choly that their music brings us is
a mystery which none on this earth may ever unravel.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Archilochus of Paros.

[8] Fiona Macleod (_The Winged Destiny_).

FREYA, QUEEN OF THE NORTHERN GODS

"Friday's bairn is loving and giving," says the old rhyme that sets
forth the special qualities of the children born on each day of the
week, and to the superstitious who regard Friday as a day of evil
omen, it seems strange that Friday's bairn should be so blessed. But
they forget that before Christianity swept paganism before it, and
taught those who worshipped the northern gods the story of that first
black "Good Friday," the tragedy in which all humanity was involved,
Friday was the day of Freya, "The Beloved," gentle protectress, and
most generous giver of all joys, delights, and pleasures. From her, in
mediaeval times, the high-born women who acted as dispensers to their
lords first took the title _Frouwa_ (=Frau), and when, in its
transition stage, the old heathenism had evolved into a religion of
strong nature worship, overshadowed by fatalism, only thinly veneered
by Christianity, the minds of the Christian converts of Scandinavia,
like those of puzzled children, transferred to the Virgin Mary the
attributes that had formerly been those of their "Lady"--Freya, the
goddess of Love.

Long before the Madonna was worshipped, Freya gave her name to plants,
to flowers, and even to insects, and the child who says to the
beautiful little insect, that he finds on a leaf, "Ladybird, ladybird,
fly away home," is commemorating the name of the Lady, Freya, to whom
his ancestors offered their prayers.

In her home in the Hall of Mists, Freya (or Frigga), wife of Odin the
All Father, sat with her golden distaff spinning the clouds. Orion's
Belt was known as "Frigga's spindle" by the Norsemen, and the men on
the earth, as they watched the great cumulous masses of snowy-white,
golden or silver edged, the fleecy cloudlets of grey, soft as the
feathers on the breast of a dove, or the angry banks of black and
purple, portending a storm, had constant proof of the diligence of
their goddess. She was the protectress of those who sailed the seas,
and the care of children as they came into the world was also hers.
Hers, too, was the happy task of bringing together after death, lovers
whom Death had parted, and to her belonged the glorious task of going
down to the fields of battle where the slain lay strewn like l