Leikn (

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 ...

: ) is a female

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 ...

. The 10th-century

skald A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditionally ...

Vetrliði Sumarliðason Vetrliði Sumarliðason (Old Norse: ; Modern Icelandic: ) was a 10th-century Icelandic skald. He was the great-grandson of Ketill hængr ("salmon"), one of the settlers of Iceland. He lived in Fljótshlíð, in the south of the island. Vetr ...

lists her among the jötnar killed by the

thunder god Polytheistic peoples from many cultures have postulated a thunder god, the personification or source of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction, and will vary based on the culture. In Indo-European c ...

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 ...

Name

The

name ''Leikn'' has been translated as 'trickery'. Stemming from a

Proto-Norse Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a ...

form reconstructed as ''*laikīnō'', it is related to the Old Norse ''leikni'' ('bewitchment'), and to the

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 ...

''scīn-lǣce'' ('sorceress').

Attestations

The death of Leikn is mentioned in a ''

lausavísa In Old Norse poetry and later Icelandic poetry, a ''lausavísa'' (pl. ''lausavísur'') is a single stanza composition, or a set of stanzas unconnected by narrative or thematic continuity. Lausavísur are often introduced in the text of sagas i ...

'' composed by

which praises Thor for having killed giants and giantesses: Leikn's name was used by

s in ''

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 ...

s''. Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld thus uses the ''kenning'' "Leikn's horse" (''hestr Leiknar'') for a wolf (''Óláfsdrápa'', 6) and

Hallvarðr háreksblesi Hallvarðr Háreksblesi was one of the skalds of Canute the Great. Nothing is known about his life or family but eight fragments of his poetry on Canute have been preserved. While Hallvarðr's poetry resembles that of Canute's other poets in many ...

calls the raven "hawk of Leikn of points" (''haukr Leiknar odda'') that is "hawk of

valkyrie In Norse mythology, a valkyrie ("chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who guide souls of the dead to the god Odin's hall Valhalla. There, the deceased warriors become (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"Orchard (1997:36) ...

" (''Knútsdrápa'', 6). Leikn is also listed in the þulur.

References

Bibliography

* * * Gýgjar {{norse-myth-stub