Litr (also Lit;

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

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

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

and a

jötunn A (also jotun; plural ; in the normalised scholarly spelling of Old Norse, ; or, in Old English, , plural ) is a type of being in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, are often contrasted with gods (the Æsir and Vanir) and with other no ...

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 as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

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 linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

form reconstructed as ''*ulituz'' (compare with Gothic ''wlits'' 'shape, appearance', or

Old English Old English ( or , or ), 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 developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''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 th ...

's ''

Gylfaginning ''Gylfaginning'' (Old Norse: 'The Beguiling of Gylfi' or 'The Deluding of Gylfi'; 13th century Old Norse pronunciation ) is the first main part of the 13th century ''Prose Edda'', after the initial Prologue. The ''Gylfaginning'' takes the form of ...

'' (49), Litr is kicked into

Baldr Baldr (Old Norse also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, he 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 known in ...

's funeral pyre by

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, 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 g ...

: :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 ''Völuspá'' (also ''Vǫluspá'', ''Vǫlospá'', or ''Vǫluspǫ́''; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress') is the best known poem of the ''Poetic Edda''. It dates back to the tenth century and tells the story from Norse Mythology of ...

'' (12). A dwarf named Litr also appears in '' Áns saga bogsveigis'', 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 language, Old Norse: ''Bragi hinn gamli'') was a Norwegian skald active in the first half of the 9th century in poetry, 9th century, the earliest known skald from whom verses have survived. Portio ...

quoted in Snorri's ''

Skáldskaparmál ''Skáldskaparmál'' (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; ; ) is the second part of the ''Prose Edda'', compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bra ...

'' (42) Litr is also mentioned in a

kenning A kenning ( Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively-phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning () means , as does (). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (a ...

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, 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 Norse dwarves Jötnar Thor