Symbol reference · Galdrastafir

Skadi

/ˈskɑːdi/Old Norse Skaði, a woman's name with the form of a masculine noun (genitive Skaða); also Skathi

The short answer

A giantess who joined the gods after they killed her father, the giant Þjazi. Snorri calls her the ski-goddess: she lives in the mountains at Þrymheimr, skis and hunts with a bow. Her marriage to the sea god Njörðr failed because neither could bear the other's home.

Compiled by VikingsBrandLast reviewed 2 October 20264 cited sourcesCC BY 4.0: free to cite & reuse
Skaði is the daughter of Þjazi, the giant who stole the goddess Iðunn. When the gods killed him, Skaði armed herself and went to Ásgarðr for revenge. The gods offered a settlement instead: she could choose a husband among them by his feet alone. She chose the fairest feet, hoping for Baldr, and got Njörðr. The gods also had to make her laugh, which Loki did with a goat, and Odin threw Þjazi's eyes into the sky as two stars.
The marriage broke on where to live. Skaði wanted her father's mountain home Þrymheimr, Njörðr the sea, and they tried nine nights in each. He hated the wolves' howling, she the gull that woke her every morning. So she went back to Þrymheimr, where, Snorri says, she travels a great deal on skis, carries a bow and shoots animals; he calls her öndurguð and öndurdís, 'ski-deity' and 'ski-goddess'. Grímnismál 11 says Skaði, 'bright bride of the gods', now lives in her father's old homestead.
She is Loki's enemy. In Lokasenna 49–52 she warns him that the gods will bind him with his own son's guts; he boasts that he was foremost at the killing of Þjazi, and she promises him cold counsels from her sanctuaries and fields. Loki answers that she once invited him to her bed, a claim no other source makes. When the gods bind him, Skaði hangs a poisonous snake over his face to drip venom on him (Lokasenna closing prose; Gylfaginning 50).
Ynglinga saga, which treats the gods as human kings, says Skaði refused to live with Njörðr as his wife, then married Odin and bore him many sons, among them Sæmingr. Snorri backs it with two verses of Háleygjatal, composed in the late 10th century for Earl Hákon Sigurðarson, who traced his descent from Sæmingr.

Primary source Verbatim

En Skaði dóttir Þjaza jötuns, tók hjálm ok brynju ok öll hervápn ok ferr til Ásgarðs at hefna föður síns. En æsir buðu henni sætt ok yfirbætr ok it fyrsta, at hon skal kjósa sér mann af ásum ok kjósa at fótum ok sjá ekki fleira af. Þá sá hon eins manns fætr forkunnarfagra ok mælti: "Þenna kýs ek. Fátt mun ljótt á Baldri." En þat var Njörðr ór Nóatúnum. Þat hafði hon ok í sættargerð sinni, at æsir skyldu þat gera, er hon hugði, at þeir skyldu eigi mega, at hlægja hana. Þá gerði Loki þat, at hann batt um skegg geitar nökkurrar ok öðrum enda um hreðjar sér, ok létu þau ýmsi eftir ok skrækði hvárt tveggja hátt. Þá lét Loki fallast í kné Skaða, ok þá hló hon. Var þá ger sætt af ásanna hendi við hana.

But Skaði, daughter of the giant Þjazi, took helmet and mail-coat and all weapons of war and went to Ásgarðr to avenge her father. The Æsir offered her settlement and compensation, and first that she should choose herself a husband from among the Æsir, choosing by the feet and seeing nothing more of them. Then she saw one man's feet, exceedingly beautiful, and said: 'I choose this one. Little about Baldr can be ugly.' But it was Njörðr of Nóatún. It was also in her terms of settlement that the Æsir should do what she thought they could not: make her laugh. Then Loki did this: he tied a cord around the beard of a certain nanny goat and the other end around his own testicles, and they pulled each other back and forth, and both squealed loudly. Then Loki let himself fall onto Skaði's knee, and then she laughed. So the settlement with her was made on the Æsir's side.

SKÁLDSKAPARMÁL, ch. G56 (Faulkes' numbering; ch. 3 in Guðni Jónsson's text) · text ed. Guðni Jónsson · translation editorial ↗
Manuscript
Codex Regius of Snorra Edda (GKS 2367 4to)
Compiler
Snorri Sturluson
Place & date
Iceland, c. 1220 (manuscript early 14th c.)
Held at
Árni Magnússon Institute, Reykjavík

Etymology

Skaði Old Norse uncertain; identical with the masculine noun skaði, 'harm, damage' (English scathe), and declined like it; some scholars link it with Scandinavia and Old Norse Skáney, Scania
öndurdís, öndurguð Old Norse 'ski-goddess' and 'ski-deity', from öndurr, 'ski', with dís, 'lady, goddess', and guð, 'god'; Snorri's names for her in Gylfaginning 23

Neither explanation of her name is proven. Faulkes suggests that her part in Loki's punishment may have been shaped by the word skaði, 'harm'.

Common misconceptions

Common claim What the record says
“Scandinavia is named after Skadi.” A hypothesis, not a fact. The name first appears as Scatinavia in Pliny the Elder (Natural History 4.96). Scholars usually trace it to a reconstructed Germanic *Skaþin-awjō, from *skaþin- 'harm, danger' and *awjō 'island', perhaps 'island of danger'; that form is itself a reconstruction. Skaði may share that root, and some scholars think she once personified the region, but no medieval source links them and neither name can be shown to come from the other.
“Skadi is the Norse goddess of winter.” No medieval source calls her that. Snorri calls her 'ski-deity' and 'ski-goddess' and says she lives in the mountains, skis and hunts with a bow. The winter title is a modern reading of her skis and mountains.
“Skadi was Odin's wife.” Not in Snorri's Edda or the Eddic poems, where her husband is Njörðr. The Odin marriage comes from Ynglinga saga ch. 8, where Odin is a human king, and the Háleygjatal verses it quotes. The verses date from the late 10th century, older than Snorri, but they serve an earl's family tree, and no surviving myth tells the story.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Skadi in Norse mythology?
A giantess, the daughter of Thjazi. After the gods killed her father, she accepted a settlement from them and married the sea god Njord. She lives in the mountains, and Snorri calls her the ski-goddess.
How did Skadi choose her husband?
The gods let her choose one of them, but only by looking at their feet. She picked the most beautiful feet, thinking they must belong to Baldr, and they turned out to be Njord's.
How did Loki make Skadi laugh?
Making her laugh was part of the gods' settlement with Skadi. Loki tied a cord between a nanny goat's beard and his own testicles. They tugged each other back and forth, both squealing, until he let himself fall onto Skadi's knee and she laughed.
Why did Skadi and Njord separate?
Neither could bear the other's home. After nine nights in her mountains and nine by his sea, Njord hated the wolves and Skadi the gulls, and she went back to the mountains to ski and hunt.
Who turned Thjazi's eyes into stars?
Snorri says Odin did, as part of Skadi's compensation. In the Eddic poem Harbardsljod, Thor claims that he killed Thjazi and threw his eyes into the sky himself.
Is Skadi the mother of Freyr and Freyja?
The sources disagree. In Skirnismal she calls Freyr 'our son'. Snorri's Edda names no mother for Freyr and Freyja. In Lokasenna, Loki taunts Njord with having fathered Freyr on his sister, and Snorri's Ynglinga saga makes Njord's sister the mother of both.

Bibliography

  1. 1. Snorri Sturluson, Edda (Gylfaginning 23 and 50; Skáldskaparmál G56, 6, 16 and 33), c. 1220. Ed. Anthony Faulkes, Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998 and 2005. heimskringla.no ↗
  2. 2. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla: Ynglinga saga, ch. 8 (ch. 9 in the heimskringla.no text), with Eyvindr skáldaspillir's Háleygjatal, c. 1230. heimskringla.no ↗
  3. 3. The Poetic Edda (Grímnismál 11; Skírnismál 1; Hárbarðsljóð 19; Lokasenna 49–52 and closing prose), Codex Regius, GKS 2365 4to, c. 1270; Hyndluljóð 30 in Flateyjarbók. Trans. Carolyne Larrington, rev. ed., Oxford World's Classics, 2014. handrit.is ↗
  4. 4. Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology, trans. Angela Hall, D. S. Brewer, 1993, s.v. 'Skaði'.

Cite this entry

VikingsBrand. “Skadi.” VikingsBrand Library, reviewed 2 October 2026, vikingsbrand.co/pages/library/skadi.