As is true of most realms, the predominant religion in the Skellige Isles has its roots in the prehistoric cult of the Great Mother, Mother Nature. On the Continent, such worship has taken as its object and namesake Melitele. In Skellige, her counterpart is Freya.
Like Melitele, Freya is represented in three aspects - virgin, mother and old crone. That of mother is most common, and sculptors chose to depict her thus in her greatest sanctuary in the Isles. There she stands, a pregnant woman draped in loose robes, her face partially revealed, her head bent and her hands folded across her breast. A golden necklace hangs around her neck, and on it a large, pure diamond (Brisingamen) shines like a clear summer sky.
Freyja Modron, or Freya the Great Mother, is the goddess of fertility, love, beauty and abundance. She is also the patron of oracles, soothsayers and telepaths. Warriors pray to her before setting out on sea raids, and the wives they leave behind pray to her for their husbands' safe return. Only priestesses serve the goddess – men may worship Freya, but only women may do her work. Freya's priestesses, like the clerics of other cults, treat mages and sorceresses with great reserve.
The center of Freya's worship is her temple on the isle of Hindarsfjall, in the sacred grove called Hindar. Worshippers place offerings to the goddess before her statue, on an altar that incorporates a great stone basin surrounded by figurines of cats and falcons - her sacred animals. In addition to this temple, sprinkled throughout the isles are other, smaller places where one can worship the goddess and make offerings to her (...).
