The Vanir Hostages: The Frith-Makers

The constellation that the Greeks called Gemini, the Twins, has 85 stars in it. However, only three are bright enough to be used as astrological conjunctions - Castor, Pollux, and Alhena. (Two "heads" and a "foot"). When I studied the Twins, it was the Twins that came forth to me.

Twins are common in Indo-European mythology - Castor and Pollux, Helen and Clytemnestra, Apollo and Artemis, the Indo-European Horse Twins. Frey and Freya are just one set representing the awestruck magic that the ancients saw in twin births. When I asked them which was which, Freya stood forward for Castor, the right-hand star of the pair, and Frey stood forward for Pollux. That made a certain amount of sense - in Greek mythology, Castor was the divine twin who did not die, and Pollux was the mortal twin who died and went to the Underworld, thus inducing Castor to make his bargain with the Gods and get them both put into the sky. Many NT shamans see Frey and Freya (like Apollo and Artemis) as light-bearers; Freya is the light that reaches upwards (to Asgard) and then returns, and Frey is the light that reaches downwards into the Underworld and then returns. Both twins made it clear to me that these two stars not only symbolized their twin-ness (as opposed to Arcturus and the Pleiades which see them standing separately, in relation to living and deceased spouses) but symbolized their role as frith-bringers, when they were made hostages to Asgard and went forth to bring peace.

But there is a third hostage to Asgard, and a third bright fixed star in Gemini. That is Alhena, the right "foot" of Pollux, and when I saw it I remembered that Njord, the ship-king who is the twins' father and the third hostage, was the God of the Beautiful Feet, chosen as a husband by Skadi because his beautiful feet were all she could see. This made sense and fell together, so I include all three of them here.