Snorri gives Baldr a son, Forseti (Judge), who is also named as a God in Grimnismal.  He must have grown out of an epithet of Baldr’s, of whom Snorri says that “no one can resist his sentence”; the sacred tree would naturally be the seat of judgment.

* * * * *

The Wanes.—­Three of the Norse divinities, Njoerd and his son and daughter, are not Aesir by descent.  The following account is given of their presence in Asgard: 

(1) In Vafthrudnismal, Odin asks: 

“Whence came Njoerd among the sons of the Aesir? for he was not born of the Aesir.”

Vafthrudni.  “In Vanaheim wise powers ordained and gave him for a hostage to the Gods; at the doom of the world he shall come back, home to the wise Wanes.”

(2) There is an allusion in Voeluspa to the war which caused the giving of hostages: 

“Odin shot into the host:  this was the first war in the world.  Broken was the wall of the citadel of the Aesir, so that the Wanes could tread the fields of war.”

(3) Loki taunts Njoerd with his position, in Lokasenna: 

“Thou wast sent from the east as a hostage to the Gods....”

Njoerd.  “This is my comfort, though I was sent from far as a hostage to the Gods, yet I have a son whom no one hates, and he is thought the best of the Aesir.”

Loki.  “Stay, Njoerd, restrain thy pride; I will hide it no longer:  thy son is thine own sister’s son, and that is no worse than one would expect.”

Tyr.  “Frey is the best of all the bold riders of Asgard.”

There is little doubt that Njoerd was once a God of higher importance than he is in the Edda, where he is overshadowed by his son.  Grimm’s suggestion that he and the goddess Nerthus, mentioned by Tacitus, were brother and sister, is supported by the line in Lokasenna; it is an isolated reference, and the Goddess has left no other traces in Scandinavian mythology.  They were the deities, probably agricultural, of an earlier age, whose adoption by the later Northmen was explained by the story of the compact between Aesir and Vanir.  Then their places were usurped by Frey and Freyja, who were possibly created out of epithets originally applied to the older pair; Njoerd was retained with lessened importance, Nerthus passed out altogether.  The Edda gives Njoerd a giant-bride, Skadi, who was admitted among the Gods in atonement for the slaying of her father Thiazi; she is little more than a name.  Frey and Freyja have other marks of agricultural deities, besides their relationship.  Nothing is said about Frey’s changing shape, but Freyja possesses a hawk-dress which Loki borrows when he wishes to change his form; and, according to Snorri, Frey was sacrificed to for the crops.  Njoerd has an epithet, “the wealthy,” which may have survived from his earlier connexion with the soil.  In that case, it would explain why, in Snorri and elsewhere, he is God of the sea and ships, once the province of the ocean-goddess Gefion; the transference is a natural one to an age whose wealth came from the sea.