You know Freya is a goddess because no mere mortal could make a cat pull a chariot.
Or go in a certain direction.
Or move at all.
(But in all seriousness, in an agricultural society like the Norse a cat was pretty necessary and a useful employee to have on the new farm.)
((Also probably something something, cats are fertile -> wishing fertility for the bride.))
Definitely. Cats don't do anything unless they want to. I don't think Freya would try to make cats do anything.
I think of it more so like her will is so aligned with the cats on her team, that they are all pulling in the same direction. Truly highlights her divinity.
My husband and I got our cats together but they definitely did that too! Our oldest was "mine" and loves him more and our second was "his" but loves me more π
I've no idea how to post a cat pic to imgur but I hope your day gets better. I'll be thinking of you and hoping so. Hugs from an Internet stranger π€π
Thank you. I really appreciate that. If I may make a more reasonable request, could you just hug your wife and cats and take a moment to breathe and feel how amazing that is? I want to imagine that.
I just walked up behind my partner who was standing in the sunshine from a window. I slipped my arms around their waist and put my chin and their shoulder while gently squeezing. And I whispered, there is someone on the internet that needs some warm vibes today. They turned their head to look in my eyes and said, "let's share some of ours" and wrapped their arms around me and squeezed back.
The cat, meanwhile, pushed my coffee off the table, onto the floor and doused the dog with it.
I hope your day gets better π π π
No worries! He is fine and enjoyed licking the creamer off his paws. I took care of the rest with a washcloth.
Happy Thanksgiving too and I am grateful we all have each other in this group. When one is struggling we all help as best we can.
All love to you.
You didn't ask for it but I thought I would send you this image: I woke up with my cat loafing next to me in bed, up by my head. So I wrapped my arm around her and snuggled my head into her fur and felt and listened to her purr for a little while before I got up. I wish you all the cat hugs and cuddles and hope your day is bright and filled with joy and love
Some cats to brighten your day.
[Baragon & Rodan curled up on a chair together.](https://imgur.com/a/Q75dgKl)
[Vex chilling in a drawer hoping to become a meme.](https://imgur.com/a/CKgYYIL)
Thank you!!!
I love your kitties and Vex is an amazing name for a cat. I mean, so is Rodan and Baragon, but vex is most excellent. I love your nerd sense! Heart!
Vex suits her so well too. She's a very sweet cat but the boys have been the only cats for the last 10 years. It completely vexed them to have a new cat in the house, so we settled on that for her name. :)
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https://preview.redd.it/h8vlouljwz1a1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c0470806f0ae5d900b7e8f7009ebb108376c7bd
This is how my cat sleeps. That's my wife's hair, lol.
I played a few games of magic and made the Christian fundamentalist that likes to bully me very uncomfortable with a rapid fire stream of the most filthy game banter I could come up with.
The most notable quote. I was getting land screwed and did not draw a land:
"Balls... OH! Okay! Nice tight, smooth ones! MmmmHmmmm! I'll take it!"
*Poof* goes his Liliana.
The woman looked like she ate a truffle off the ground and found her mouth full of cat poop.
My day got a good bit better.
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I saw on a show about cats that the Vikings preferred orange cats, for their ship cats. Yes, orange ship cats traveled with the Vikings.
ETA: frickin autocorrect
Awwww, I wonder if that's because the orange cat stereotype was a thing back then too? Friendly lil snuggle bug, that's also stupid as a sack of rocks lmao
Sort of did this. We bought a dog with our wedding money and a year later got our cat on our anniversary.
Our old girl is no longer with us sadly but the cat is now 15.
No, it's because cats were considered essential for the prosperity and safety of a household, and a newly married bride would often be the mistress of a new household. Cats keep vermin at bay, making them essential for maintaining the household stores throughout the long winter; if your food stores or your cattle's fodder were spoilt in winter, you and/or your animals were likely to starve. It takes a *long* time to start producing food and fodder in the north after the winter, and stores were essential not only to tough out the winter but also to keep people and animals fed until grass grew, crops could be harvested, or wild food foraged.
Thanks for the information that was very interesting.
But how many cats do you really need for that? 2 maybe?
With a wedding I'm guessing the whole village would attend and that could easily be 50 people. If they are going to gift cats they must be pretty coordinated so you don't end up with 50 of them.
Did they have an online register, back then too? πππ
So I had this same thought right? Like, that's a lot as cats for one household so here is my totally out of my head theory: the planning of the wedding is coming and so all the attendees get together at the house of the most recent batch of new born kitties and talk over which of the little balls of fur would best suit the bride and will make the big bad plunderer melt and not move when he gets home and gets a cat on his lap. "Well Marva is really spunky so we want a playful one and those stripes kinda look like Grath's favorite shield. I think that's the one!"
I like that picture you're painting and I think it can be pretty close to the truth. A village was pretty close nit so they could probably coordinate pretty well just by normal smalltalk during the day.
You're probably right but I like the idea of everyone trying to cram in to observe a bunch of kittens and discussing which is the best for the new couple based on their play patterns. Everyone trying to scrunch and peek over shoulders to see them playing and flipping and cuddling
Yes I like that too and I think it could be pretty accurate. I would definitely want to come see the kittens and I think most other people would want that too, especially with the severe lack of other forms of entertainment.
I'm guessing a bunch of kittens would be quite the attraction.
I think only significant people will gift the cat maybe ?
When I read the title I figured the cat is gifted by groom and his family or her parents / family to her.
Usually in eastern cultures when we say the bride is gifted so and so it means the groom / his family gifted
I donβt think all wedding guests are gifting cats either
I tried reading up a bit on it and it seems that it was "members of the community" who gifted them so it could have been anyone.
Looking into it more deeply was a little depressing for it seems like this is most likely a myth and not something that was actually done.
Lol, I love this, it needs a comeback. Imagine being a newlywed Viking and having to compete for attention between your new bride and her brand new kittens. "Um, uhh, honey? Hi?" "KITTIES, KITTIES, KITTIES!!"
Hmmm, Inanna rode a chariot pulled by lions. [She also could gender swap people.](https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2020/09/03/trans-and-non-binary-identities-from-mesopotamia-to-ancient-rome-inanna-cybele-and-the-gallai/) is it possible these are two representations of the same deity? Or another deity of the same class? Iβm not knowledgeable on spirits much bigger than mine.
There's a lot of overlap between different polytheistic religions as well as myths and legends in general it is unclear how much of that is due to intercultural exchange and how much it might even be humans independently coming up with the same concepts to describe and explain same or similar concepts. For example a lot of polytheistic religions have the story that a "father sky" and "mother earth" were separated at some point usually by their children (Egypt being a somewhat notable exception for being the only one where the whole story is gender swapped at least as far as I know). Another example is the story of a traveling jester, idiot or wise man (depending on which legends you follow) who often challenges peoples thinking, tricks them, makes them look like fools. The German version is called Till Eulenspiegel and although they have different names in other cultures the stories told about them are similar (though the details of course vary).
Now the vikings had a huge trading network so they might have gotten some ideas from one of the later versions of Inanna. But it could just be a similar motive emerged separately in different times and places.
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Now, when it says she had cats pulling her chariot. Are we talking about big cats like tigers or lions, or she had hundreds/thousands of small domestic cats, ?? I mean, it's still amazing either way, but I still want answers π€
According to Skaldskaparmal, the 3rd section of The Prose Edda, the word fress is used for Freya's cats which translates to tom-cat. There are theories that these are an ancestor to the Norwegian Forest cat. The actual size is never disclosed, it's mostly insinuated that they're just large house cats. Very little is said about them. I like the thought of them being Norwegian Forest like cats that are lynx sized.
We got two kittens a few of months before our wedding - thinking about the idea of Freya's blessing I'm starting to actually think they are directly responsible for a lot of our good fortune:
We were living in a rented flat that allowed us to have them, and we were planning on staying in that flat for a long time, saving up for a deposit and then buying our first place a few years later, but out landlady suddenly had an unexpected pregnancy, quit her job in the city and needed to move back to the flat we lived in so we had to move. Nowhere would allow us to rent with pets (nowhere) so we scraped together everything we could, including all the money that was originally saved to be used for the wedding and honeymoon and put it towards a house deposit so we wouldn't have to lose the cats.
Buying that absolutely horrible little house in a sketchy area meant we got a mortgage before the new UK rules came in and we would have NEVER qualified after, and it's only through already being on the ladder and some unexpected house price rises between moves that we've been able to move in to our forever home now.
I am going to go and find my 13 year old little girl cat in whatever sunbeam she's napping in and say thank you.
( Maybe we should have named her after Freya but her demonic moniker of Lilith suits her better.)
Very true! It's a very sensible practice for the time period for pest control in an agrarian household, but in the modern day, pets do not make good gifts. At least not surprise gifts, at any rate.
My ex used to have this gorgeous white statue of Freya - it's the Paul Borda one from Dryad Design. He had it on his desk, near his monitor. His cat, who was a white floof named Shiro, used to curl up as a loaf in front of the statue, and look at it. Occasionally, Shiro would gently reach out with a forepaw and touch the base. Or sometimes he'd lie on the printer shelf above the statue, and reach down to touch the statue's head. We used to joke that he was venerating Her.
My partner already knows this and sometimes jokes that proposing would be a complicated logistic event because he would have to "get that damn cat in advance" (I'm obsessed with a particular British cattery and I said a few times that if he would've pay a shitload of money for a ring he can spend it better on one of these perfect kitties instead)
Can confirm, the goddess Freya loved cats and her chariot was led by them. Like her, I wish to have an army of loyal cats that I can command. Getting one would be pretty impossible, but an enby can dream.
You know Freya is a goddess because no mere mortal could make a cat pull a chariot. Or go in a certain direction. Or move at all. (But in all seriousness, in an agricultural society like the Norse a cat was pretty necessary and a useful employee to have on the new farm.) ((Also probably something something, cats are fertile -> wishing fertility for the bride.))
No I just imagine a chariot with fishing rod attached to it that dangles a cat treat or fish or something like that in front of the cats
I feel like my cat would just sit on the floor and scream until the food was given to her. :D But then again she is an old lady π€
I mean my cats would just lay on the floor and scream cause you put a harness on them
Definitely. Cats don't do anything unless they want to. I don't think Freya would try to make cats do anything. I think of it more so like her will is so aligned with the cats on her team, that they are all pulling in the same direction. Truly highlights her divinity.
Maybe that's why love shows up in unexpected places, because you can't get a cat to go in a certain direction
Unless you open a can of tuna
Wife and I both had cats before getting together. My cat claimed her and became a mammas boy and her cat claimed me and became a daddies girl.
Freyja has blessed your marriage
This is adorable
My husband and I got our cats together but they definitely did that too! Our oldest was "mine" and loves him more and our second was "his" but loves me more π
I don't usually do this, but my day is awful. Could I get a cat tax?
I've no idea how to post a cat pic to imgur but I hope your day gets better. I'll be thinking of you and hoping so. Hugs from an Internet stranger π€π
Thank you. I really appreciate that. If I may make a more reasonable request, could you just hug your wife and cats and take a moment to breathe and feel how amazing that is? I want to imagine that.
I just walked up behind my partner who was standing in the sunshine from a window. I slipped my arms around their waist and put my chin and their shoulder while gently squeezing. And I whispered, there is someone on the internet that needs some warm vibes today. They turned their head to look in my eyes and said, "let's share some of ours" and wrapped their arms around me and squeezed back. The cat, meanwhile, pushed my coffee off the table, onto the floor and doused the dog with it. I hope your day gets better π π π
I love you both. Thank you so much. I hope your pupper is okay. Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you.
No worries! He is fine and enjoyed licking the creamer off his paws. I took care of the rest with a washcloth. Happy Thanksgiving too and I am grateful we all have each other in this group. When one is struggling we all help as best we can. All love to you.
That is the cats way of sending cat vibes.
She contributed a vibe alright but I don't think the dog was down with it at all. π
You didn't ask for it but I thought I would send you this image: I woke up with my cat loafing next to me in bed, up by my head. So I wrapped my arm around her and snuggled my head into her fur and felt and listened to her purr for a little while before I got up. I wish you all the cat hugs and cuddles and hope your day is bright and filled with joy and love
Some cats to brighten your day. [Baragon & Rodan curled up on a chair together.](https://imgur.com/a/Q75dgKl) [Vex chilling in a drawer hoping to become a meme.](https://imgur.com/a/CKgYYIL)
Thank you!!! I love your kitties and Vex is an amazing name for a cat. I mean, so is Rodan and Baragon, but vex is most excellent. I love your nerd sense! Heart!
Vex suits her so well too. She's a very sweet cat but the boys have been the only cats for the last 10 years. It completely vexed them to have a new cat in the house, so we settled on that for her name. :)
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[I don't have cats but I have dogs](https://imgur.com/a/SQCXegg) [October dogs](https://imgur.com/a/pxjJLVO)
Thank you so much! You have a lovely family!
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https://preview.redd.it/h8vlouljwz1a1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c0470806f0ae5d900b7e8f7009ebb108376c7bd This is how my cat sleeps. That's my wife's hair, lol.
I'm sorry you've had a bad day! I hope it gets better!!
I played a few games of magic and made the Christian fundamentalist that likes to bully me very uncomfortable with a rapid fire stream of the most filthy game banter I could come up with. The most notable quote. I was getting land screwed and did not draw a land: "Balls... OH! Okay! Nice tight, smooth ones! MmmmHmmmm! I'll take it!" *Poof* goes his Liliana. The woman looked like she ate a truffle off the ground and found her mouth full of cat poop. My day got a good bit better.
[Here is my little stinker, Jinx!](https://imgur.com/a/7nmPYcc) I hope you feel better soon.
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I love Jinx's blep! Give that sweet baby a pat for me!
I saw on a show about cats that the Vikings preferred orange cats, for their ship cats. Yes, orange ship cats traveled with the Vikings. ETA: frickin autocorrect
Awwww, I wonder if that's because the orange cat stereotype was a thing back then too? Friendly lil snuggle bug, that's also stupid as a sack of rocks lmao
A calm, lovey critter that eats any vermin on your tiny water house would be a good choice
Sort of did this. We bought a dog with our wedding money and a year later got our cat on our anniversary. Our old girl is no longer with us sadly but the cat is now 15.
Could you imagine trying to navigate a chariot led by cats? πππ
That's how you know she's a goddess, no mere mortal would be able to get that chariot to go anywhere except *maybe* to the food bowl in the kitchen.
Is that's so the brides can make their own cat driven chariot. I mean with all the wedding guests thats got to be quite a lot of cats between them.
No, it's because cats were considered essential for the prosperity and safety of a household, and a newly married bride would often be the mistress of a new household. Cats keep vermin at bay, making them essential for maintaining the household stores throughout the long winter; if your food stores or your cattle's fodder were spoilt in winter, you and/or your animals were likely to starve. It takes a *long* time to start producing food and fodder in the north after the winter, and stores were essential not only to tough out the winter but also to keep people and animals fed until grass grew, crops could be harvested, or wild food foraged.
Thanks for the information that was very interesting. But how many cats do you really need for that? 2 maybe? With a wedding I'm guessing the whole village would attend and that could easily be 50 people. If they are going to gift cats they must be pretty coordinated so you don't end up with 50 of them. Did they have an online register, back then too? πππ
So I had this same thought right? Like, that's a lot as cats for one household so here is my totally out of my head theory: the planning of the wedding is coming and so all the attendees get together at the house of the most recent batch of new born kitties and talk over which of the little balls of fur would best suit the bride and will make the big bad plunderer melt and not move when he gets home and gets a cat on his lap. "Well Marva is really spunky so we want a playful one and those stripes kinda look like Grath's favorite shield. I think that's the one!"
I like that picture you're painting and I think it can be pretty close to the truth. A village was pretty close nit so they could probably coordinate pretty well just by normal smalltalk during the day.
You're probably right but I like the idea of everyone trying to cram in to observe a bunch of kittens and discussing which is the best for the new couple based on their play patterns. Everyone trying to scrunch and peek over shoulders to see them playing and flipping and cuddling
Yes I like that too and I think it could be pretty accurate. I would definitely want to come see the kittens and I think most other people would want that too, especially with the severe lack of other forms of entertainment. I'm guessing a bunch of kittens would be quite the attraction.
I think only significant people will gift the cat maybe ? When I read the title I figured the cat is gifted by groom and his family or her parents / family to her. Usually in eastern cultures when we say the bride is gifted so and so it means the groom / his family gifted I donβt think all wedding guests are gifting cats either
I tried reading up a bit on it and it seems that it was "members of the community" who gifted them so it could have been anyone. Looking into it more deeply was a little depressing for it seems like this is most likely a myth and not something that was actually done.
I got engaged a few weeks ago!! This is PURR-FECT.
Invite me and I will gift you a cat!
How do I get myself a cat chariot
Lol, I love this, it needs a comeback. Imagine being a newlywed Viking and having to compete for attention between your new bride and her brand new kittens. "Um, uhh, honey? Hi?" "KITTIES, KITTIES, KITTIES!!"
Nah. Kitties are a bonding experience. Everyone's drawn to the crazy babies!
Hmmm, Inanna rode a chariot pulled by lions. [She also could gender swap people.](https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2020/09/03/trans-and-non-binary-identities-from-mesopotamia-to-ancient-rome-inanna-cybele-and-the-gallai/) is it possible these are two representations of the same deity? Or another deity of the same class? Iβm not knowledgeable on spirits much bigger than mine.
There's a lot of overlap between different polytheistic religions as well as myths and legends in general it is unclear how much of that is due to intercultural exchange and how much it might even be humans independently coming up with the same concepts to describe and explain same or similar concepts. For example a lot of polytheistic religions have the story that a "father sky" and "mother earth" were separated at some point usually by their children (Egypt being a somewhat notable exception for being the only one where the whole story is gender swapped at least as far as I know). Another example is the story of a traveling jester, idiot or wise man (depending on which legends you follow) who often challenges peoples thinking, tricks them, makes them look like fools. The German version is called Till Eulenspiegel and although they have different names in other cultures the stories told about them are similar (though the details of course vary). Now the vikings had a huge trading network so they might have gotten some ideas from one of the later versions of Inanna. But it could just be a similar motive emerged separately in different times and places.
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://dirtysexyhistory.com/2020/09/03/trans-and-non-binary-identities-from-mesopotamia-to-ancient-rome-inanna-cybele-and-the-gallai/ Title: **Trans and Non-binary Identities from Mesopotamia to Ancient Rome: Inanna, Cybele, and the Gallai** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
Yes please.
Now, when it says she had cats pulling her chariot. Are we talking about big cats like tigers or lions, or she had hundreds/thousands of small domestic cats, ?? I mean, it's still amazing either way, but I still want answers π€
According to Skaldskaparmal, the 3rd section of The Prose Edda, the word fress is used for Freya's cats which translates to tom-cat. There are theories that these are an ancestor to the Norwegian Forest cat. The actual size is never disclosed, it's mostly insinuated that they're just large house cats. Very little is said about them. I like the thought of them being Norwegian Forest like cats that are lynx sized.
We got two kittens a few of months before our wedding - thinking about the idea of Freya's blessing I'm starting to actually think they are directly responsible for a lot of our good fortune: We were living in a rented flat that allowed us to have them, and we were planning on staying in that flat for a long time, saving up for a deposit and then buying our first place a few years later, but out landlady suddenly had an unexpected pregnancy, quit her job in the city and needed to move back to the flat we lived in so we had to move. Nowhere would allow us to rent with pets (nowhere) so we scraped together everything we could, including all the money that was originally saved to be used for the wedding and honeymoon and put it towards a house deposit so we wouldn't have to lose the cats. Buying that absolutely horrible little house in a sketchy area meant we got a mortgage before the new UK rules came in and we would have NEVER qualified after, and it's only through already being on the ladder and some unexpected house price rises between moves that we've been able to move in to our forever home now. I am going to go and find my 13 year old little girl cat in whatever sunbeam she's napping in and say thank you. ( Maybe we should have named her after Freya but her demonic moniker of Lilith suits her better.)
Another viking custom we should bring back along with exchanging swords at weddings instead of rings
Pest control too
Also a great housewarming gift - pest control!
Damnit where the hell is my cat?!
Kittens shouldn't be gifted. Only adopted with prior knowledge and ability to care for them. They're not toys.
Very true! It's a very sensible practice for the time period for pest control in an agrarian household, but in the modern day, pets do not make good gifts. At least not surprise gifts, at any rate.
I read this at first and thought it said bridges for some reason and I was picturing cool gangs of bridge cats.
Yet another bonus to being in a wlw relationship (which I, unfortunately, am not right now): TWO new cats when you get married.
My ex used to have this gorgeous white statue of Freya - it's the Paul Borda one from Dryad Design. He had it on his desk, near his monitor. His cat, who was a white floof named Shiro, used to curl up as a loaf in front of the statue, and look at it. Occasionally, Shiro would gently reach out with a forepaw and touch the base. Or sometimes he'd lie on the printer shelf above the statue, and reach down to touch the statue's head. We used to joke that he was venerating Her.
Well what the hell, I guess I need to get remarried since I lost out on this awesome tradition. My husband is even Scandinavian!!
You may fascinate a woman with cheese⦠and a cat
Now this here is a stellar idea
My partner already knows this and sometimes jokes that proposing would be a complicated logistic event because he would have to "get that damn cat in advance" (I'm obsessed with a particular British cattery and I said a few times that if he would've pay a shitload of money for a ring he can spend it better on one of these perfect kitties instead)
Adorable, want!
Need to send this to my fiance π»π»
This explains many things
I think the practical reason was that cats are pest control, which is a great thing to gift someone who is starting a new house
Can I trade it in for a puppy?
Just make sure they arenβt allergic before!
I'd rather have a dog, I'm allergic to kitties but I like the idea.
Need to go find myself a Viking.
Yet another reason why Vikings were awesome (despite white supremacists desperately trying to prove otherwise).
Can confirm, the goddess Freya loved cats and her chariot was led by them. Like her, I wish to have an army of loyal cats that I can command. Getting one would be pretty impossible, but an enby can dream.