Njörðr (Niord)

Njörd is the sea-god of the Vanir who, in Snorri's history, rules the Swedes as a sacrificing-king between Odin and Frey. Given to the Æsir as a hostage when the two races of gods made peace, he is the god of the sea, the wind, and wealth, the granter of fair voyages and good fishing, whom seafarers and merchants call on. In the Ynglinga Saga's euhemerised telling, when Odin dies it is Njörd who succeeds him as drot, keeping up the sacrifices and the good seasons, and after him his son Frey. His marriage to the giantess Skadi is the corpus's wry myth of mismatch — she longs for her snowy mountains, he for his sunny shore, and neither can bear the other's home. Njörd is the saga's image of the kindly sea-god turned ancestral king — the bringer of plenty and safe sailing, the second of the divine rulers from whom the Yngling line, and so the kings of Norway, descend.