A Gift From Frigga

Long ago, a peasant and his wife lived a quiet, busy life on their little farm at the foot of a mountain. While the wife worked indoors, the husband watched his flocks in the fields or sometimes wandered up the mountainside to hunt for game to bring home for dinner.

One day he strayed farther than usual and found himself on the mountain top, where the ground was covered with ice and snow. Suddenly he came upon a high arched doorway opening into a great glacier. Curious, he passed through to see where it might lead.

The passage widened into a wonderful cavern like a broad hall, sparkling with precious stones and long shining stalactites that looked like marble icicles. In the middle stood a beautiful goddess surrounded by fair maidens, all dressed in silvery robes and crowned with flowers.

The shepherd was so amazed by this sight that he sank to his knees. The goddess stretched out her hands and gave him her blessing, telling him to choose whatever he wished to carry home from the cavern. Hearing her kind voice, the man was no longer afraid. He looked around and humbly asked for the pretty blue flowers the goddess held in her hand.

The lovely goddess Frigga (whom the German people called Holda) smiled kindly and told the poor shepherd he had made a wise choice. She gave him her bunch of blue flowers along with a measure of seed, saying, "You will live and be prosperous so long as these flowers do not fade."

The peasant bowed thankfully before the goddess. When he rose, she had vanished, and he was alone on the mountainside just as before—no cavern, no sparkling stones, no fair maidens. If not for the blue flowers and the seed in his hand, he would have thought it all a dream.

He hurried home to tell his wife, who grew angry when she heard the story. She thought he had made a foolish choice. "How much better it would have been," she said, "if you had brought home some of those precious stones worth money, instead of these good-for-nothing flowers!"

The poor man bore her angry words quietly and made the best of what he had. He went to work at once to sow the seeds, which, to his surprise, were enough to plant several fields.

Every morning before leading his flock to pasture, and on his way home at night, he watched the little green shoots growing in his fields. Even his wife was pleased when she saw the lovely blue blossoms of the flax open. After the flowers withered and fell, the seeds formed. Sometimes, standing in the twilight looking over his field, the good man thought he saw a misty form like the beautiful goddess, stretching out her hands over the flax to give it her blessing.

When the seeds had ripened, Frigga came again to show the peasant how to gather his flax harvest and to teach his wife to spin and weave it into fine linen, which she bleached in the sun. People came from far and near to buy the linen, and the peasant and his wife found themselves busy and happy, with money enough and to spare.

After many years, when they were growing old among their children and grandchildren, the peasant noticed one day that the bunch of blue flowers given to him so long ago—which had always stayed bright—were beginning to fade. Then he knew he did not have much longer to stay.

He climbed slowly up the mountainside and found the door of the cavern open. A second time he went in, and the kind goddess Frigga took the peasant by the hand and led him away to stay with her, where she always took care of him.

Frigga was the queen of the gods, and she helped her husband Odin govern the world. It was her part to look after the children and help the mothers take care of their families.