Introduction
Frigg is the wife of Odin and the foremost goddess among the Aesir, associated with marriage, motherhood, domestic life and foresight; she is said to know the fates of all beings, though she does not speak of what she knows. Her most significant myth is her desperate, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to protect her son Baldr from death.
This article follows Old Norse mythological tradition, chiefly the Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, noting where the two sources differ.
Family
Protecting Baldr
When Baldr began having dreams foretelling his death, Frigg travelled throughout the world and secured an oath from every object, animal, plant and force of nature never to harm him, making him seemingly invulnerable. She overlooked only the mistletoe, judging it too young and harmless to bother asking. Loki, discovering this oversight, fashioned a dart from mistletoe and had the blind god Hodr throw it at Baldr, killing him.
Grief and the attempt at resurrection
After Baldr's death, Frigg asked whether anyone would ride to the underworld goddess Hel and offer a ransom for his return. Hel agreed to release Baldr only if every single thing in the world, living and dead, wept for him; nearly everything did, except one giantess, Thökk, widely believed to have been Loki in disguise, who refused, ensuring Baldr remained in the realm of the dead.
Position among the gods
Frigg is generally distinguished from, though sometimes confused or conflated with, Freyja of the Vanir; both goddesses have overlapping associations, and scholars debate whether they may originally reflect a single, older goddess who later split into two figures in the developed mythology.