15. Glitnir the tenth, which with gold is propped
and is shingled with shining silver;
there Forseti unflagging sits,
the god that stills all strife.
- Grimnismal (Hollander translation
"Forseti is the name of the son of Baldr and Nanna Nep's daughter. He has a hall in heaven called Glitnir, and whoever comes to him with difficult legal disputes, they all leave with their differences settled. It is the best place of judgement among gods and men. Thus it says here:
There is a hall called Glitnir, it is held up by
golden pillars and likewise roofed with silver.
There Forseti dwells most days and settles all disputes.
- Gylfaginning (translation by Anthony Faulkes)
Foseti
(Fosite, Forseti - Old Norse)
Snorri tells us that Forseti is the son of Balder and Nanna; in Grímnismál 15, it is said that "Glitnir (Glittering) is the tenth (hall), it is supported with gold, and silver thatches it as well; and there Forseti dwells most of the day and settles all cases." "Forseti" is also used as a poetic name for a hawk in the ţulur (lists of poetic names and heiti). He does not appear often in Norse myths or place-names, but in eastern Norway there is a "Forsetalundr" (Forseti's Grove), which hints that he was at least sometimes worshipped in Scandinavia (Schwartz, Poetry and Law in Germanic Myth, p. 19). Forseti's worship is unattested to in Old English sources, but as the Frisians invaded England together with the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, it is a likely guess that he was known in at least some parts of England. Eric Wodening reconstructs his Anglo-Saxon name-form as *Forseta.
However, Fosite seems to have been the chief god of the Frisians, and we do have tales about him and his cult from that area. According to the legend "Van da tweer Koningen Karl ende Radbod" (of the two kings Charles [Martel] and Radbod), when the Frankish Charles conquered Frisia, he tried to get the Frisians to reveal their laws to him so that he could judge them. The twelve Foerspreken (fore-speakers) from the Frisian lands stall him twice, but then must admit that they cannot. They are set out to sea in a rudderless ship. Thereupon a thirteenth man appears in the stern, carrying a golden axe (a later, and rather weak, attempt to christianize the tale has been made at this point), with which he steers the ship to land. He then takes the axe from his shoulder and throws it to the earth. It casts up a piece of turf and an underground spring bursts forth. The twelve Foerspreken sit around the spring and learn the law from him. Schwartz reads the historical motivation as being a later interpolation, thinking it more likely that the Foerspreken are gods (corresponding to the traditional twelve Ases of Norse mythology) and that the legend was already old before the Frankish invasion of Frisia.
The association of this myth with Fosite is based on an event in the Vita s. Willibrordi. Willibrord is driven ashore on the island between Frisia and Denmark which is called "Fositeland". Everything there was hallowed to Fosite: the folk did not dare to touch the animals or disturb anything, and water could only be drawn from the holy spring in silence. The location, the special worship given to Fosite by the Frisians, and the description of an island with a hallowed spring all fit closely with the above legend. His spring itself may have been a place of capital punishment, as the "Life of Wulfram" states that condemned men were sometimes drowned in fresh or salt waters.
Schwartz also associates the spring as the font of law with the Well of Wyrd, where the Ases' deeming is done, and comments that "Both Frisian and Scandinavian accounts indicate that law is acquired by crossing over water...both the Frisian legend of the thirteenth god and Snorri's description of (the gods) crossing Bifröst indicate that a supernatural means is necessary to traverse water" (p. 23). Schwartz interprets the name Fosite as meaning "bridge-setter" (p.24), but the form "Forseti" seems to mean "he who presides" (de Vries, Wörterbuch, p. 139), as a judge over a court or a president or an assembly - a fitting name for a god the elder Heathens saw as goberning law, arbitration, and judgement.
Colours associated with Fosite in the modern age are red and gold; the rune we associate with him is raidho. It is significant to note Forseti's association with precious metals (the golden axe of Frisian sources and the gold studs and silver-thatched roof of Icelandic sources, which may reflect the tradition of paying recompense as a punishment among the Germanic peoples.
- Our Troth, Chapter XV