A Modern Interpretation of the Wooing of Gerðr
I find myself circling back time and time again to the story of the wooing of Gerðr. You are probably wondering why. It is true from a modern perspective that the story is extremely problematic. (And I will say right now that the subject matter of this post may be troubling to some and you may not want to read any further.) I am sure there are a lot of parts of the Lore that we all are often tempted to gloss over, and this is probably top of the list. That probably is exactly our problem in approaching it, however. Sometimes you can’t go into something with a modern mindset and take anything of value from it, and the importance of the story isn’t the story itself, but its value. Now what value can I possibly deriving from a story that seems to glorify rape culture and remove female agency? That is exactly where we get stuck with this story, is making assumptions based on modern understandings. There are quite a few scholars who try to pick apart whether or not Gerðr has feminine a...