So I read two papers, and now I've got a weird thought to untangle.
First, John Julian Molin's MA thesis, “Ullr: A God on the Edge of Memory.” In it, he exhaustively covers theophoric place names associated with Ullr and places named for other gods nearby. He points out that there are several places named after *Njärd or *Njörð, as older feminine forms of the god Njord. That's not a huge deal. Academics have been arguing that Njord was originally a goddess, especially in Sweden, for a while now. He also points out places in Norway that use the masculine form. His purpose is to show theophoric place names that are near places named for Ullr, so its not an exhaustive survey of places named for Njord. The important part, for me, is that there is a goddess with a name analogous to Njord, worshipped in Scandinavia, and linguistics suggests she's Bronze Age-old.
Second, Lotte Motz's "The Goddess Nerthus: A New Approach." She makes several arguments (convincingly to my mind) and comes to the conclusion that Tacitus is describing the worship of the Frau Holle/Perchta/Frou Gode/etc family of goddesses, and the "Nerthus" he's describing has nothing to do with Njord, the Vanir, or fertility.
She's not actually reliably named Nerthus by Tacitus. "Nerthus, i.e., nertum, is only one of the several forms transmitted by the manuscripts: the others are necthum, neithum, herthum, Neherthum, Verthum. The variant nertum was chosen by Grimm because it corresponds to Njǫrðr."
This is a sus choice by Grimm and other academics, because Tacitus doesn't use north-Germanic names for deities anywhere else in this work. Where he uses Germanic names, there isn't a north-Germanic counterpart. For example, The Alci, Baduhenna.
Vanir gods were pretty much completely limited to Scandinavia. He's describing a goddess on the continent.
All of this leads her to: "I merely wish to state that the phonetic coincidence of a variant with the name of an Eddic god does not suffice to support an identity of the two numina. I suggest that the name of the goddess, like that of Tamfana, Baduhenna, and the Alci, cannot be equated with that of a known deity of north-Germanic religion." Absolutely fair!
4. She points out that goddesses of the animate and sanctified Earth, i.e. Mother Earth figures, had worship that took a specific shape in Europe, and it looks nothing like what Tacitus is describing for Nerthus. Not only does what's described lack any of the features of a typical Mother Earth's cult, her worship has features that are very odd for a Mother Earth. For example, Mother Earth is always imagined as part of the immediate human environment, never as residing somewhere far away and secret.
5. Academics interpret this goddess as an agricultural fertility goddess, because Tacitus calls her "Terra Mater" but her worship doesn't describe a typical Mother Earth figure. So what's another interpretation of that phrase? Romans don't call their goddesses Mater. That's a title for foreign goddesses, like Cybele and the Matronae. Terra can mean Earth as in "soil," but it can also mean "nation." It's reasonable to interpret "Terra Mater" as "The Patron Goddess of This Foreign Nation."
6. Looking at continental Germanic folklore, the goddess described by Tacitus has several features in common with Frau Holle, Perchta, Frau Gode, etc. That family of goddesses has figures that a) are very important b) live in some remote, secret place in the wilds c) are invisible to men/hidden/veiled d) visit when they feel like it and concern themselves with human domestic affairs when they do e) is associated with a cart procession and f) is associated with bathing
7. The Roman author is probably conflating all the goddesses of this family of related figures into one goddess, because their worship has so much overlap. Lote Motz is not arguing that the Frau Holle, Perchta, etc figures are all one goddess.
This leaves me in a really weird place. I have to conclude that there was a Scandinavian goddess named Nerthus or *Njärd, probably associated with the Vanir, maybe married to Ullr in the Bronze Age, who maybe evolved in Njord of the Eddas towards the Viking Age. And, she's got nothing to do with the goddess described by Tacitus, because Tacitus was probably talking about Wodan's continental Germanic wives.
AND, even if all of that is true, I go to a pagan festival that has a vé for Nerthus. The people think she's one of the Vanir, the wife of Njord, and credit her with providing fertility and abundance. They also veil her statue, put her on a cow-drawn cart, and associate her with water and mysteries (i.e. give her Frou Holle's attributes). Whether it's because of bad scholarship or not, these two streams of divinity have been thoroughly (probably irrevocably) syncretized at this point. (I'm not sure how I feel about any of that, but I don't worship her, so I also don't need to have any feelings on the subject.)
Anyway, thanks for joining me on this weird journey.
