Norse Pantheon
Sif
Also known as Golden-Haired
- harvest
- fertility
- family
Wife of Thor and goddess associated with earth and harvest. Famous for her beautiful golden hair, which was once cut by Loki as a prank.
About Sif
The Golden Harvest
Sif is the wife of Thor and a goddess of the earth. Her long golden hair represents the fields of wheat.
The Golden Hair
Loki once cut off all her hair as a malicious prank. To escape Thor's wrath, Loki blackmailed the dwarves into forging new hair of pure gold that would grow like real hair, along with Mjolnir and other treasures.
Origin story
Sif's origins are obscure in the surviving Norse sources, but she is counted among the Aesir goddesses. Before her marriage to Thor, she had a son named Ullr, the god of archery and skiing, whose father is unknown. She became Thor's wife and bore him a daughter, Thrud, whose name means 'strength.' Her most famous attribute is her magnificent golden hair, which some scholars believe symbolized fields of ripened grain, connecting her to agricultural fertility. The story of her hair being cut by Loki and replaced with magical gold hair forged by dwarves explains the origin of several divine treasures, including Thor's hammer Mjolnir.
Across traditions
Parallel figures
Figures who play a role like Sif's in other traditions.
GreekDemeterIllustrationSif's golden hair is traditionally interpreted as a symbol of ripe wheat, paralleling Demeter's domain of grain and harvest
Compare Sif and Demeter side by side
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Sif
Golden hair and the grain field in later reading. Direct cult evidence is poor. She is Thor's wife in the poems; treat harvest associations as inference.
Sacred sites
- No identified temple; paired with Thor in myth
Family
ThorSifRelationship sources
Prose Edda — Thor spouse of Sif
Snorri Sturluson · Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, The Prose Edda (1916), American-Scandinavian Foundation; Internet Sacred Text Archive transcription · Skáldskaparmál IV (4)
Questions about Sif's family
- Who were Sif's spouses and consorts?
- Spouses and consorts of Sif recorded in the atlas: Thor.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Poetic Edda, Lokasenna st. 53 (trans. Bellows)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.
Family relationships come from the atlas's kinship records. Ancient sources often disagree on divine genealogy.
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Genealogy
Family tree
Sif's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.