Gefion

Between the harbour and the biggest park in Copenhagen (Kastellet, the old fortifications) , there's a massive statue of the goddess Gefion, carving Zealand from Swedish soil with her four sons-turned-oxen. I was actually fairly old before I saw it with water in it - it was renovated for several years starting around 1999, and before that I lived a good bit outside of Copenhagen. Still, water or no water, it's impressive - the oxen seem to have been captured mid-motion, straining against the plough and with water spraying everywhere.

I've always loved the story, probably because I've lived my entire life on this island. Gefion (or Gefjun) tends to be overlooked or simple dismissed with one line as "One of Frigga's handmaidens" in modern Asatru and really, from an outside view it makes sense. There are so many 'minor' gods and goddesses with little mention in the sources or who seem to have been local deities. Still, she's one of the major goddesses to me. I never felt much of a connection with Freya or Skadi (who seems to be surprisingly popular but again, that's me, and I probably don't have a very balanced view of that stuff - I grew up with the myths, and the ones that somehow stuck are in a lot of cases the ones I stick with now. I didn't start out with semi-academic books about Norse mythology. Like so many other Danish kids, I started with the Valhalla comic books and Quark, the utterly fictional but damn adorable Jotun kid). ...The point being that Gefion probably is a fairly local goddess and that might be why I feel such a strong connection to her. Freya, for one, is far less associated with one particular places and far more popular, too... and it probably helps that she features more prominently in the lore, too. You don't need to be of Norse blood or whatever to follow them but when the place you live in is said to have been made specifically by one of the goddesses, it probably helps a bit on your interest in them. If nothing else, then because haha! We stole this from Sweden and you're not getting it back! *blows a raspberry*

...I think I had a point with this entry, but it's late and I lost it somewhere. I'm sorry.