Place of origin: Scandinavia (primarily Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland in its literary form)
Origin Date: c. 800 CE (Viking Age)
Domain
Love and devotion (especially marital/romantic)
Peace and harmony
Joy and gentle happiness
Grief, mourning, and emotional endurance
Domestic and familial bonds
Symbols: Flowers and floral wreaths: Symbolizing love, peace, and gentle beauty, Baldr’s funeral ship / pyre: Evoking their shared death and reunion in Hel, Rings or jewelry: Linked to the ring she gives via Hermóðr to Fulla, Soft light or glow: By association with Baldr’s radiance and the peaceful aspect of her presence, White or pale garments: Purity, peace, and mourning.
Attributes
Devotional love: Nanna embodies steadfast, loyal love, particularly within marriage.
Peace and harmony: She is explicitly associated with peace and harmony in Norse mythology.
Joy and gentleness: Some modern readings emphasize her as a goddess of joy and quiet happiness, counterbalancing the violent world of Norse myth.
Grief and mourning: Her death from heartbreak makes her a powerful figure for understanding grief, mourning, and the emotional cost of fate.
Connection between living and dead: Through giving gifts via Hermóðr from Hel, she acts as a bridge of affection between worlds.
Religion: Norse mythology
Description
Nanna is a Norse goddess associated with love, devotion, peace, harmony, and joy, belonging to the Aesir pantheon and most widely known as the faithful wife of Baldr and mother of Forseti. As a Deity within the Aesir collective, her mythic presence centers on emotional loyalty, marital love, and gentle domesticity rather than battle, fertility rites, or explicit cosmic forces. In a warrior-heavy mythos, she embodies a quieter, relational ideal: steadfast devotion and profound grief when that devotion is threatened.
In the Prose Edda (especially Gylfaginning), Snorri Sturluson presents Nanna as Baldr’s wife, whose love is so deep that when Baldr dies, she dies of a broken heart. Their son Forseti becomes a god of justice and reconciliation, making Nanna indirectly connected to legal order and peaceful settlement through her motherhood. Her myth is not extensive, but it strongly emphasizes affective bonds, mourning, and the cost of loss in the Norse cosmos.
Culturally, Nanna’s stories likely reflect ideals of loyalty within marriage and the emotional stakes surrounding death and fate in Viking society, even if she is not a major cult figure like Odin or Freyja. Modern interpreters often emphasize her role as a “tragic goddess of love and devotion,” highlighting how her broken-hearted death humanizes the otherwise heroic and fated narrative of Baldr. In contemporary Norse paganism and reconstructionist practices, Nanna is sometimes honored as a deity of gentle love, peace, and emotional resilience, a counterpoint to more martial and ecstatic deities.
Artistic depictions, especially from the 19th century onward, frequently portray Nanna as a serene, sorrowful woman beside Baldr, such as Herman Wilhelm Bissen’s 1857 sculpture “Nanna” and related funerary scenes where she appears on Baldr’s pyre. Modern illustrations often emphasize her luminous, grieving femininity, sometimes surrounded by flowers or soft light to underscore her peaceful, loving nature.
Relations
Baldr (husband): Shining god of light and goodness; central to her myth, whose death triggers her own.
Forseti (son): God of justice, mediation, and reconciliation.
Odin (father-in-law): All-father, chieftain of the Aesir and father of Baldr.
Frigg (mother-in-law): Goddess of motherhood and foreknowledge, deeply involved in the attempt to protect Baldr.
Fulla (divine recipient of her gift): Handmaiden/attendant of Frigg; Nanna sends a ring to her via Hermóðr.
Hel (underworld goddess): Ruler of the realm where Nanna and Baldr dwell after death; Nanna’s actions in Hel connect the underworld to the living gods.
Hermóðr (messenger): Aesir god who rides to Hel and carries Nanna’s gifts back to Asgard.
Epithets: “Goddess of Devotion”, “Goddess of Love and Fidelity”, “Goddess of Peace and Harmony”, “Heartbroken Goddess” (modern devotional and interpretive epithet emphasizing her grief)
Equivalents: Greek (functional comparison): Psyche (as a figure of devoted love and trials), Alcyone and other grieving wives in myth
Iconography: A young woman with a serene and gentle expression, often depicted alongside Baldr, emphasizing their bond. Light-colored or white garments, sometimes flowing dresses or robes, signifying purity, peace, and mourning.
Worship beliefs and practices
Direct evidence of a large, independent cult of Nanna is limited. Most of what we know comes from literary sources composed in Christianized Iceland, which describe her primarily within the context of Baldr’s myth rather than as the focus of separate major rituals. There are no securely identified temples dedicated solely to Nanna in the archaeological record, and the texts do not outline specific sacrifices or festivals in her name comparable to those of Odin or Thor.
However, through her association with Baldr—a beloved, luminous god whose death is one of the great tragedies of the Norse cosmos—she likely participated in broader ritual frameworks related to the Aesir, possibly invoked in familial, marital, or domestic contexts by those seeking peace, harmony, and enduring love. In modern Heathen and Norse pagan reconstructionist practice, Nanna is sometimes honored in personal devotions and small rituals focusing on grief, healing after loss, and the sanctity of loving bonds, even though this is a contemporary development rather than a directly attested medieval cult.
Narratives
1. The death of Baldr and Nanna’s broken heart
Summary: Baldr, the shining god beloved by all, begins to have ominous dreams of his death. The gods extract oaths from everything in the cosmos not to harm him, and then they play a game of throwing weapons at him, which do no damage. Loki discovers that the mistletoe has been overlooked, fashions a dart from it, and tricks Baldr’s blind brother Höðr into throwing it. Baldr is killed. Overcome with grief at his funeral, Nanna dies on the spot (or shortly thereafter) of a broken heart. She is placed on Baldr’s funeral ship with his body, and they are burned together, later reunited in Hel.
Key themes:
Devotion and grief
The fragility of peace
The inevitability of fate (even when precautions are taken)
Primary sources / scholarly references:
Sturluson, S. (c. 1220/1987). Edda: Prose Edda (A. Faulkes, Trans.). Everyman. (Original work composed c. 1220).
Larrington, C. (Trans.). (1996). The Poetic Edda. Oxford University Press.
Simek, R. (2007). Dictionary of Northern Mythology (A. Hall, Trans.). Boydell Press.
2. Hermóðr’s journey to Hel and Nanna’s gifts
Summary: After Baldr’s death, the god Hermóðr rides to Hel to ask the underworld goddess to release Baldr. Hel agrees on the condition that every being weep for him. During Hermóðr’s visit, Nanna, now in Hel with Baldr, gives him gifts to bring back to the living: a linen robe for Frigg, a finger-ring for Fulla, and unspecified gifts for others. These gifts underscore Nanna’s continued care and connection to the living community even from the realm of the dead, reinforcing her role as a mediator of affection and remembrance.
Primary sources / scholarly references:
Sturluson, S. (c. 1220/1987). Edda: Prose Edda (A. Faulkes, Trans.). Everyman.
Orchard, A. (1997). Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. Cassell.
3. Nanna in Saxo Grammaticus (humanized variant)
Summary (comparative): In Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, there appears a more euhemerized (humanized) counterpart to Nanna as a mortal woman involved with Balderus (Baldr) and Høtherus (Höðr). Here, Nanna becomes the object of rival heroic love rather than a fully divine goddess, echoing, in distorted form, her deep connection to Baldr and themes of love and conflict. This reflects how Christian-era authors recast gods as legendary humans.
Primary source:
Saxo Grammaticus. (c. 1200/2015). The History of the Danes: Gesta Danorum (K. Friis-Jensen & P. Fisher, Eds. & Trans.). Clarendon Press.
Sacred texts: Nanna appears or is referenced in the following key texts (dates refer to composition, not surviving manuscripts):
Snorri Sturluson – Prose Edda
Work: Sturluson, S. (c. 1220/1987). Edda: Prose Edda (A. Faulkes, Trans.). Everyman.
Date: c. 1220 CE (written in Iceland).
Content: Main narrative source for Nanna’s marriage to Baldr, her death from grief, her presence in Hel, and her gifts sent through Hermóðr.Poetic Edda (anonymous)
Work: Larrington, C. (Trans.). (1996). The Poetic Edda. Oxford University Press.
Date of original poems: Mostly 9th–13th centuries CE; preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript (c. 1270).
Content: Baldr’s death and related motifs appear in some poems, though Nanna’s role is clearer in the Prose Edda; the Eddic corpus is foundational context.Saxo Grammaticus – Gesta Danorum
Work: Saxo Grammaticus. (c. 1200/2015). The History of the Danes: Gesta Danorum (K. Friis-Jensen & P. Fisher, Eds. & Trans.). Clarendon Press.
Date: Late 12th–early 13th century CE.
Content: Euhemerized form of Baldr, Höðr, and a love interest figure corresponding to Nanna; not an explicit “goddess Nanna,” but an important comparative source.
In addition, modern studies and mythological dictionaries (e.g., Simek, Orchard) synthesize information about Nanna for contemporary readers and practitioners.
Resources:
Wikipedia Nanna Norse Deity