923 translation; medieval poems preserved principally in manuscripts of the thirteenth century
Edition & rights noteYnglinga saga, Finnur Jónsson’s Old Norse edition ↗
Attributed to Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241); edited by Finnur Jónsson (1858–1934) · Medieval Icelandic work, early thirteenth century; Finnur Jónsson’s Heimskringla I–IV published 1893–1900
Edition & rights note