Freyja (Old Norse: Freyja, meaning ‘Lady’) is a deity of the Vanir tribe who, along with her brother Freyr and father Njörðr, was exchanged to the Æsir following the Æsir-Vanir War. She is the most prominent goddess in the surviving Norse mythological corpus, appearing in numerous Eddic poems and a wide range of skaldic verse. Freyja presides over love, desire, and fertility, but is also deeply associated with war and death: she receives half of the battle-slain, hosting them in her hall Fólkvangr, while Odin receives the other half in Valhöll — a detail stated explicitly in Grímnismál. She is the chief practitioner of seiðr, the divinatory and transformative magic that she introduced to the Æsir, as described in Ynglinga saga.

Freyja owns the Brísingamen, a magnificent necklace whose existence is presupposed in early skaldic verse and whose acquisition is described in the late Sörla þáttr (Flateyjarbók). She possesses a falcon-feather cloak (valshamr) that allows its wearer to take the shape of a falcon, borrowed by both Odin and Loki in various mythological episodes. She drives a chariot pulled by two cats, and rides a boar named Hildisvíni, whose identity as the disguised hero Óttar is revealed in the Eddic poem Hyndluljóð.

Freyja is frequently the subject of unwanted marriage proposals from giants — including Þrymr in Þrymskviða and the unnamed builder of Ásgarðr’s walls in Gylfaginning — which the Æsir consistently maneuver to avoid. Lokasenna contains Loki’s accusation that she has been intimate with all of the Æsir and elves — a passage whose interpretation has generated considerable scholarly debate. Her alternate names include Vanadís (Dís of the Vanir), Mardöll, Hörn, Gefn, and Sýr.