InNorse mythology,Rán (inOld Norse:[ˈrɒːn]) is a goddess and personification of thesea. Rán and her husbandÆgir, ajötunn who also personifies the sea, and the two together producednine daughters who personify thewaves. The goddess is frequently associated with a net, which she uses to capture sea-goers. According to the prose introduction to a poem in thePoetic Edda and inVölsunga saga, Rán once loaned her net to the godLoki.
Rán is attested in thePoetic Edda, compiled during the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; theProse Edda, written during the 13th century bySnorri Sturluson; in bothVölsunga saga andFriðþjófs saga hins frœkna; and in the poetry ofskalds, such asSonatorrek, a 10th-century poem by Icelandic skaldEgill Skallagrímsson.
TheOld Norsecommon nounrán means 'plundering' or 'theft, robbery'.[1] In turn, scholars view thetheonymRán as meaning, for example, 'theft, robbery'.[2] On theetymology of the theonym, scholarRudolf Simek says, "although the meaning of the name has not been fully clarified, Rán was probably understood as being 'robber' ... and has nothing to do with [Old Norse]ráða 'rule'.[2]
Because Rán is a personification of the sea, skalds employ her name in a variety ofkennings to refer to the sea. Examples includeRánar-land ('Rán's land'),-salr ('Rán's hall'), and-vegr ('Rán's way'), and alsorán-beðr ('the bed of Rán') meaning 'the bed of the sea'.[3]
Rán and Ægir receive mention in the poemSonatorrek attributed to 10th century IcelandicskaldEgill Skallagrímsson. In the poem, Egill laments the death of his son Böðvar, who drowned at sea during a storm:
- Old Norse:
- Mjök hefr Rán rykst um mik;
- emk ofsnauðr at ástvinum.
- Sleit marr bönd mínnar áttar,
- snaran þátt af sjalfum mér.[4]
- Nora K. Chadwick translation:
- Greatly has Rán afflicted me.
- I have been despoiled of a great friend.
- Empty and unoccupied, I see the place
- which the sea has torn my son.[5]
In one difficult stanza later in the poem, the skald expresses the pain of losing his son by invoking the image of slaying the personified sea, personified as Ægir (Old Norseǫlsmið[r] 'ale-smith') and Rán (Ægis man 'Ægir's wife'):
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Rán receives three mentions in thePoetic Edda; twice in poetry and once in prose. The first mention occurs in a stanza inHelgakviða Hundingsbana I, when thevalkyrieSigrún assists the ship of the heroHelgi Hundingsbane as it encounters ferocious waters:
Henry Adams Bellows translation
- But from above did Sigrun brave
- Aid the men and all their faring;
- Mightily came from the claws of Ron
- The leader's sea-beast off Gnipalund.[8]
Carolyne Larrington translation
- And Sigrun above, brave in battle,
- protected them and their vessel;
- the king's sea-beasts twisted powerfully,
- out of Ran's hand toward Gnipalund.[9]
In the notes for her translation, Larrington says that Rán "seeks to catch and drown men in her net" and that "to give someone to the sea-goddess is to drown them."[10]
The second instance occurs in a stanza found inHelgakviða Hjörvarðssonar. In this stanza, the hero Atli references Rán whileflyting withHrímgerðr, a femalejötunn:
Henry Adams Bellows translation:
- "Witch, in front of the ship thou wast,
- And lay before the fjord;
- To Ron wouldst have given the ruler's men,
- If a spear had not stuck in thy flesh."[11]
Carolyne Larrington translation:
- 'Ogress, you stood before the prince's ships
- and blocked the fjord mouth;
- the king's men you were going to give to Ran,
- if a spear hadn't lodged in your flesh.'[12]
Finally, in the prose introduction toReginsmál, Loki visits Rán (here rendered asRon) to borrow her net:
TranslatorHenry Adams Bellows notes how this version of the narrative differs from how it appears in other sources, where Loki catches the pike with his own hands.[13]
TheProse Edda sectionsSkáldskaparmál andHáttatal contain several references to Rán. Section 25 ofSkáldskaparmál ("How shall sea be referred to?") lists ways in which poets may refer to the sea, including "husband of Ran" and "land of Ran and of Ægir's daughters", but also "father of Ægir's daughters".[14]
In the same section, the author cites a fragment of a work by the 11th century Icelandic skaldHofgarða-Refr Gestsson, where Rán is referred to as 'Gymir's ...völva':
StandardizedOld Norse
| Anthony Faulkes translation
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The section's author comments that the stanza "[implies] that they are all the same, Ægir and Hler and Gymir.[17] The author follows with a quote from another stanza by the skald that references Rán:
Chapter 33 ofSkáldskaparmál discusses why skalds may refer to gold as "Ægir's fire". The section traces the kenning to a narrative surrounding Ægir, in which the jötunn employs "glowing gold" in the center of his hall to light it "like fire" (which the narrator compares to flaming swords inValhalla). The section explains that "Ran is the name of Ægir's wife, and the names of their nine daughters are as was written above ... Then the Æsir discovered that Ran had a net in which she caught everyone that went to sea ... so this is the story of the origin of gold being called fire or light or brightness of Ægir, Ran or Ægir's daughters, and from such kennings the practice has now developed of calling gold fire of the sea and of all terms for it, since Ægir and Ran's names are also terms for the sea, and hence gold is now called fire of lakes or rivers and of all river-names."[18]
In theNafnaþulur section ofSkáldskaparmál, Rán appears in a list of goddesses (Old Norseásynjur).[19]
Rán receives a single mention inVölsunga saga. Like in the prose introduction to the eddic poemReginsmál (discussed above), "they sent Loki to obtain the gold. He went to Ran and got her net."[20]
In thelegendary sagaFriðþjófs saga hins frœkna, Friðþjófr and his men find themselves in a violent storm, and the protagonist mourns that he will soon rest in Rán's bed:
Old Norse
| Eiríkr Magnússon andWilliam Morris translation (1875):
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The protagonist then decides that as they are to "go to Rán" (at til Ránar skal fara) they would better do so in style with gold on each man. He divides the gold and talks of her again:
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According to Rudolf Simek, "... Rán is the ruler of therealm of the dead at the bottom of the sea to which people who have drowned go." Simek says that "while Ægir personifies the sea as a friendly power, Rán embodies the sinister side of the sea, at least in the eyes of the late Viking Age Icelandic seafarers."[2]
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