I had originally intended to interview Jörð. That was the plan, anyway. I had questions prepared, notes tucked away, and what I thought was a perfectly reasonable idea of how the conversation would go. I expected to ask questions. She would answer them. Perhaps I would learn something interesting along the way.

Instead, I found myself moving through the spirit realm during an impromptu meditation session where rather than inviting her to my office I had been left standing in her garden. In retrospect, I probably should have known better.

Jörð is not the sort of person who needs an office, a desk, or a carefully arranged interview space. She has her garden, her mountains, her trees, and enough stories to fill several lifetimes.

“Hallo! Welcome, welcome. Take a seat. Don’t worry about the mess. It’s garden season, and I just love having all the seedlings bursting forth. I suppose you want to hear my story, hmmmm?”

She had greeted me at the door with dirt on her hands, led me straight to one of the garden plots, and somehow managed to make it clear within the first few minutes that whatever I had planned was no longer particularly important.

We settled beside a small wooden table while she went about her gardening. I tried, at first, to maintain some semblance of an interview. I asked a few questions. She answered them, although not always in the way I expected. Eventually, I stopped trying to guide the conversation and simply let her talk. Clearly, I just needed to be quiet and any questions I had would be answered in her own good time.

That was when the subject finally turned toward Óðinn. Jörð stopped what she was doing and looked at me. There was a moment of silence. Then she smiled.

“Oh, you want to hear that story.”

I nodded.

She got up laughing softly, wiped her hands, and settled herself more comfortably in a chair across from me.

Jörð glanced around at the garden as though seeing it for the first time, although there was nothing particularly untidy about it. Seedlings filled wooden trays along the edge of the garden, herbs grew in carefully tended beds, and baskets of freshly turned soil sat beside a little wooden table covered in gardening tools. She brushed a bit of earth from her hands and smiled.

“Well, let’s see. I suppose I should start by clearing up a few things before diving into that particular tale, mostly because humans have a habit of taking one little scrap of information and turning it into an entire biography.”

She settled herself more comfortably.

“I have been called many names over the eras. Even ones that didn’t belong to me at all: Hlöðyn. Erce. Fjörgyn. My favorite is Jörð. It’s short and sweet, kind of like me.”

She laughed. “Allow me to offer some back story. Perhaps your readers will enjoy connecting the dots more if I offer a little explanation for my appearance. My mother is Nótt, and my father is Ónarr. I get my stature from my father’s people, the dwarfs. Before anyone asks, no, that doesn’t mean I am supposed to be tiny. Dwarfs come in all sorts of sizes. My father’s people simply tend toward the shorter side. My mother’s people, on the other hand, are generally quite tall. I managed to end up taller than my father and considerably shorter than my mother, which seems to have been a reasonable compromise.”

Her smile softened.

“My parents had quite a love affair back then. I view romantic liaisons much the same way humans eventually came to view friendships. Some are there for a moment, some for a season, and some for a lifetime. My parents had a slightly shorter season, of which I was the result.”

She looked toward the garden, a soft, thoughtful look crossing her face. “I have a few memories of them together. They were always laughing. My mother loves to laugh. I think I get that from her. My father was usually quiet and serious, but my mother’s laughter could pull him out of that seriousness faster than anything else.”

She paused. “When she became part of the night sky, I stayed with my father, closer to the earth. She would come to visit often. We would play and sing and dance. This was before Mundilfæri tied his family to time, so things were a little different then. I should probably clarify that when I say earth, I am not specifically talking about Miðgarðr alone. I mean land as a physical body. Soil. The living ground beneath your feet. In those early days, the realms were not divided as neatly as humans like to imagine now.”

She gave a little shrug. “Boundaries came later.”

Her expression became amused.

“My parents remained friendly even after their love affair ended. My mother soon found her life-mate in Dellingr, and the love between them has always been rather lovely to witness. And I love having a younger brother. I see you look a bit skeptical. Yes, of course we still speak to one another.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Did you really think humans were the only ones with telephones? Who do you think inspired that particular invention?”

Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “We knew humans needed a push and they got it from several sides. It was quite painful watching the experiments to develop those communication devices. But you eventually got it. Good job!

Now, I mention all of this because people tend to make assumptions about me before they even get to my story. The same thing happens with my appearance. I have never understood why humans insist that goddesses of the earth must have milky-white skin. If the earth is white…there is a problem with your soil. My mother is dark. My father has dusky skin. Why on earth would I be white?”

She laughed at her own choice of words. “Why on earth. See what I did there?”

I was confused at how she was jumping around in the conversation. I never thought to ask her about her appearance. Although, having the answers to those inevitable queries was very convenient.

She grinned. “I am not as dark as my mother, but I am certainly not “white.” I once heard a lovely phrase used on Miðgarðr for women whose coloring resembles mine. Café au lait.”

She rolled the words around thoughtfully. “Isn’t that lovely? It sounds almost decadent. I have decided to keep it.”

Jörð leaned back and looked toward the mountains beyond the garden. “Now, let’s address the reason for your visit. I suppose you want to hear about how I met Odin? About how he “seduced” me to create my sons?”

Once again, I nodded. There is so little mentioned about it in the lore after all.

Her smile changed. “Ah, yes.” She laughed softly as her eyes became a bit wistful. “Him. I could tell you that story. But how about I tell you the truth instead?”

She settled deeper into her seat and clasped her hands over her belly, closing her eyes for a moment as she recalled the events from the past.

“I remember the first time I saw him. Well, them, actually. Óðinn wasn’t alone.” She opened her eyes, her gaze drifting beyond the garden and the mountains as though she could still see the morning she was about to describe.

“It was a beautiful morning. I had been awake since before sunrise because one of my gardens was ready for harvest, and I wanted to get everything gathered before the day became too warm. The soil was particularly good that year. Dark and rich, still holding the dampness of the night, with roots spreading through it in every direction. I had settled down among the plants with a basket beside me when I felt two people approaching.

I knew they were strangers before I ever saw them. When you are truly in tune, you learn to recognize movement in ways other people don’t. I can feel footsteps through the ground long before they reach me. I can tell the difference between an animal moving through the grass and a person walking with purpose. These two were both moving carefully, but one of them carried a certain weight of attention with him. He was noticing everything. The other was more relaxed. I eventually learned that the first was Óðinn and the second was Lóðurr.”

She smiled.

“Neither of them seemed particularly interested in hiding the fact that they had discovered something unexpected. The two had been traveling together and set themselves up nearby, in a field I had deliberately left fallow for the season. I had no immediate plans for it. The ground needed to rest, and I was perfectly happy to let the grasses and wild plants have their turn. It made a good place for travelers to camp, too, although I had not expected these particular men.

They were close enough that I could see their fire from the garden in the evenings. I could hear them moving about in the mornings. They weren’t intruding on my space, so I had no reason to object to their presence. If they wanted to sleep in an empty field for a few nights, that was their business. Still, I noticed them. Especially Óðinn.” She laughed softly.

“Then came the day he noticed me, too. I was kneeling in the soil when they came close enough to see the garden properly. I looked up and found both of them standing at the edge of the cultivated ground. Lóðurr was looking around with open curiosity, taking in the plants and the trees and the little streams running through the property. Óðinn was looking at me.

Now, I had heard of Óðinn, of course. Even then, he was developing quite a reputation for himself. He was already restless, already hungry for knowledge, already wandering from place to place asking questions that had a tendency to irritate anyone who preferred their secrets to remain their own.”

She gave a little shrug. “I wasn’t particularly impressed. Handsome, though.” She paused, considering. “Very handsome.”

“He had the sort of face that made it obvious he knew his appearance was pleasing. The way he carried his body made evident he was no stranger to the effect he could have on a woman. Not in a way I found especially unpleasant. He simply carried himself with the confidence of a man who had spent enough time being admired that he had never needed to wonder whether he deserved it.

Which I found both interesting and a little entertaining. Lóðurr was the first to speak. He was polite, and I liked that immediately. I greatly appreciate good manners. He explained that they had been traveling through the area and had noticed how fertile the land was becoming as they came farther into the valley. He was curious as to whether this was my home. I told him it was.

He then looked around again, clearly impressed. There were no walls around the property. No gate. No road aside from the main trail. Nothing that announced where my land began and ended. In those days, the boundaries between places were not nearly as rigid as humans later came to imagine them. The land simply changed from one kind of wilderness to another.

He then asked how I made everything grow so well. Which I responded with I didn’t. THAT seemed to surprise him.”

“I explained that I didn’t make anything grow. I gave the plants what they needed, kept the soil healthy, protected what needed protecting, and let the living things do what they were designed to do. Óðinn was listening very carefully by then, he had yet to say a single word. I could tell he was trying to decide whether there was some deeper meaning to what I had said. Some special magic to explain it.”

She smiled. “He did that a lot.”

“I invited them to stay for a meal, good hospitality being something to cultivate after all. They were travelers, and I had more than enough food. There was no reason to send them back to their camp hungry. Lóðurr accepted without hesitation, but Óðinn looked at me for a moment as though he suspected I had some hidden motive. I found that rather amusing. So, I handed him a basket.

He looked down at it in confusion. I told him that if he wanted to eat, he could help me harvest.” She laughed.

“I don’t think anyone had given Óðinn that particular instruction before. He just stood there. Lóðurr, bless him, took the basket I offered him and went to work without making a fuss. Óðinn stood there for another moment, looking at his brother, then at me, and finally at the basket.

I remember thinking that he was going to ask me a question about whether this was some sort of test. I don’t think he realized it was written all over his face. He asked. I told him no, no test, just a basket.” She smiled.

“That was the beginning for my education of Óðinn. I enjoyed having them nearby. Lóðurr was pleasant company, and I found myself talking with him easily. Óðinn was another matter. He was curious about everything the same as his brother but his intensity…it just hit differently than Lóðurr’s.”

He asked about the land, the plants, the streams, the soil, and even the trees. Why one patch grew better than another. Why I had left the field where they were camped fallow. Why certain herbs thrived in shade while others needed full sun. Why it seems that the plants I tended grew so effortlessly when others had struggled with their fields. He asked questions constantly, and I answered when I felt like it.”

“Sometimes I answered him honestly, but others I told him to figure out himself. Occasionally, I gave him an answer that was technically correct but sufficiently incomplete so that he would spend the next several hours trying to work out what I had left unsaid.” She grinned. “I may have enjoyed that last one a little too much.

Still, I kept him at arm’s length deliberately. He was staying in the field. I was in my home. We worked together in the garden for several hours each day, ate together when I invited them, and talked when I was in the mood for company, but I never invited him farther into my private life than that.”

“I wanted to confuse him. I wanted him to wonder. And wonder he did. Óðinn was accustomed to seeking things. Knowledge. Wisdom. Power. Secrets. He liked the pursuit almost as much as he liked the answer. So when I gave him something he couldn’t immediately understand, I became a curiosity he wanted to solve.”

She laughed. “He just didn’t realize that I knew exactly what I was doing to him. I certainly wasn’t going to solve myself for him. He needed to know that not everything would be handed to him, especially when it came to a woman’s attentions. No sir. He needed to earn that. The fun part was that it took him a while to figure it out.”

Jörð laughed softly. “Of course, he kept coming back attempting to put a label on things.”

She reached for the cup beside her and took a slow drink, looking entirely too pleased with herself.

“Lóðurr would have some perfectly ordinary reason for stopping by, and Óðinn would accompany him. If Lóðurr wanted to see the stream, Óðinn came to see the stream. If Lóðurr wanted to ask about the fruit trees, Óðinn suddenly found fruit trees fascinating. If Lóðurr stopped because he smelled bread baking, Óðinn developed an interest in bread.”

She laughed. “After a while, I began to suspect that Lóðurr knew exactly what his brother was doing but I never asked him. I rather enjoyed watching the two of them. It was clear that Lóðurr had every intention of milking a reaction out of his brother, no matter the lengths needed. He thought it was funny that Óðinn still hadn’t made any actual attempt to court me.”

She rested her elbow against the arm of her chair. “He was circling though. Not physically. He wasn’t lurking behind trees or following me around like some lovesick creature. Óðinn had far too much dignity for that.” She gave a knowing look.

“Too much dignity, at least in his own opinion. Instead, he simply kept putting himself where I happened to be. If I was working in the garden, he found some reason to be in the garden. If I walked down toward the stream, he somehow needed to inspect the stream. If I sat beneath one of the older trees in the afternoon, he would eventually appear and settle himself nearby with the expression of a man who had just happened to wander into exactly the right place.”

She smiled. “I never invited him. I didn’t need to. I simply let him come to me because there was a certain pleasure in it.”

She looked toward the garden. “I had never had anyone quite like Óðinn take such an interest in me. Don’t misunderstand that as I had no experience. I’ve had plenty of lovers over the years. This though was a little different. I knew what he wanted. He wanted to understand me. He wanted to know what I knew. He wanted to discover whether there was something hidden beneath the things I said. And, he wanted me.”

Her expression softened. I admit that I may have blushed just a little.

“I think that was the part that surprised me. I was accustomed to being wanted. I was accustomed to being admired, desired, pursued. Óðinn was different because he was curious about me in a way that went beyond my appearance. He wanted to know what was beneath the surface, and I found that terribly appealing.” She smiled to herself. “Of course, he also thought he was being clever about it.

The first real change came one afternoon when we were sitting beneath the old ash tree near the edge of the garden. I had been sorting herbs into small bundles, and Óðinn had somehow managed to arrive with no particular reason for being there. At least, none that he was willing to admit.

He settled against the trunk opposite me and watched what I was doing for a while. We talked about nothing especially important. The weather. The harvest. Something Lóðurr had said that morning that Óðinn found ridiculous. I remember thinking that this was actually the first time he seemed entirely comfortable around me. He wasn’t trying to impress me. He wasn’t asking questions. He was simply there. It was rather nice. Eventually, he reached across and took one of the herbs from my hand. His fingers brushed mine as he did, and he looked at me. I looked back.

For someone who had spent so much time trying to understand me, Óðinn suddenly seemed to forget how conversation worked. I decided to throw him a life raft and smiled at him. Taking the hint, he smiled back. Then, very carefully, he kissed me.”

Jörð laughed softly. “It was a perfectly good kiss. Confident. Intentional. Very Óðinn. I could tell he had done this before and had probably received quite a bit of encouragement for it.”

She shook her head, amused. “But I also knew immediately that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.”

I was shocked and didn’t know what to think about this criticism. She paused just long enough to enjoy the memory.

“Now, don’t misunderstand me. He wasn’t bad. He was simply very focused on doing it correctly. There is a difference. I remember putting my hand against his chest and gently easing him back. He looked at me with an expression that was almost comically puzzled, as though I had interrupted some carefully planned ritual. I then told him he was thinking too much and just relax. Of course, that offended him just a little.”

“Oh, he tried very hard to pretend it didn’t,” she said with a grin. “But I knew that look, he had been on my land for long enough that I had seen just about every expression cross his face at some point. Óðinn had been told that he was clever and sexy for so long that the possibility of being wrong about something was practically offensive to him.

I leaned closer and kissed him again, slower this time, far more deliberately than I think he was used to. And when I pulled away I told him that if he wanted to understand women, and what they wanted, he was going to have to learn to pay attention to the woman in front of him, not the ones he had been with before.

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled. Not the confident smile he had been wearing around me for weeks. This one was different. Smaller. Curious, and more genuine. That was when I knew I was in trouble. Or perhaps, if I am being honest, that was when I decided he was worth the trouble.

I let my fingers trail lightly over his cheek before standing. “Come with me,” I told him. He quickly got up and followed. Of course he did.

I led him back toward the house, though I didn’t hurry. I wanted him to wonder where we were going, and I suspect he had already imagined several possibilities. I would soon discover Óðinn had a wonderfully active imagination when it came to things he wanted.

Inside, I put the herbs away and poured us each something to drink. He watched me with that same curious expression he had worn beneath the ash tree, though there was something else there now. Anticipation, certainly. A little uncertainty, which I found rather charming.

I sat beside him and let the silence stretch. He finally asked me what I was thinking. I told him I was deciding whether he was ready. That comment earned me a look.

Oh, he did not like that at all,” Jörð said, laughing. “He had spent weeks convincing himself that he was the one doing the pursuing. Suddenly I was sitting there deciding whether he was ready, and I could practically hear his pride objecting.

I kissed him again before he could argue. I knew what I wanted and it was time to act on it. I didn’t have to tell him to slow down. He was listening, and oh was he a fast learner.

Óðinn was clever enough that once he stopped trying to prove that he already knew everything there was a great deal of fun to be had. I showed him that affection was not a performance and desire was not a contest. I taught him to notice the little things: when I leaned closer, when I pulled away, when I wanted him to stay and when I wanted him to wait. I taught him that a woman will tell you quite a lot without ever speaking, if you are willing to pay attention.

He took to that lesson surprisingly well. Perhaps because, beneath all that confidence, Óðinn was genuinely curious. No one had taken the time to explain it to him before. Once he realized that there was something he didn’t understand, he wanted to understand it properly. And boy did he make me very happy to be his teacher.”

She smiled, her expression becoming softer as the memory settled around her.

“I won’t tell you everything that happened that night. Some things belong to the people who lived them, and I have never believed that every intimate moment needs an audience.”

She glanced toward the garden with a mischievous little smile.

“I will tell you that Óðinn learned quickly. Very quickly. By the time the sun began to rise, he had become considerably better with women than he had been the day before.”

She laughed.

“And I learned something too.” Her smile faded into something warmer.

“I learned that beneath all that ambition, all that hunger for knowledge, all that restless need to understand the world, there was a man who could actually listen when he found the worth in what he was hearing. He simply needed someone to make him stop talking long enough to do it.”

I choked on a laugh at that last comment. She took another sip from her cup. “After that, things between us became rather interesting.”

Óðinn did not suddenly become an expert on women, despite what he may have thought. He simply became much better at listening to me, which was a considerable improvement. He still came to the garden, of course, although his reasons became considerably less convincing. He no longer needed Lóðurr to provide an excuse for visiting. He simply appeared, usually carrying something he thought I might find useful or interesting, and I began to suspect that half the things he brought were chosen because they gave him a reason to stay a little longer.

He was also much less certain of himself around me.

That part was rather adorable.

For all his confidence, Óðinn never quite seemed to know what I felt about him. I would catch him watching me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, and whenever our eyes met, he would look away with an expression that suggested he had suddenly become fascinated by a tree. He would stay at the house for a few days and then return to the camp in the field, only to come back the next morning with some completely unnecessary question about the garden. I knew perfectly well that he wasn’t really interested in whether the beans needed another week before harvesting. He wanted to know whether I wanted him there.

I found this endlessly entertaining but I never made it easy for him.

If he asked whether I wanted him to stay, I might tell him yes. If he asked whether I had missed him, I might smile and change the subject. If he kissed me goodbye, I might kiss him back warmly enough to leave him wondering whether I wanted him to go at all. I didn’t. That was the trouble. I liked having him around.

I liked the way his mind worked, even when it wandered into places that made absolutely no sense to anyone but Óðinn. I liked his questions. I liked the way he would become completely absorbed in something I said and then spend the next several hours trying to work out what I had meant by it. I liked his laugh, although he tried very hard to make it dignified. It wasn’t. He snorts when he laughs for real.

Most of all, I liked the moments when he forgot to be Óðinn. Those were the moments when he was simply himself. He could be surprisingly gentle when he wasn’t trying to prove that he was asomething special.

I would sometimes ask him what he was thinking, knowing perfectly well what he was thinking, and he would give me some elaborate answer about the weather or the harvest or something he’d been considering during his travels. I would listen politely, nod, and then kiss him before he could finish explaining himself.

He eventually learned that I did this when I was amused with him. Yet he never quite learned to predict when I would do it.”

“I think that was one of my favorite things about him,” Jörð said, smiling. “He could face giants, gods, monsters, and things that would make most people run in the opposite direction, but I could kiss him unexpectedly and suddenly he wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.”

She shook her head fondly. “He wanted to know whether I loved him. I think he wanted a very definite answer. Óðinn likes certainty when it comes to things he has decided are important. I never gave him one. Not because I didn’t care for him. I did. I simply didn’t see the point in putting a name on something that was perfectly happy being what it was.

We spent time together. We laughed. We talked late into the evening. He would tell me about places he had seen and things he had learned, and I would tell him stories of the land. He would ask questions, and I would answer some of them and deliberately refuse others.

He loved that. At least, he claimed he did. I think there were moments when he wanted to shake me. I rather enjoyed those moments too.

Eventually, though, the time came for Óðinn and Lóðurr to continue on their way. I knew it before either of them said anything. Travelers have a certain restlessness about them, and Óðinn had never been a man who stayed anywhere simply because staying was comfortable. They had stayed longer than originally intended, although neither would admit that was because of me.

Still, I was amused by how long it took him to actually tell me. Like he had to work up the courage. He found me in the garden one morning, helping a row of young plants settle into freshly turned earth. He stood there for a while before finally admitting that they would be leaving soon.

I looked up at him and asked when. The next morning, he said. I nodded and went back to what I was doing. That clearly wasn’t the reaction he had expected. Sometimes I think he expected me to burst into tears or beg him to stay. He lingered, waiting. I kept working.

Finally, he asked whether I was going to miss him. I looked at him then and decided to ease his tension and insecurity.

“Of course I will.” He smiled, but there was still doubt behind it. Then he asked whether I wanted him to stay. That one made me laugh.

“Óðinn, if I wanted you to stay, do you really think I would need to ask you to?” He stared at me for a moment. Then he laughed too.

“Oh, he finally understood,” Jörð said, shaking her head. “At least a little. I stood and brushed the soil from my hands. I walked over to him and kissed him, slowly and tenderly, without teasing him this time.

“You were always welcome here,” I told him. “You simply needed to understand that being welcome and being needed are not the same thing. Your path continues. I understand that.”

He was quiet, contemplating who knew what.

On the morning they left, I walked with them as far as the edge of the field where they had made their camp. The fire had burned down to ash, their things were packed, and the little patch of land that had held them for those weeks looked almost strangely empty.

Before he left, he asked whether he would see me again. I told him that the earth had a habit of remaining exactly where it was. He gave me that puzzled look I had come to enjoy so much. They began to head down the road, away from my little patch. Óðinn looked back more than once. The last time, our eyes met across the distance, and I smiled.

He smiled back. Then they were gone. I knew Óðinn would come back eventually. Men like him always do when they have found something they cannot quite understand.

Jörð smiled into her cup. “And I suppose you could say I had become a mystery to him.”

She laughed softly. “The funny thing is, I never meant to be.” She looked toward the garden again, her expression thoughtful now.

“I simply refused to let him assume that wanting me meant he already knew me. There is a difference between being desired and being understood. Óðinn had to learn that.”

She paused. “And perhaps I had something to learn too.” Her fingers traced the rim of her cup. “I had not expected to enjoy him as much as I did. I certainly hadn’t expected to miss him when he left.”

A small smile returned. “I did, though.”

Jörð leaned back in her chair, her expression thoughtful. I never expected him to become what he became. I certainly didn’t expect that little encounter in my garden to become the beginning of something that would eventually give us my sons.

She smiled. But I suppose that is the way of these things. You plant something, you tend it, you give it room to grow, and then you discover that it has become something much larger than you expected.

She glanced down at the dirt beneath her fingernails.

“And Óðinn?” Her smile turned mischievous again. “He went away thinking he had seduced me. Which is how the bards tell the story.”

She laughed. “I let him keep thinking that for quite a long time.”

A pause. “After all, there are some lessons a man learns better when he thinks they were his idea. Although I do occasionally wonder how many women throughout the ages have unknowingly benefited from the lessons I gave that particular god.”

She laughed. “I hope at least a few of them remembered to thank me.”

She settled back comfortably. “And that, my dear, is the story of how Óðinn came looking for the secrets of the earth and ended up learning a little something about women instead.”

She smiled into her cup. “Honestly, I think I got the better bargain in the end.”

We said our goodbyes shortly after that, my head swimming with what I had heard. When I was once more in the mortal world I couldn’t help but think of her laughing face. So rich and vibrant, filled with a joy for life. It made me realize exactly why a certain god found her so entrancing.

I hope one day to find myself back in that garden. There must be so many more tales she has to share. 🙂