Forseti- Norse GodDeity"God of Justice and Reconciliation"

Also known as: Fosite

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Titles & Epithets

God of Justice and ReconciliationThe Presiding One

Domains

justicereconciliationlawmediation

Symbols

Glitnir

Description

Son of Baldr and Nanna, Forseti holds court in Glitnir, a hall with golden pillars and a silver roof. All who bring their disputes before him leave reconciled. No one else among gods or men judges so well.

Mythology & Lore

Glitnir

Snorri in the Gylfaginning names Forseti as the son of Baldr and Nanna and gives him a hall called Glitnir: golden pillars, silver roof. He sits there and settles disputes. All who come to him with quarrels leave reconciled, and his judgments are the finest among gods and men. The Grímnismál confirms it in a single stanza: Forseti "stills all strifes" for most of his days.

No surviving source records a single case he judged. No ruling, no famous verdict. Only the hall and the claim that none left it unreconciled.

Fosite's Island

A deity called Fosite was venerated on the island of Heligoland, known in Old English as Fositesland. Alcuin's Vita Willibrordi tells what happened when the Christian missionary Willibrord arrived there in the eighth century. He baptized converts in Fosite's holy spring and slaughtered the god's sacred cattle. The Frisians considered both acts worthy of death. Willibrord survived, but the shrine did not. Whatever cult Fosite once commanded on that island ended with the missionary's visit.

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