Freyd
Goddess of the hearth, home, harvest, and protection for the innocent and sick, Freyd is one of the most popular and regularly petitioned deities in the Pantheon of the North.
Divine Domains
Often referred to as the mother of the Pantheon, Freyd’s area of influence is very much focused on the home, harvest and protection of the innocent, in particular pregnant women, children, the elderly and people who have been taken ill.
Divine Symbols & Sigils
Freyd’s primary symbol is that of a bundle of wheat sheaves, and this symbol is often to be found carved into the doors of her temples, and incorporated into items that are deemed to be sacred to her, including items of temple furniture. Lectors and Acolytes dedicated to Freyd will wear torcs around their necks that have been made to resemble wheat sheaves that have been woven together. In addition, to represent Freyd’s key association with the home, many people throughout the north of Turoza will have a bundle of dried wheat that they have mounted above their main household fireplace, or suspended from the ceiling above their main household fire.
Holidays
As she is closely associated with harvest time and the natural cycle of growth, Freyd has two festivals that are celebrated in her honour during the year. The first, much smaller festival is held in springtime, normally in the third month of the year as the world is beginning to wake once more from its winter slumber, and celebrates the renewing of the natural cycle, and is used as an opportunity for people to give offerings as they look to the year ahead, and pray for good harvests. The second festival, celebrated at the beginning of the tenth month is a much larger festival, where people come together to rejoice and give thanks for the bounty of the harvest season. In addition, people will tend to leave offerings to Freyd during a pregnancy, after a birth, or when someone is taken ill.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
For Freyd, her purpose, as she sees it, is to preserve life and to rejoice and share in the wonder of natural things that are able to grow in the material plane. For Freyd, all things, regardless of their parentage deserve a chance to grow and to have their own opportunity to have a life. However, rather than being focused on all natural life, Freyd is specifically interested and involved with the activities of the sapient species, especially those that are heavily involved in cultivation and animal husbandry. As a result, Halflings are often blessed with Freyd’s favour more readily than other humanoids, because of their natural inclination towards agriculture and the formation of more bucolic communities. Freyd is very much a representative of the ‘civilised’ aspect of nature, as opposed to her sister goddess Balder, who is orientated towards the ‘wild’ aspect nature can take on.
Freyd’s greatest fear is warfare and violence of any kind, as it always contributes directly or indirectly to death, despoiling and a disruption of the cycle of nature. In the north of Turoza, it is often said that rain will follow an act of extreme violence, particularly large battles, and is thought to be the embodiment of Freyd’s tears of grief over the destruction of so much life. Her main opponent and opposite in the Pantheon is Fenrisúlfr, who embodies everything that she despises, and she is known to have a regularly frosty relationship with his more civilised counterpart, Thorfor, whose focus on war conflicts with her main concerns.
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