Reija asked me to take a picture of her  that was reminiscent of her name which is the Finnish  for Freya,  the Norse Goddess of love and fertility after whom  Friday is named. In  Latin languages  the fifth day is dedicated to the Goddess of Love, Venus. Curiously, the Catholic church  unable to change the name Venerdì to something more Christian,  forbids  Catholics to marry on Venus’ day. Freya is associated with beauty,  fertility, gold;  but also  as one would expect from  the Vikings, war and death.

out-take with original colours

She possessed a precious necklace called the Brisingamen which she obtained as a result of a licentious twist on the Snowhite story.

The necklace was made by four dwarves who would only consent to give it away if she married each of them for a night and a day.

Although the necklace enhanced her beauty, the husband Odur was unsurprisingly miffed at this  brief but quadruple adultery and deserted her to wander the world over. Deeply penitent Freya wept  tears that turned rock to gold and water to amber for all eternity.

Freja by John Bauer

When I was working on the  picture in Photoshop an old melody came to mind that we sang in the choir at school, Mendelssohn’s “Wings of a dove” – there was sense of freedom in the picture that I felt the suggestion of wings accentuated. There is something about Italy, something about the light, something about the climate,  that gives us northerners a heightened sensitivity, perhaps almost a feeling of coming home, that the Mediterranean is the environment  humans were designed for.

“Oh for the wings of a dove

Far away would I rove.

In the wilderness build me a nest, 

And remain there forever at rest.”

Felix Mendelssohn

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Freya  was taken at Vulci, on the Tuscan – Latium borders, a place of quite astounding natural beauty and scenic variety  where I have taken several of the Belle pictures.