Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán


In Norse mythology, the goddess Rán and the jötunn Ægir both personify the sea, and together they have nine daughters who personify waves. Each daughter's name reflects poetic terms for waves. The sisters are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson; 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.
NameMeaningNotes
Blóðughadda"Bloody-hair"According to scholar John Lindow says, this name " to reddish foam atop a wave". Scholar Rudolf Simek says that "the name does not appear to be too appropriate for a wave, but perhaps it was supposed to convey the wispy, thread-like appearance of the water streaming from the crest of the wave."
Bylgja"Billow"Employed as a common noun
Dröfn or BáraAccording to Anthony Faulkes, Dröfn means "comber", whereas Bára translates to "wave" According to Andy Orchard, 'Dröfn means 'foaming sea'.Bára replaces Dröfn in a list of the daughter in Skáldskaparmál. Dröfn also appears as a common noun.
Dúfa"Wave"
Hefring or Hevring"Lifting"
Himinglæva"Transparent-on-top"
Hrönn"Wave"Employed as a common noun
Kólga"Cool-wave"
Uðr or Unn"Wave"Employed as a common noun, also appears as a name for Odin and as the name of a river

Attestations

''Poetic Edda''

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

''Prose Edda''

The daughters are mentioned several times in the Prose Edda. Section 25 of Skáldskaparmál 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.
In chapter 61 of the Nafnaþulur subsection of Skáldskaparmál, the author again recounts the names of the nine daughters with a slight variation.

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 do not match. 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.