Hello again! This week we’re going back to Norse mythology to talk about the rather short-lived marriage between Skadi and Njord.

To start, this particular tale comes on the heels of another one I talked about a while ago, The Kidnapping of Idun. So after Idun and her special immortality fruits are rescued from the giant Thjazi, the Aesir celebrate they only way they know how: by throwing a fucking rager.

A rager that’s unfortunately interrupted by the arrival of Skadit, Thjazi’s daughter. Skadi is both very unhappy that the Aesir killed her dad, and is also very heavily armed. This is not an ideal situation for any of the Aesier, but they manage to assuage her rage somewhat by offering her three gifts.

The first is that Odin takes Thjazi’s eyes and yeets them up into the sky, where they turn into stars. Which is pretty nice.

The second is to make Skadi laugh. This actually proves to be very difficult, as the giantess remains stone-faced throughout all of the Aesir’s japes. That is, until Loki joins in on the action. What he does is take a rope, tie one end of it to a goat, the other end to his balls, and then play tug of war. Loki torturing his own wedding tackle actually manages to get a chuckle out of her, because ball injuries are apparently very funny to giants.

The third thing Skadi is offered is her pick of the male Aesir for a husband. The catch here is that she can’t pick them based on their faces, but rather their legs and feet. Which sounds like a pitch for Fox’s latest trashy reality show. Anyway, Skadi picks the most glorious gams, which turn out to belong to the sea god Njord.

The two have a very elaborate (and probably alcohol saturated) wedding, then come across the dilemma of where they’re going to live. To that end, they decide to spend nine nights in each of their realms to see which they like the best.

The first nine nights they spend in Skadi’s home, Thrymheim. Since that translates to “thunder home” you can probably guess what that’s like. After the nine days, Njord decides that the thunder and general gloominess of the place wasn’t his vibe, and the constant sound of wolves howling was kinda freaking him out. So that’s a pass on Thrymheim.

So they head to Njord’s realm of Noatun, which generally seems pretty warm and pleasant. However, Skadi can’t stand it because she finds it far too warm and sunny, and the sound of all the seabirds is keeping her from sleeping. As someone who lived for several years on the shores of one of the world’s largest lakes which was riddled with gulls, I can actually relate to this.

With neither of the two willing to live in the other’s home, they kinda decide that this relationship isn’t going to work, and end up going their separate ways.

And this, kids, is why you should pick a mate based on mutual interest, and not how sexy their feet are.