Thoughts on Sif

Most scholars seem to agree that Sif is/was a goddess of agriculture, of the harvest, and/or of the wheat. This theory stems entirely from the myth wherein Loki shaves her head, then has to get the dwarves to make new, golden hair for her. The supporting "evidence" is the fact that she is married to Thor.

This theory doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Sure, there is very little that we know about her, but she does appear in two other places in the lore. One is in the Lokasenna where Loki accuses her of cheating on her husband with himself. A lot of people have put forth the idea that this is why he cut her hair off in the first place. But the other place she is mentioned is the place most often forgotten.

In the Prologue (part III) to his Edda, Snorri tells us that Thor was married to a woman named Sibyl. What does this mean? Well, a sibyl is a prophetess, a seer. What in later Norse lore became known to us as a Volva.

What does this have to do with wheat? Very little, I'm afraid.

I have seen translations of the name Sif give us the name Sib in Old English. Granted, this is only a translation, but it is acknowledged to be related to our modern word sibling, and seems to refer to the fact that her husband, Thor, is related in a stepfatherly way, to her son Ull. Not sure how that fits, but okay.

So, siblings, and prophecy. Now we're getting somewhere. Who else do we know that fits that description? Hint: starts with an 'N' and end with 'orns.' 3 sisters (sometimes called the Wyrd Sisters).

Here's another fun correllation for you: Frigga. The wife of Odhinn. No, I am not saying that the two ladies are one and the same. I hate when people try to correllate dieties down too much that way. But Frigga is considered to be the "Queen of the Norns" by some. Certainly she has a lot to do with fate and is said to know the fates of all things, though she tells none. Perhaps another one of the Wyrd Sisters? It certainly gives us the sibling link in Sif's name (incidentally, the name Frigga means 'beloved').

So to follow this up a bit, let's look at Sif's hubby, Thor. By and large (!) he's much the same as most of the other Indo-Europena sky gods, such as Jupiter, Zeus, etc. The greatest difference is that in Thor's "portfolio" he is not a chieftain or king of the gods. He's got all the rest, though - sky, thunder/storms, justice, law, protection, fertility, etc. So with this in mind, let's look to the wives of these other gods, shall we? Maybe there is something similar to Sif there?

Let's see: Zeus is married to Hera. Most godly ties to Hera, though, are made with Frigga, which makes a certain sense, as they are both the Queen goddesses of their pantheons. As such, Frigga tends to get the "motherly" and "wife" portfolios (though I suppose these might be able to be shared). Jupiter is married to Juno, I believe, though I know very little about her other than that she is also equated to Hera (but most of the Roman dieties are correllated to the Hellenic ones, so much so that most people these days don't even realize that they are in act seperate sets of gods, with often vast differences between them).

I'll continue this train of thought later, though. Feel free to add your own ideas into the comments section below.