paizo.com - Bella Sara: Northern Lights

BenS (Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber), Fri, Jun 29, 2007, 12:49 PM

Don't know if the product description is written by Paizo staff (doubtfully), but just to nitpick, there was never a Norse goddess called "Froya". There was "Freya" (in modern, anglicized spelling), but she was far from a "mother-goddess". Odin's wife was Frigga, who's closer to the "mother-goddess" archetype.

Sorry, I couldn't let it go :)

Andrew Turner (Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber), Fri, Jun 29, 2007, 07:43 PM

Froya is the Scandinavian form of Freya...same deity.

BenS (Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber), Sat, Jun 30, 2007, 10:15 AM

Andrew Turner wrote:

Froya is the Scandinavian form of Freya...same deity.

Let me first acknowledge a typo of my own: I meant "Frigg" and not "Frigga" in my earlier post; for some reason I can't edit it a day later :(

Anyway, Andrew, "Norse" as a term is synonymous w/ (old) Scandinavian. Linguistically speaking, Old Norse is essentially Old Icelandic: the mainland Scandinavian countries never had as many written records (at least that survived) from the time period, and our written sources of "Norse Mythology" derive mainly from the Old Icelandic sources.

"Freya" is just the anglicized version of Old Norse "Freyja"; "Froya" doesn't exist to my knowledge in any of the modern Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Faeroese). "Frøya" does (e.g., Norwegian), but "ø" and "o" are not interchangeable vowels.

If the company was going to be consistent, then they'd use only the anglicized versions of these names (i.e., Odin, Thor, Freya, Frigg, etc.) rather than making up a new one, like "Froya" :)

Sorry to be so pedantic; part of my academic background w/out boring you w/ the details...

Andrew Turner (Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber), Sat, Jun 30, 2007, 12:59 PM

BenS wrote:

... but "ø" and "o" are not interchangeable vowels.

If the company was going to be consistent, then they'd use only the anglicized versions of these names (i.e., Odin, Thor, Freya, Frigg, etc.) rather than making up a new one, like "Froya"...

I pulled my info from Davidson's Gods and Myths of the Viking Age , so I'm guessing ø was not available in the typeset and the publishers figured most English readers would never notice; maybe it's the same with Bella Sara. I suppose the editors might also have thought it cool to interchange spellings, who knows.

Mulban (Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Chronicles, Pathfinder Companion Subscriber), Sat, Jun 30, 2007, 01:29 PM

Having read all of the above was my Geek Moment...