Freyja gets flattened a lot. Love goddess, pretty, done. This book gives you more.
L. Dean Lee's illustrated guide covers who Freyja is, where she came from as a deity, her personality, and her associations ... and then keeps going into the parts that usually get trimmed. She's the seið-speaker, the prosperity-giver, and the lady of the slain, and the book covers how she looks after those who fall in battle alongside the myths where she tricks, barters, and beguiles her way through to Ragnarok.
There's real context here rather than a mythology retread. Lee sets the material against the role of mythology in pre-Christian Viking and Norse life, its survival in folklore, and how that significance carries into modern practice, plus grounding in the wider Norse cosmology — the beings and realms she moves through.
The practical half matters most for working Heathens, offering guidance from a practicing Norse Heathen on how to interact with and venerate Freyja with offerings and altars. Lee runs Skald's Keep, a free online resource on Norse Heathen paganism, and is on staff with Forn Sidr of America.
Illustrated throughout by The Saxon Storyteller. Beautiful enough for a gift, substantial enough to actually use.
Good for newcomers to the Northern Tradition and for anyone building a devotional relationship with her who wants something better than a Pinterest correspondence list.
