Sif's Stars: The Swan Feather
In the summer constellation known by the Greeks as Cygnus the Swan, the brightest star is Deneb Adige, slurred Arabic patois for “tail of the hen”. When I looked at the Swan, Sif the wife of Thor came forward, wreathed with her berries of rowan. She held a white swan feather in her hand. I didn’t know, at the time, that some Germanic sources associated her with swans and claimed she could take on the form of a swan maiden, but twenty minutes of research led me to that, and then it all fell into place.
The Swan Feather, plucked from the tail of the swan, gifts people with artistic or scientific interests, and a contemplative, dreamy nature that may not comes into its full talents until later in life. Sif was first married to the star-hero Aurvandil and bore him a son, Ullr; they separated amicably and Aurvandil went to his giantess/sorceress wife Groa while Sif married the son of Odin who had fallen in love with her—Thor. They are very faithful to each other; while other Gods may have multiple spouses or many mistresses, Sif and Thor are the god-couple prayed to for monogamy and fidelity. (The Arabs claimed Deneb Adige brought marital happiness.) As a goddess who knows what it is to make a first marriage that does not work out—and, for that matter, since she chose to raise Thor’s sons by his first lover Jarnsaxa, Magni and Modi, what it is to love someone in the same position—Sif understands how early attempts may not work and one must be patient for the eventual culmination.
While the tail of the swan holds Sif’s Feather, the beak at the other end is a star named by the Arabs Albireo, “the beak”. It gives a handsome appearance, a lovable disposition, humanitarian leanings, and beneficence in despair. This star leaped out as Thrud, Sif’s and Thor’s red-haired daughter. So mother and daughter share a constellation. Thrud held a stone in her hand, symbolizing her firm, strong nature. Where the Feather is soft, the Beak is harder and more like her father, thus it is Thrud’s Stone.