Ploughing Zealand
The first chapter of Snorri’s Gylfaginning belongs to Gefjun. It opens with a king and a gift, and it names her only at the end of its third sentence.
Gylfi konungr réð þar löndum er nú heitir Svíþjóð. Frá honum er þat sagt at hann gaf einni farandi konu at launum skemmtunar sinnar eitt plógsland í ríki sínu þat er fjórir öxn drægi upp dag ok nótt. En sú kona var ein af ása ætt, hon er nefnd Gefjun.
“King Gylfi ruled the land that men now call Sweden. It is told of him that he gave to a wandering woman, in return for her merry-making, a plow-land in his realm, as much as four oxen might turn up in a day and a night. But this woman was of the kin of the Æsir; she was named Gefjun.” — Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 1, tr. A. G. Brodeur
She comes to Gylfi as einni farandi konu, a wandering woman, and he pays her at launum skemmtunar sinnar, which Brodeur renders as “in return for her merry-making”. Snorri does not say what the entertainment was. The gift is measured in work, not in miles: a plógsland, as much land as four oxen could plough up in a day and a night. Only then does the sentence say who the woman is, ein af ása ætt, one of the kin of the Æsir.
The next sentence says that she took four oxen from the north, out of Jötunheim, and that the oxen were the sons of a giant and of herself. This page tells that sentence and does not quote it, because the wikisource text of Brodeur’s translation misprints its key word: where the Old Norse has sons, the English page prints “soils”. The quotation starts again where she yokes them.
ok setti þá fyrir plóg, en plógrinn gekk svá breitt ok djúpt at upp leysti landit, ok drógu öxnirnir þat land út á hafit ok vestr ok námu staðar í sundi nökkuru. Þar setti Gefjun landit ok gaf nafn ok kallaði Selund. Ok þar sem landit hafði upp gengit var þar eftir vatn. Þat er nú Lögrinn kallaðr í Svíþjóð, ok liggja svá víkr í Leginum sem nes í Selundi.
“and set them before the plow. And the plow cut so wide and so deep that it loosened up the land; and the oxen drew the land out into the sea and to the westward, and stopped in a certain sound. There Gefjun set the land, and gave it a name, calling it Selund. And from that time on, the spot whence the land had been torn up is water: it is now called the Lögr in Sweden; and bays lie in that lake even as the headlands in Selund.” — Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 1, tr. A. G. Brodeur
The plough cuts so wide and so deep that the land comes loose, upp leysti landit, and the oxen drag it out into the sea and west until they stop in a sound. Gefjun sets it down there and names it herself: kallaði Selund, she called it Selund, the island that is Zealand. Where the land was torn up, water is left, and Snorri ends by matching the two shapes: the bays in the lake in Sweden lie as the headlands lie in Selund, víkr í Leginum sem nes í Selundi. Gylfi gave her as much land as a team could plough in a day and a night. She took the whole of it away with the plough, and in Snorri’s telling the hole that it left in Gylfi’s kingdom is still there.
The stanza of Bragi the Old
Snorri closes the chapter with a witness. In Brodeur’s English the verse is what “Bragi, the ancient skald” says. This is Bragi the Old, a skald. Nothing quoted on this page makes him the same figure as the god of that name.
Gefjun dró frá Gylfa glöð djúpröðul óðla, svá at af rennirauknum rauk, Danmarkar auka. Báru öxn ok átta ennitungl, þars gengu fyrir vineyjar víðri valrauf, fjögur höfuð.
“Gefjun drew from Gylfi gladly the wave-trove’s freehold, Till from the running beasts sweat reeked, to Denmark’s increase; The oxen bore, moreover, eight eyes, gleaming browlights, O’er the field’s wide booty, and four heads in their plowing.” — Bragi the Old, quoted in Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 1, tr. A. G. Brodeur
The prose tells the act as a loss for Gylfi. The verse tells it as a gain for Denmark. Gefjun drags the land from Gylfi glöð, glad, and what she takes is Danmarkar auka, Denmark’s increase. Most of the stanza is about the team. The beasts run so hard that they reek, rauk, which Brodeur makes into sweat, and the second half counts them by their faces: átta ennitungl, which Brodeur renders as eight eyes and gleaming browlights, and fjögur höfuð, four heads. The stanza does not say whose oxen they are. For that the reader needs the prose, which makes them her sons.
Snorri quotes the same stanza a second time in Ynglinga saga, introduced there as the words of Bragi hinn gamli, Bragi the Old. The two copies differ in small points of spelling, djúpröðuls öðla in the saga for djúpröðul óðla here, and the saga’s copy spells her name Gefjon.
The maiden and her attendants
Gylfaginning comes back to her once, in chapter 35. Gangleri asks which the ásynjur are, and Hár counts the goddesses: Frigg is the foremost, Sága is the second, and Eir is the third. Gefjun is the fourth, and her entry is one sentence long.
Fjórða er Gefjun. Hon er mær, ok henni þjóna þær, er meyjar andast.
“The fourth is Gefjun: she is a virgin, and they that die maidens attend her.” — Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 35, tr. A. G. Brodeur
She is mær, a maiden, and the women who serve her are the ones who die as maidens, er meyjar andast. Snorri does not say where they serve her or what the service is, and the plough, the oxen and the island of the first chapter are not mentioned here. The next name in the list is Fulla, and her sentence begins Hon er enn mær, she also is a maid. The word that defines Gefjun is used again at once for the goddess who comes after her.
Þá sendi hann Gefjon norðr yfir sundit á landaleitan; þá kom hon til Gylfa, ok gaf hann henni eitt plógsland. Þá fór hon í Jötunheima, ok gat þar 4 sonu vit jötni nökkurum; hon brá þeim í yxna líki, ok fœrði þá fyrir plóginn ok dró landit út á hafit ok vestr gegnt Óðinsey, ok er þat kölluð Selund; þar bygði hon síðan. Hennar fékk Skjöldr, son Óðins; þau bjoggu at Hleiðru.
“Then he sent Gefion across the sound to the north, to discover new countries; and she came to King Gylfe, who gave her a ploughgate of land. Then she went to Jotunheim, and bore four sons to a giant, and transformed them into a yoke of oxen, and yoked them to a plough, and broke out the land into the ocean right opposite to Odinsö, which land was called Sealand, where she afterwards settled and dwelt. Skiold, a son of Odin, married her, and they dwelt at Leidre.” — Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 5, tr. Samuel Laing
The saga spells her name Gefjon, and Laing writes Gefion; this page writes Gefjun except inside the quotations. The saga also changes the order of events. In Gylfaginning she brings the oxen, already her sons, out of Jötunheim. Here she gets the sons after the grant: gat þar 4 sonu vit jötni nökkurum, she had four sons there by a certain giant, and hon brá þeim í yxna líki, she changed them into the likeness of oxen. The saga does not call her a wanderer. She comes to Gylfi because Odin sends her, á landaleitan, in search of land. Then the saga keeps her on the land she drew out, þar bygði hon síðan, she settled there afterwards, and gives her to Odin’s son: Hennar fékk Skjöldr, son Óðins. Gylfaginning 35 gives her no husband, and Ynglinga saga 5 gives her no maidens. The saga’s prose then ends with the same lake and nearly the same comparison as Gylfaginning, Svá liggja firðir í Leginum, sem nes í Selundi, with fjords where Gylfaginning has bays.
The knower of fates
In Lokasenna, Loki comes to the feast in Ægir’s hall and answers the gods with insults one after another. Iðunn has just spoken, and she says that she will calm Bragi so that he and Loki do not fight. Gefjun speaks next. It is her one speech in the poem, and it is a plea to the two of them.
Hví it æsir tveir skuluð inni hér sáryrðum sakask? Loftki þat veit, at hann leikinn er ok hann fjörg öll fía.
“Why, ye gods twain, with bitter tongues Raise hate among us here? Loki is famed for his mockery foul, And the dwellers in heaven he hates.” — Lokasenna 19, tr. H. A. Bellows
The æsir tveir, the two gods, are Bragi and Loki, and Gefjun asks why they wound each other with words, sáryrðum, in the hall. She also says what Loki is: in Bellows’s English, he is famed for his mockery and he hates the dwellers in heaven. Loki answers her as he answers the others. He tells her to be silent, Þegi þú, Gefjun, and says that he will name the one who led her astray: sveinn inn hvíti, the boy “so fair” in Bellows’s English, who gave her a necklace, sigli, and over whom she laid her leg. That is Loki’s charge, made in a poem of insults. He promises to name the boy and gives no name, and no other text on this page tells of the boy or of the necklace. Odin answers him.
Ærr ertu, Loki, ok örviti, er þú fær þér Gefjun at gremi, því at aldar örlög hygg ek, at hon öll of viti jafngörla sem ek.
“Mad art thou, Loki, and little of wit, The wrath of Gefjun to rouse; For the fate that is set for all she sees, Even as I, methinks.” — Lokasenna 21, tr. H. A. Bellows
Odin does not say that the charge is false. He says that it is mad to make it: Loki is out of his wits to bring Gefjun’s anger on himself, Gefjun at gremi, because she knows aldar örlög, in Bellows’s English “the fate that is set for all”, and knows it jafngörla sem ek, as fully as Odin does. His “methinks” in Bellows’s English is hygg ek, I think. Eight stanzas later Freyja speaks for Frigg in the same frame, Ærr ertu, Loki, and with the same words for knowing fate: örlög Frigg, hygg ek, at öll viti, Frigg knows all fates. For Gefjun the measure is Odin’s own knowledge, and Odin is the one who gives it.
This wiki files Gefjun with the goddesses. Gylfaginning 1 makes her one of the kin of the Æsir, Gylfaginning 35 counts her among the ásynjur, and a list in Skáldskaparmál names her among them after Frigg and Freyja. Agriculture is for the plough and for a gift of land measured in a day and a night of ploughing, and fate is for Odin’s word on her in Lokasenna. In both of Snorri’s books her deed is the ploughing, and the four oxen that pull the plough are her own sons.