Njord
Njord was the Norse god of the sea, ships and wealth, the god Snorri says men should call on for voyages and hunting. He lives at Nóatún, the “ship-enclosure”, he is the father of Freyr and Freyja, and the giantess Skadi chose him for her husband by his feet.
Meaning
Njord, said nyawrd in Dictionary.com’s respelling, was one of the Vanir. Store norske leksikon says he was linked with fertility, wealth, seafaring and fishing, and that in the myths he could calm the sea and put out fire; Lex adds peace. Snorri’s Prose Edda says he rules the course of the wind and stills sea and fire, and is so wealthy that he can give lands or goods to those who call on him. He came to the gods as a hostage: in the Eddic poem Vafthruthnismol a giant tells Odin that the Vanir “gave him as pledge to the gods” and that at the end of the world he will go home to them. The National Museum of Denmark notes that the Eddas were written by Christian writers at the start of the Middle Ages. Njord is honoured today: the museum describes modern believers in the old Nordic religion toasting Njord and Freyr for prosperity and a good harvest.
Origin and history
Njord can be followed further back than any other Norse god, Store norske leksikon says, because his name is a masculine form of Nerthus, a goddess the Roman writer Tacitus described in his Germania of AD 98. Tacitus wrote that several northern tribes worshipped her as Mother Earth. On an island in the ocean stood her chariot under a cloth that only her priest could touch, drawn by yoked cows; wherever she went there was peace, until the chariot was washed in a secret lake by slaves who were then drowned in it. Thomas Gordon’s translation spells her name Herthum. Lex sets out the readings: Nerthus may have been the female half of a divine pair, or Nerthus and Njord twin gods, or Tacitus may have mistaken the god’s sex; some 800 years separate Tacitus from the Eddic texts that give the name Njord.
Place names point to wide worship: Store norske leksikon gives Norderhov and Nærøy in Norway, Lex Nærum, “Njord’s home”, in Denmark, and the Troth Njarðvík, “Njord’s bay”, in Iceland. Store norske leksikon adds that several scholars link Njord with phallic stones carved from white quartz, quartzite or marble, dated 400–600 and often found near graves or churches on old cult sites, or near places named after him, and that during the Viking Age Freyr seems gradually to have taken over his father’s role as god of wealth and fertility.
Skadi and the beautiful feet
When the gods killed the giant Thjazi, his daughter Skadi came to Asgard armed to avenge him. Snorri tells how the gods offered her a husband instead, to be chosen “by the feet only, seeing no more of him”. She picked the fairest pair, thinking “in Baldr little can be loathly”, but the feet were Njord’s. The marriage failed. Snorri gives them nine nights in her mountains and nine at Nóatún; Bellows’s note gives nine in the mountains and three by the sea. Njord sang “To me the wailing of wolves seemed ill, After the song of swans”, and Skadi answered that she could not sleep on the sea-beds for the crying of the birds, and went back to the mountains. Store norske leksikon reads the couple’s shifting between barren mountain and fertile coast as a myth of the seasons, the god going away in winter and coming back in summer. The Troth suggests that the first listeners laughed because they already knew the wealthy god who never fought would have the softest feet.
The ship-enclosure
Nóatún means “ship-enclosure”, Lex explains (Bellows has “Ships’-Haven”), and it is Njord’s dwelling as the god of seafaring. Grímnismál puts him there: “The eleventh is Noatun; | there has Njorth For himself a dwelling set; The sinless ruler | of men there sits In his temple timbered high.” In Vafthruthnismol Odin says that Njord rules many temples and shrines, though he was not born among the gods. In Snorri’s Saga of Hakon the Good, at the sacrificial feasts in the Trondheim country, Odin’s cup was drunk first, for victory and power to the king, and then Njord’s and Freyja’s cups for peace and a good season, in Samuel Laing’s translation. In Lokasenna Njord says that his son Freyr is hated by no one and “foremost of gods is found”.
Njord in Heathenry today
The Troth writes that Njord is called on for favourable winds and good luck in sailing, and that “Modern Heathens experience Njord in very positive ways.” It recalls that a wealthy man was proverbially said to be “as rich as Njord”. In Denmark the National Museum describes toasts to Njord and Freyr at modern gatherings to wish for prosperity and a good harvest.
Read next
- Next in Norse gods and their symbolsFreyrFreyr was the Norse god of fertility, good harvests and peace, the god Snorri says it is good to call on “for fruitful seasons and peace”. His attributes are the golden boar Gullinbursti, the folding ship Skidbladnir and the sword he gave away for love, and the gold foils stamped with an embracing couple are often read as Freyr and his bride Gerd.
- The same shape in Andean and Inca symbolsTumi (ceremonial knife)A ceremonial knife with a half-moon blade from the north coast of ancient Peru. The gold tumis of the Sicán (Lambayeque) culture carry a god on the handle, often identified as Naylamp, the dynasty’s mythical founder. The Tumi de Oro was declared a pre-Columbian symbol of Peru in 1981.
See also
Skadi, Odin, Frigg, Thor, Baldr, Tyr.
Sources
- Njord (Store norske leksikon), Ellen Næss, Store norske leksikon, whole article
- Njord (Lex), Finn Stefánsson, Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon, whole article
- Tacitus on Germany (Gordon translation), Cornelius Tacitus, trans. Thomas Gordon, Project Gutenberg, Germania, chapter 40
- The Poetic Edda (Bellows translation), Henry Adams Bellows (trans.), 1923, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Project Gutenberg), Grimnismol, stanzas 11 and 16 with notes; Vafthruthnismol, stanzas 38–39; Lokasenna, stanza 35
- The Prose Edda (Brodeur translation), Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (trans.), 1916, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Internet Archive), Gylfaginning, chapter XXIII; Skáldskaparmál (“The Poesy of Skalds”), chapter I
- Heimskringla (Laing translation), Snorri Sturluson, trans. Samuel Laing, 1844, Project Gutenberg, Saga of Hakon the Good, chapter 16 (“About sacrifices”)
- Njord (The Troth), Our Troth, vol. 2 (edited for the web), The Troth, Njord; Njord the Giving God; Njord the lord of tranquility; Njord Today
- The old religion, National Museum of Denmark, Written sources
- The old Nordic religion today, National Museum of Denmark, main text
- Njord (Dictionary.com), Dictionary.com, American entry
The same shape elsewhere
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Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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