Hello! What's the story behind "I'll only turn half our kids into cows"? I don't know much about norse mythology and I'm kinda dying to know lol
Ah! That’s my girl Gefjun.
Back in the Proverbial Day, Gefjun appears to (or is sent by Óðinn to) a Swedish king, Gylfi. Gylfi gives Gefjun a piece of land to plow. Now, depending on what you read, Gylfi either a) does this for no specified reason (in Heimskringla) or b) he gives land to Gefjun as a “reward for his entertainment” (in Snorra Edda). [Lots of folks will try to tell you Gylfi gave Gefjun land because she slept with him, but it doesn’t actually say that anywhere, scholars have just been slut-shaming her forever for various misconceived reasons which we won’t go into here (it’s a whole pet peeve and a chapter of my thesis— a later text suggests it was the performance of poetry specifically which won Gefjun her land, which would be very logical, but! I digress like hel, sorry)].
So! King Gylfi gives Gefjun some land like “have at it, I guess” and she’s like “thanks, brosef” and then she goes off to Jötunheimr aka Giantland and she rounds up four sons of hers, whom she’s had with an unnamed giant. So it’s not entirely clear from the wording whether she went to Jötunheimr and procured four already born grown-ass sons, or if she went to Jötunheimr after making a deal with Gylfi, hooked up with a hot giant, and then popped out four sons. But anyway, four sons by an unnamed giant, still with me? Well, Gefjun takes her four boys and she turns them into big strong oxen and lashes them to a plow. Some kids have regular household chores, these lads have to go be plow cows.
Then Gefjun goes and plows up the land Gylfi gave her, cutting it away into an islandy locale, and this is supposedly modern day Sjælland, Denmark. So Gylfi’s like “that...was not exactly chill of her”. But she’s a goddess who magicked four of her giant kids into cows, tf is he gonna do about it?? In Heimskringla, after plowing up Sjælland, she goes back to the Æsir aka the gods, high fives Óðinn, and gets married to Óðinn´s son Skjöldr. In Snorra Edda, it is later said that all those who die “maidens” serve her in death.
Anyway: that’s where the cow kids come from. :)
(Sometimes I picture Gefjun, Sigyn, and Angrboða, all of whom have some animal kids, sitting in folding chairs passing a joint around, talking about what types of furniture their animal kids have destroyed and how they´re not potty trained, etc.)
