Nanna (goddess)
Nanna ( old north . "Mother" or "the daring") is a goddess in Norse mythology . She belongs to the Aesir clan . With Snorri Sturluson , Nanna is the daughter of Nepr, who is called the son of Odin in the Þulur , and the wife of Balder and through him mother of Forseti .
In the Icelandic lore of Snorri Sturluson, after the death of her husband Balder, after the death of her broken heart, Nanna breaks down at his funeral ceremonies and is burned with him. Hermodr , a son of Odin , who has been commissioned to free Balder from the world of the dead , meets him with Nanna and he receives the Draupnir ring for Odin from Balder and a headscarf for Frigg and a golden circlet for Fulla from Nanna .
For the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus , Nanna is the daughter of the Norwegian king Gevarus, who is courted by Balderus and the Swedish king's son Hötherus. Since she decides for Hötherus, since in her opinion marriages between humans and gods are unhappy, Balderus challenges Hötherus to a fight. This leads to a war between gods and humans, in which the gods are defeated and Balder is killed by Hötherus due to special circumstances.
In the Liederedda (Hdl 20) a Nanna is known who is the daughter of a certain Nökkvi.
literature
- Wolfgang Golther : Handbook of Germanic Mythology . Phaidon-Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 3-88851-138-0 (reprint of Rostock 1895 edition).
- Rudolf Simek : Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 368). 3rd, completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-520-36803-X .