Litr (also Lit;

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

: , 'colour, appearance') is the name borne by a

dwarf Dwarf or dwarves may refer to: Common uses *Dwarf (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore * Dwarf, a person or animal with dwarfism Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a humanoid ...

and a

jötunn A (also jotun; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; ; plural / ) or, in Old English, (plural ) is a type of supernatural being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, they are often contrasted with gods (Æsir and Vanir) ...

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...

Name

The

name ''Litr'' has been translated as 'colour', 'hue', or 'appearance'. It stems from a

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

form reconstructed as ''*ulituz'' (compare with

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

''wlits'' 'shape, appearance', or

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''wlite'' 'clearness, sparkle').

Dwarf

Snorri Sturluson Snorri Sturluson ( ; ; 1179 – 22 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He is commonly thought to have authored or compiled portions of the ...

's ''

Gylfaginning ''Gylfaginning'' (Old Norse: 'The Beguiling of Gylfi' or 'The Deluding of Gylfi'; c. 20,000 words; 13th century Old Norse pronunciation ) is the first part of the 13th century ''Prose Edda'' after the Prologue. The ''Gylfaginning'' deals with th ...

'' (49), Litr is kicked into

Baldr Baldr (also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, Baldr (Old Norse: ) is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, and has numerous brothers, such as Thor and Váli. In wider Germanic mythology, the god was kno ...

's funeral pyre by

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...

: :Then Thor stood by and hallowed the pyre with Mjöllnir; and before his feet ran a certain dwarf which was named Litr; Thor kicked at him with his foot and thrust him into the fire, and he burned. : ::—''Gylfaginning''
Brodeur's translation
Litr is also listed as a dwarf in ''

Völuspá ''Vǫluspá'' (also ''Völuspá'', ''Vǫlospá'' or ''Vǫluspǫ́''; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress'; reconstructed Old Norse: ) is the best known poem of the ''Poetic Edda''. It tells the story of the creation of the world and ...

'' (12). A dwarf named Litr also appears in ''

Áns saga bogsveigis ''Áns saga bogsveigis'', the saga of Án the bow-bender, is one of the legendary sagas called the '' Hrafnistumannasögur'' surrounding the relatives of Ketil Trout. It concerns a feud between An the Bow-bender and Ingjald, king of Namdalen ...

'', where he is coerced by the protagonist Án to build him a bow.

Jötunn

In a stanza by

Bragi Boddason Bragi Boddason, known as Bragi the Old (Old Norse: ''Bragi hinn gamli'') was a Norwegian skald active in the first half of the 9th century, the earliest known skald from whom verses have survived. Portions of his ''Ragnarsdrápa'' are preserved ...

quoted in Snorri's ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'The Language of Poetry'; c. 50,000 words; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda''. The section consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bragi, the god of poetry, in ...

'' (42) Litr is also mentioned in a

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech in the type of circumlocution, a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse-Icelandic and Old English po ...

for Thor: "Lit's men's fight-challenger"Faulkes 1995. (''"Litar flotna fangboði"''). Given that Thor is the enemy of , it is generally assumed that, in this kenning, Litr must refer to a giant.Faulkes 1995, Lindow 2002. Litr is also a in one version of the poem about Thor by

Þorbjörn dísarskáld Þorbjörn dísarskáld is a late-10th century Icelandic skald (poet). Only one and a half stanzas of his poetry have been preserved in ''Skáldskaparmál'' (The Language of Poetry). Name ''Dísarskáld'' means "poet of the dísir", which implie ...

, where the skald lists and killed by the god (but Litr only appears in one manuscript, the others mentioning Lútr instead).Lindow 2002. This led John Lindow to suggest that there may have been originally only one Litr, a , for "it would not have been inappropriate for Thor to have killed a giant in some earlier version of the funeral of Baldr".

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Norse mythology Articles about multiple fictional characters Norse dwarves Jötnar Thor