Sif is a goddess in Norse mythology best known for two things: her golden hair, and being married to Thor. She has a son, Ullr, whose father is never named in any surviving source — making Ullr Thor’s stepson rather than his son. Beyond that, Sif is genuinely obscure. The Eddas define her almost entirely through her relationship to Thor and through one story about her hair, rather than giving her a role or domain of her own.
How Sif Lost Her Golden Hair
In Skáldskaparmál, part of Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, Loki sneaks in while Sif is asleep and cuts off all of her hair as a prank. When Thor finds out, he threatens Loki, who scrambles to fix what he’s done. Loki goes to a group of dwarves known as the Sons of Ivaldi and has them forge Sif new hair out of real gold, fine enough that it will grow onto her head like natural hair once it’s set in place.
The same visit produces two other famous treasures: Odin’s spear Gungnir and Freyr’s folding ship Skíðblaðnir. Loki doesn’t stop there, either — he goes on to bet his own head with the dwarf Brokkr that Brokkr’s brother can’t forge anything better, a wager that ends up producing Mjölnir itself. That fuller story, including how Loki tries to cheat his way out of the bet, is told on the Treasures of the Gods page — this page focuses on Sif’s own part in it.
Is Sif a Fertility Goddess? What Scholars Actually Disagree On
Sif is commonly described as a goddess of grain or fertility, but this isn’t something the Eddas state directly. The theory rests on two things: the symbolism of her golden hair, and a comparative-mythology parallel to sky-god/earth-goddess pairings found across other cultures. Her actual name doesn’t support it — scholars including John Lindow and Rudolf Simek agree “Sif” comes from an Old Norse word meaning “relation by marriage,” an etymology with no connection to fertility or earth at all.
The scholar Hilda Ellis Davidson argued anyway that Sif’s hair represents a field of ripe, golden grain, and that her marriage to Thor echoes a much older Indo-European idea: a sky god (bringing rain and thunder) paired with an earth goddess (representing the fertile soil the rain falls on) — a pattern also found in Greek, Roman, Celtic, and Indian mythology.
Not every scholar agrees. Rudolf Simek rejects the idea of a “vegetation cult” around Sif entirely, calling the golden-hair-as-grain theory an “over-zealous interpretation” of Snorri’s writing. He goes further still, suggesting Snorri may have invented the hair-cutting story itself as a colorful way to explain how the gods ended up with Gungnir, Skíðblaðnir, and their other treasures — rather than inheriting a genuine older myth about Sif. In his view, Sif doesn’t appear to have had any real function in Norse religion beyond being Thor’s wife. Both scholars are working from the same thin evidence — the real answer is that nobody knows for certain.
Sif: Quick Answers
Is Sif a fertility goddess? It’s disputed. Hilda Ellis Davidson argued her golden hair symbolizes grain and connects her to an old sky-god/earth-goddess pairing with Thor. Rudolf Simek rejected that reading entirely, calling it an “over-zealous interpretation” and suggesting Snorri may have invented the hair-cutting story itself rather than inherited it.
How did Sif lose her hair? Loki cut it off while she slept, as a prank, in the story told in Skáldskaparmál.
Did Loki make Sif’s new hair himself? No. Loki had a group of dwarves, the Sons of Ivaldi, forge it out of real gold, fine enough to grow onto her head like natural hair.
Who is Ullr, Sif’s son? Ullr is Sif’s son from an unnamed father, making him Thor’s stepson. He’s known as a skilled archer and skier.
Sources:
John Lindow (2001) Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN-13 978-0-195-15382-8 — source for the etymology of Sif’s name.