Norse

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Norse

Sif

The Goddess of Golden Hair

Domain: Earth & Harvest
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Earth
Relics of Power: Golden Tresses

Speak with Sif

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Norse & Germanic peoples

Region

Scandinavia & northern Europe

Period

Viking Age, 8th–11th c.

The gods of Asgard were worshipped by the Norse peoples of Scandinavia and by the Germanic tribes, especially during the Viking Age. Warriors sought to die in battle to reach Odin's Valhalla, and the myths were preserved in the Icelandic Eddas. The cult declined with the region's Christianization around the year 1000.

The Norse celebrated blóts, seasonal sacrifices with feasts of meat and mead, such as the Yule of the winter solstice. The great temple at Uppsala, in Sweden, hosted every nine years one of the largest sacrificial festivals of the Viking world.

At a glance

Sif appears in the Norse sources chiefly as Thor’s wife and Ullr’s mother. Snorri Sturluson tells how Loki cut off her hair and, to make amends, obtained from the sons of Ívaldi a head of golden hair able to grow on her head. The same account connects the reparation with the making of other divine objects. In Lokasenna, Sif offers Loki mead and receives an accusation of infidelity. In Anderson’s translation of the Prose Edda and Thorpe’s translation of the Poetic Edda she is also recalled in a threat by the giant Hrungnir and in Snorri’s euhemerist prologue. These texts do not present her as ruler of the harvest or describe a cult devoted to her.

The ancient sources on this deity are scarce. This study gathers only what is on record.

8 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

Golden hair, wheat sheaves, and the harvest fields

Family

Sif

Unions

Thor

Children

UllrÞrúðr

Genealogy according to Snorri, Gylfaginning 31; Skáldskaparmál (Þórsdrápa, “pai de Thruda”, com nota editorial de Anderson e Thorpe)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Snorri Sturluson, The Younger Edda, also called Snorre’s Edda, or The Prose Edda, translated by Rasmus B. Anderson (1897). read
Anonymous, The Edda of Sæmund the Learned, translated by Benjamin Thorpe. read

Studies

Elisabeth Arwill-Nordbladh (summarizes Margaret Clunies Ross), Viking Age Hair. 2016. open

Name and epithets

The Old Norse form of the name is Sif. In Skáldskaparmál, Snorri uses her name to explain why gold can be called “Sif’s hair” in poetic language.

In the ancient sources

Prose Edda, 13th century. Lists “Sif’s hair” among the poetic names for gold and tells the cutting and replacement of the hair. Prose Edda, 13th century.

The myths

The cutting of the hair and Loki’s reparation. In Skáldskaparmál, Loki cuts off all of Sif’s hair out of mischief. Thor discovers the deed, seizes Loki and threatens to break every bone in him.

Worship and archaeology

Skáldskaparmál, Gylfaginning 31, Snorri’s Prose Edda prologue, Lokasenna 53–54, Hárbarðsljóð 48 and Hymiskviða 3, 15, 25 and 34 describe no sacrifices, priesthood, festivals or sanctuary of Sif.

How the god was depicted

The texts give prominence to the hair, first cut and then remade in gold. Skáldskaparmál uses “Sif’s hair” as a poetic name for gold, and Snorri’s prologue describes Sif with hair like gold.

What scholars debate

Hair, kinship and harvest. The modern association between Sif’s golden hair and wheat fields is an interpretation, not an explanation given by Skáldskaparmál.

After antiquity

Retellings may concentrate Sif in the golden hair and extend the image to the fertility of the fields. The preserved medieval text gives a narrower base: kinship, a craft reparation, a brief intervention at a feast and…

Did you know?

Snorri includes “Sif’s hair” among the poetic expressions for gold, alongside “fire”, “Fulla’s head-gear” and “Freyja’s tears”. Loki’s story supplies a narrative origin for that formula.

Codex relic

Golden Tresses. Hair of gold forged by the dwarves that ripples like fields of mature wheat in the wind.

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