SOURCE: Motz, Lotte. “Sister in the Cave: The Stature and the Function of the Female Figures of the Eddas.” Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi / Archives for Scandinavian Philology 95 (1980): 168-82.

In the following essay, Motz surveys the treatment of female characters in Snorri's narratives.

According to the sources from which we gain most of our knowledge concerning Germanic myth, the prose and poems of the Eddas, the world is governed by divinities, the Aesir, and their female consorts and companions, the Asynjur. The group, interrelated by marriage or parenthood, lives as an extended family in the stronghold Asgard, much like the gods who feast, scheme and quarrel on Olympus. The banquets of the northern assembly of valiant men and lovely women acquire added poignancy, held as they are in the foreknowledge of ultimate disaster, and attain excitement through the intermittent and temporary triumphs of the gods.

The role of the...