Misconception 4: Freyja's "Initiation"?
4. The violence against Freyja as Gullveig was an initiation like Odin’s.
The first poem of the Poetic Edda, the Voluspa, declares that the first war, the primary war, began when the Aesir “Gullveig gashed with their spears”. After being gashed with spears, she was burned to death three times…and yet she lives. It is reasonable to conclude, as many do, that Gullveig/Heidr (Golden Power/Shining One) is Freyja. That is my conclusion at this time.
Just as it is common for (Neo) Heathens and academics to blame Freyja for the violence inflicted on her by Odin and the Aesir, so it is common for them to interpret the violence inflicted on her as “an initiation”. Our Troth, which carries so much weight among (Neo) Heathens, reads "...a further understanding of Gullveig's triple burning is possible as a Freyja-initiation similar to that of Odin's hanging on the tree." (p. 366).
I’ll start by pointing out that this interpretation of the violence done to Freyja is obviously male on female. Where else in the world’s rich mythology do we have a story of a female being violently initiated by a group of males? Maybe such a story is out there somewhere. If it is I have yet to find it.
It is possible for us to take the gashing of Freyja with spears literally. If we take it literally, the gashing with spears is an unprovoked, unjustified attack of the unarmed Goddess of the Vanir. It is also possible to take the gashing with spears metaphorically. If we take it metaphorically, the gashing of spears could be the atrocity of a gang rape. Whether literal or metaphorical, what the Voluspa describes is an atrocity against Freyja committed in Odin’s hall by Odin himself and his cohorts.
The scholars that I have read speak of Freyja’s burning as a literal rather than metaphorical burning. They conclude that since she was burned to death, she must have been a malevolent witch. “Why else would they burn her?” their logic says. Some with equally flawed logic answer, “Oh, it was part of her initiation.”
In my opinion, what the Voluspa describes is not what some want it to describe. It does not describe an initiation of Freyja similar to Odin’s so-called initiation on Yggdrasill. Odin did to himself what was done to him on Yggdrasill. He hanged himself. He was not hanged by a gang of others, males or females. He gashed himself. He was not gashed by a group of others in a hall where hospitality was supposed to reign. He sacrificed himself to himself. He was not sacrificed by others. He gained something from his ordeal that he did not have prior to it: the Runes.
Freyja, on the other hand, did not do to herself what was done to her in Odin’s hall. She did not gash herself with spears. She did not burn herself to death repeatedly. She did not gain something that she did not already have. Freyja is the Goddess of the Vanir. She already had the power of life, the power to be reborn after repeated deaths. What happened to Freyja was not an initiation. It was an atrocity, a violent crime and act of misogyny that is rightly condemned.
Some might ask, “If Freyja is so great and powerful, how could Odin and the Aesir overpower her and do to her what they did?” I would say that it is because she is not all-powerful. She is able to be overpowered by a gang of battle-seasoned Aesir. There are other stories of gods being ganged up on and overpowered. One for example is the story of Loki being bound after killing Baldur. Another is the story of the Aesir sending Odin into to exile for ten years after stalking and sexually assaulting Rinda.