Folkvangr

Fólkvangr (“the field of the people”) is the goddess Freya’s dwelling in Norse myth. The poem Grímnismál says she chooses half of the slain every day, and Odin has the other half. Her hall there is called Sessrúmnir, but no medieval source describes the field itself or says what the dead do there.

Many of us have heard of Valhalla, an immense hall placed in Asgard, ruled by the supreme God of Norse mythology and the chief of the Aesir, the all-father Odin. Many have thought that great warriors who fell in battle were destined only for Valhalla, where Odin’s einherjar wait for Ragnarok.

However, not much is known of the other place that takes in the fallen, home of the goddess Freya, “the field of people”: Folkvangr (Old Norse Fólkvangr, meaning "field of the host" or "people-field"). Today, we are going to go through what the old sources do say about Folkvangr, and what they don’t.

Freya the Ruler of Folkvangr

We are not going to talk a lot about Freya here since she is certainly going to be in the spotlight of some other article. Still, it wouldn’t be fair towards one of the most important Goddesses that we don’t say anything about her while talking about Folkvangr, her realm.

Freya's Family

Her father is a Norse God of wind and a member of the Vanir tribe, Njord. Freya's brother is the God of peace and prosperity, Freyr, but we’ll talk about them a little bit more later. She is married to Odr, with whom she has two daughters, Hnoss and Gersemi. Odr goes away on long journeys, and Freya weeps for him in tears of red gold.

Some scholars think that Frigg, wife of Odin, and Freya grew from one older goddess, and that the name Odr is related to Odin’s. That is a hypothesis, not what the sources say: the Norse texts treat Frigg and Freya as two goddesses, and Snorri names them side by side as the noblest of the goddesses. In those texts, Odin has Valhalla, while Freya has Folkvangr.

Freya's Influence in Modern Culture

Freya has influenced many works of art. To name a few, she appears as Freia, the goddess whose golden apples keep the gods young, in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. The Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger wrote Der er et yndigt land in 1819, and it is now one of Denmark’s two national anthems; its first stanza calls Denmark “Frejas sal”, Freya’s hall.

Also, for those who seek representations of Freya nowadays, she appears in the 2018 video game God of War as the Witch of the Woods, former wife of Odin, and the mother of the antagonist Baldur.

The Difference Between Folkvangr and Valhalla

As its name suggests, Folkvangr is a field. Grimnismal counts it ninth among the dwellings of the gods, and Snorri places it in heaven. There Freya decides the seating in her hall, which suggests that her half of the slain sit in it, though neither text says so outright.

Namely, wherever Freya rides to battle, Snorri writes, half of the slain are hers and half are Odin’s. Grimnismal says she chooses her half every day, but no source says who chooses first or how the dead are divided. Those who died of sickness or old age went to neither hall: Snorri sends them to Hel.

Valhalla is the one the sources describe. Snorri says that every day the einherjar arm themselves, go out into the yard and fight, felling one another, then ride home to Valhalla and sit down to drink, and that the boar Saehrimnir is cooked every day and whole again by evening. No source says anything like this about Folkvangr. The picture of Freya’s field as a second Valhalla, full of warriors training for Ragnarok, borrows Valhalla’s details.

So the real difference between Valhalla and Folkvangr lies in how much the sources tell us. Valhalla gets pages, while Folkvangr gets a name, an owner, a hall and a share of the slain. Snorri does not even make his own accounts agree: in another passage he says that all who fall in battle are Odin’s adopted sons.

Aesir-Vanir War and Freya Among the Aesir

Gods of the Nordic mythology are, in most cases, parts of the two tribes. Gods from Asgard are called Aesir, while the gods of Vanaheim are called Vanir. The leader of the Aesir is Odin, while among the best known of the Vanir is the God of wind, Njord. Most of the Norse tales tell us that Gods got along well most of the time, but it was not always like that.

Goddess Freya, who belonged to the Vanir and was the daughter of Njord, is linked with seidr, a powerful type of magic. Ynglinga saga says she was the first to teach seidr to the Aesir, as it was practised among the Vanir.

The poem Voluspa tells how the first war in the world began. The gods pierced a woman called Gullveig with spears and burned her in the hall of Har, one of Odin’s names. Three times they burned her and three times she was reborn, and she still lives. The next stanza calls her Heidr, a seeress who came to people’s houses and practised seidr wherever she could. Some scholars, and many modern retellings, identify Gullveig and Heidr with Freya, partly because of the seidr. That is a modern theory: no medieval text says they are the same.

In Voluspa the gods then hold council, and war follows: Odin hurls his spear over the host, the wall of the Aesir’s stronghold is broken, and the Vanir trample the field with a war-spell. The war lasted for some time (we don’t know how long), and Ynglinga saga says each side won by turns.

Finally, two tribes of Gods, tired of the constant struggle, decided to make peace between them. It was agreed that the best way to honor the peace between the two was to exchange hostages. In Ynglinga saga, the Vanir sent Njord and his son Freyr to the Aesir, while Hoenir and Mimir went to the Vanir. The saga never says how Freya came to the Aesir, but it places her among them as a priestess of sacrifice.

Freya's Father, Norse God Njord

The Vanir were convinced that Hoenir is very wise and very valuable. They didn’t notice that Hoenir was wise only when Mimir was with him to counsel him. Whenever Mimir was not by his side, Hoenir would answer to any question with: "Let others decide.” It took a while before the Vanir realized that they were fooled in the exchange of hostages. Thus they decided to behead Mimir and send his head back to the Aesir, where Odin, the all-father, kept it.

Even though the Vanir killed one of the hostages, the saga does not say the war began again. Snorri tells another part of the peace in Skaldskaparmal: as a sign of the truce, both sides spat into one vat, and from that spittle the gods made Kvasir, a man so wise that no one could ask him anything he could not answer. Ynglinga saga instead makes Kvasir the wisest of the Vanir, sent to the Aesir as a hostage. No source says how Freya came to own Folkvangr, or that Odin gave it to her.

Is Folkvangr in Asgard?

Folkvangr is often described as one of the realms of Asgard, but there is no firm evidence of that. Some historians of the mythology place it in Asgard in accordance with Grimnismal, one of the primary sources of Norse mythology, which lists it among the dwellings of the gods. On the other hand, Grimnismal never explicitly states that this realm is part of Asgard.

As we said before, the Aesir live in Asgard, while the Vanir live in Vanaheim. Snorri Sturluson wrote his Prose Edda around 1220, and next to the anonymous poems of the Poetic Edda, among them Grimnismal, it is the most important source of Norse mythology. He says that in the middle of Asgard the gods built Gladsheimr, a temple, and Vingolf, the sanctuary of the goddesses, and other passages place Valhalla there too. At no point in the text is it explicitly stated that Folkvangr is a part of Asgard.

The Prose Edda says that Folkvangr, along with Njord’s ship town, Noatun, and the home of the elves, Alfheimr, is in heaven, or, more precisely, in the sky. Snorri never fits these heavenly halls and Asgard into one map. Freya is a Vanir, and some readers link Folkvangr to Vanaheim instead, but no source puts it there either, so its location stays under a question mark.

The name of her hall gives one more clue. Sessrumnir seems to mean something like “roomy in seats”, which suits a hall where, as Grimnismal says, Freya decides who sits where.

Final words

This brings to an end our story about Folkvangr, the field of people. We hope that you managed to learn something and that some of you who read this might have a chance to share this knowledge with a fellow Viking.

Also, it would be nice to tell him that you prefer Folkvangr to Valhalla and leave him in awe. Because, who wouldn’t like to see the Goddess Freya in all her beauty and see her magic first hand?

As always, feel free to tell us what you think in the comment section below, and if you have some more questions or you know something else about the magical Folkvangr, please, let us know. Until then, keep your mead strong and your fighting spirit high, and we’ll see you in some next hall or maybe one day, in Folkvangr.

Skål!

Fólkvangr FAQ

What is Fólkvangr?

Fólkvangr, “the field of the people,” is the dwelling of the goddess Freya in Norse myth. Snorri Sturluson places it in heaven, and both he and the poem Grímnismál say that half of those killed in battle are hers and half are Odin’s.

What is the difference between Fólkvangr and Valhalla?

Mostly how much the sources say. Valhalla is described at length: the einherjar fight each other every day and then sit down to drink, waiting for Ragnarök. Fólkvangr is only named, with its owner, its hall Sessrúmnir and its half of the slain. No source says what the dead do there.

Who rules Fólkvangr?

The goddess Freya. Snorri Sturluson calls her the most renowned of the goddesses and the one to call on in matters of love. Her hall within Fólkvangr is called Sessrúmnir.

Is Fólkvangr located in Asgard?

No source says so. Snorri places it in heaven and Grímnismál lists it among the dwellings of the gods, but neither text names Asgard as its location. Because Freya is a Vanir goddess some link it to Vanaheim instead, though no source puts it there either.

Why did Freya receive Fólkvangr?

No medieval source says. Grímnismál and Snorri name Fólkvangr as her dwelling but never explain how she came to have it. The story that Odin gave it to her after the Aesir-Vanir war, with first choice of the slain, has no source: Grímnismál says only that she chooses half and Odin has half.

Keep exploring: Fólkvangr is one of the Norse afterlife realms. See how it compares with Hel and meet the Valkyries who chose the slain.