Daily Deity #90 Njord

If you're looking for this god then I recommend heading to the ocean or Asgard.

Njord is most known for being the god of the sea. Every mythology needs one of them. But Njord shouldn't be compared so much with Poseidon as much as someone like Oceanus, the old Titan who ruled over the seas in Greek mythology. Both of these guys are kinda like the old man of the sea. Gray and bent and their faces worn down by the sun and sea salt.

He's actually not the only Norse sea god, the other being Aegir, who isn't so much as a god as a giant. Aegir, though he threw very famous parties, had somewhat of a temper to him. Considering that he lived at the bottom of the sea, his rages would stir up the sea. With Njord above the ocean, he had the ability to calm down what the giant cooked up... most of the time.

There's a lot more to Njord than his love for the sea, though. Not unlike several of Asgard's gods, Njord is not in fact Asgardian. Njord is originally from Vanaheim, which makes him a Vanir. His children are probably the more famous Vanir, being Freya and Frey. His familial relations between Frey and Freya probably added to his representation as a fertility god, considering that the twins were fertility gods themselves. All three were presented to Asgard as a peace offering after the wars between the Aesir (Asgardians) and the Vanir ended.

Njord actually had a wife back in Vanaheim. Not surprisingly, his wife was his sister. Interestingly enough, this sister/wife is mentioned but never truly pinned down. Most likely it is Nerthus. The reason behind this, and probably why she didn't head to Asgard with her family, is because the Aesir didn't like incest and didn't want that brought into Asgard.

Just a moment here, but give a shout out to the gods of Asgard. It's a freaking miracle that there are some gods who were like "Uh, let's just leave family as family and not get too close to them." I mean, considering all the bloody gorey stuff that is abundant in Norse mythology, it's  nice to see they drew a line that many other mythologies didn't.

So, anyways, Njord and his twins come to live in Asgard. In Asgard, Njord actually gets a new wife.  And this one is well known and named! His new bride is Skadi, the frost giantess who was a goddess of the hunt. You might be familiar about this goddess if you know the story of Loki's punishment; the snake that dripped the venom on Loki was placed in the rock above him by this icy goddess.

Skadi was the one who picked Njord to be her husband, and the whole situation is rather comical. A bunch of Asgard's most eligible bachelors were lined up against a wall and a curtain was drawn in front of them. However, the curtain stopped ankle length, meaning that the bachelors' feet were exposed. Skadi then had to choose her husband by whose feet she liked the best. She chose Njord's feet. I guess the sea salt made his feet really smooth or something.

Unfortunately, the two were not well matched. That's shouldn't really come at a surprise considering the method that they were paired in. The big issue between the two of them was where they wanted to live. Neither one of them wanted to live in the palace of Asgard. Njord picked Noatun, his own little piece of land by the sea. It functioned as both a port and ship-building area.

Skadi, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with beach front property. She decided to head back to her father's home in the mountains of Jotunheim. There is was cold and frosty, the prefect environment for a frost giant. There she also had the ability to hunt her favorite game.

Don't think that these two didn't try to make their marriage work. Both spent a little over a week at the other's abode, but decides that they were just too different. They also decided to be happy that they should live in their own respective spaces. At least they parted on good terms. (There are definitely some other godly couples who could have learned from these two.)