Freya is famous for her fondness of love, fertility, beauty, and fine material possessions and, because of these predilections, she is considered to be something of a party girl of the Aesir. In one of the Eddic poems, for example, Loki accuses Freya of having slept with all of the gods and elves, including her brother. She is certainly a passionate seeker after pleasures and thrills, but she is a lot more than only that. Freya is the archetype of the volva, a professional or semi-professional practitioner of seidr, the most organized form of Norse magic. It was she who first brought this art to the gods, and, by extension, to humans as well. Given her expertise in controlling and manipulating the desires, health, and prosperity of others, she is a being whose knowledge and power are almost without equal.
Freya presides over the afterlife realm Folkvang. According to one Old Norse poem, she chooses half of the warriors slain in battle to dwell there.
Freya the Volva
Seidr is a form of pre-Christian Norse magic and shamanism concerned with discerning destiny and altering its course by re-weaving part of its web. This power could potentially be put to any use imaginable, and examples that cover virtually the entire range of the human condition can be found in Old Norse literature.
In the Viking Age, the volva was an itinerant seeress and sorceress who traveled from town to town performing commissioned acts of seidr in exchange for lodging, food, and often other forms of compensation as well. Like other northern Eurasian shamans, her social status was highly ambiguous she was by turns exalted, feared, longed for, propitiated, celebrated, and scorned.
Freyas occupying this role amongst the gods is stated directly in the Ynglinga Saga, and indirect hints are dropped elsewhere in the Eddas and sagas. For example, in one tale, we are informed that Freya possesses falcon plumes that allow their bearer to shift his or her shape into that of a falcon.
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