Everyone knows of my golden children, Ing-Frey and Gefion-Freya. Yet few know of my others, the one dearest to my heart. The reason why I hide myself with a veil, and my words are few.

I was told from my earliest days I would be a queen, I had a very sacred task to do my entire life, and I must train for it. I was not allowed to play like other Vanir children. My entire world was work. Seeing. Farseeing. Faring forth. Chanting. Working the threads, in the soil to the grass, and beneath the skin of men.

He came after my first blood. He was different from the others. Dark. Quiet. We are quiet in our own way, but he was silent. Like a shadow, waiting. I was drawn to him, and he was kind to me. He didn't demand I work as everyone else expected of me.

He let me play. He walked with me. He didn't talk much, and that was fine. He let me talk. I was used to talking less than he did, every day, and I needed to talk, back then.

He was the first I lay with, in secret. I knew I was not supposed to give him my maidenhead, that I was breaking taboo, that I was violating the law of my people, the duty I would have as queen. But that was in the future, and this was what I had at the time, before me. It was good.

He became lighter, then. I saw him laugh for the first time. He talked more. We lay together more times, until my aunt Sif caught us in the woods. She told him to leave Vanaheim and never come back, and she would not speak of this act to others. She admonished me severely. But she did not tell.

My blood stopped, some time afterwards. When I missed two bloodtides, Sif came again and offered me an herbal concoction, telling me I was with life in my womb and it was not right. I was angry. This was all I had of him, the first one to be kind to me. He gave me a reason to live, and now I had life within me. I refused her potion, and swore at her. Sif decided to take me to her home, in the woods at the far edge of Vanaheim, to keep me safe from my parents' wrath, and bear the child in secret.

I stayed there for some months, and was allowed to rest from my work. Sif told me I must, or the child would be in grave danger from the power raised. Sif was kind to me, and indulged me in good food to eat, things to make and do. Things that did not revolve around the sacred work.

The pain came, during a winter storm. Sif sang charms over me, and she and her handmaidens helped me to breathe, helped me to push. There was blood, and stabbing pain. There were visions of the land splitting apart, and fire crashing from the sky. Wild winds whipping branches. Goats, a snake thrown into the sea, and a large fist wielding the thunder itself.

“It is a male,” Sif said as she pulled out the baby, cutting the cord between us.

As she held up the crying baby, a strange look came over her face, and her eyes went black.

She quickly put down the child, and left the room.

I was confused. But the handmaidens came to tend the child, while I slept.

For nine days, I played with the baby. I gave him my milk. I held him, sang to him, rocked him. He had twinkling blue eyes, and a tuft of red hair on his head, little pink cheeks and toes. He was a big baby, bigger than the young I had seen before. And I felt love, for the man who gave him to me, and the promise of life... the little face in my arms, and all the ways I would play with him, teach him, help him grow to be a good man.

And then he came back, my first lover. He came through the winter snow, to find me in hiding, to take the boy in his arms.

He smiled, faintly. And I looked at him, full of hope that we could be a family. That I could escape a life of hard work, and this would be my life.

Without looking at me, without saying a word, he walked out of Sif's home with the boy in his arms.

He kept walking.

I tried to stand, but was too weak yet. I called after him. I yelled. I screamed. I thought he would come back, maybe he was just blessing the boy with the snow. When hours passed and there was no return, my heart sank. I knew he was gone, he had taken our son – my child – and he would never return. They were both lost to me forever.

I wept.

I was returned to my parents not long after, to complete my training. I was given to my brother Njord in marriage when we came of age. At this time, I began wearing a veil, so no man could deceive my body and heart ever again, so no one could ever look at me unless I, Queen of the Vanir, saw fit. The work that had previously been drudgery to me was now power. I would never be wronged like I was, loving and losing again. I would be feared and awed, and lives would be given to me to replace what I lost. Nobody would ever steal from me again, if they valued their soul.

I had other children, of course, but with my brother, as is our way. Only two were chosen to carry on the sacred duty as queen and king. I had two other daughters, Prija and Volla, who I gave to strangers - outlanders - to raise as sisters. But my heart was already hardened, then.

The man came back, many years later. He seduced my daughter, as he had once seduced me. And hate him as I did for twice betraying me, there was still a feeling of love for him, and the knowledge that all these things would work together, in their time. I give and preserve life, and these bonds would give and preserve worlds.

Would you know more, or what? I speak to you of my pain. When my victims drown for the bliss of the love I rarely give, they are drowning in the tears I cannot shed.



Nerthus is suspected by some scholars to be one and the same as Jorð, since Jorð is similar to the name Njord - Nerthus' brother. If this theory is indeed correct, it means Nerthus/Jorð is the mother of Thor by Odin, and would explain why Thor is the only one of the Aesir-blooded Gods to drive a wain, as well as the UPG held among many Vanic Heathens that Nerthus has bad blood with Odin.