In Norse mythology, the goddess

Rán In Norse mythology, Rán (Old Norse: ) is a goddess and a personification of the sea. Rán and her husband Ægir, a jötunn who also personifies the sea, have nine daughters, who personify waves. The goddess is frequently associated with a net, w ...

and the

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 Vani ...

Ægir Ægir (anglicised as Aegir; Old Norse 'sea'), Hlér (Old Norse 'sea'), or Gymir (Old Norse less clearly 'sea, engulfer'), is a jötunn and a personification of the sea in Norse mythology. In the Old Norse record, Ægir hosts the gods in his halls ...

both personify the sea, and together they have nine daughters who personify

wave In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...

s. Each daughter's name reflects poetic terms for waves. The sisters are attested in the ''

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...

'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; the ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been t ...

'', composed in the 13th century; and in the poetry of skalds. Scholars have theorized that these daughters may be the same figures as the nine mothers of the god Heimdallr.

Names

The names of Ægir and Rán's daughters occur commonly in Old Norse sources. Lists of their names appear twice in ''Skáldskaparmál'', a section of the ''Prose Edda'' (for detail, see ''Prose Edda'' section below).

Attestations

''Poetic Edda''

References to the waves as 'Ægir's daughters' appear in the ''Poetic Edda''. The poem ''

Helgakviða Hundingsbana I "Völsungakviða" or "Helgakviða Hundingsbana I" ("The First Lay of Helgi Hundingsbane") is an Old Norse poem found in the ''Poetic Edda''. It constitutes one of the Helgi lays, together with '' Helgakviða Hundingsbana II'' and ''Helgakviða Hj� ...

'' describes how the hero Helgi's boat crashes through intense seas, in doing so referencing Rán, Ægir, and their daughters as personifications of the sea. For example, two sequential stanzas reference the wave daughters:

:Once the longships regrouped, only :Kolga's sisters could be heard crashing. :a sound as if swells and bluffs were bursting.Dodds (2014:129).
:Helgi had the high sails heightened, :the unfailing crew rallying through :the rollers, Ægir's dreaded daughters trying :to overthrow their stay-bridled sea-steeds.

''Prose Edda''

The daughters are mentioned several times in the ''Prose Edda''. Section 25 of ''Skáldskaparmál'' ("How shall sea be referred to?") collects manners 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". The section contains the first of two instances of a list of the wave daughters (for discussion regarding their names, see ''Name'' section above).Faulkes (1995 98991). In chapter 61 of the '' Nafnaþulur'' subsection of ''Skáldskaparmál'', the author again recounts the names of the nine daughters with a slight variation (here ''Dröfn'' is replaced with ''Bára'').Faulkes (1995 989141).

Scholarly reception and interpretation

Some scholars have linked the Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán with the Nine Mothers of Heimdallr, an identification that would mean that Heimdallr was thus born from the waves of the sea. However, this connection has been questioned on the grounds that the names presented for the Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán and the Nine Mothers of Heimdallr (as listed in ''

Völuspá hin skamma ''Völuspá hin skamma'' (Old Norse: 'The Short Völuspá) is an Old Norse poem which survives as a handful of stanzas in ''Hyndluljóð'', in the ''Poetic Edda'', and as one stanza in the ''Gylfaginning'' section of Snorri Sturluson's ''Prose Edda ...

'') do not match.Simek (2007:136). Scholar John Lindow comments that the identification of Heimdallr's mothers as Ægir and Rán's daughters do, however, match on the grounds that Ægir and Rán's daughters, like Heimdallr's mothers, are sisters, and that two separate traditions about Heimdallr's mothers may explain the differences between the two.Lindow (2002:169).

Notes

References

* Dodds, Jeramy. Trans. 2014. ''The Poetic Edda''.

Coach House Books Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...

. * Faulkes, Anthony. Trans. 1995 989 ''Edda''.

Everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

. * Lindow, John. 2002. ''Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. * Orchard, Andy. 1997. ''Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend''. Cassell. * Simek, Rudolf. 2007 993 Translated by Angela Hall. ''Dictionary of Northern Mythology''. D.S. Brewer. {{DEFAULTSORT:Daughters Of Aegir Female supernatural figures in Norse mythology Fictional nonets Personifications in Norse mythology Water waves