For no particular reason at all, I ran a random poll on social media:
And, to my surprise, most of my followers (who are quite smart) didn’t know who Litr was. I had assumed (incorrectly) that they already knew about him and could therefore play along with my silly game of a poll. Noticing this, I reblogged the post, adding: “I will, of course, explain who Litr is since the poor lad is shrouded in mystery. His role is quite smol. But hilarious. Or not. Poor lad…”
And so I did:
Alright, friends, let me tell you about Litr.
Since you could just Google his name to learn the basics, I’m going to be a bit extra and add some fancy historian magic: medieval manuscripts. This does nothing for Litr…but I want to expose you to the material side of our texts and, perhaps, show you how an Old Norse meal is prepared, from garden (manuscript) to table (translation).
His moment to shine (somewhat literally?) comes from Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda. Here’s the text itself (from the 14th-century GKS 2367 4to):
But since medieval manuscripts are, admittedly, a bit hard on our modern eyes…here’s a highlighted version:
After admiring the garden above, we gather our ingredients, ending up with this (non-standardized) Old Norse:
“Þa stoð ÞoR at ok vigþi balit með Miollni; en firir fotvm honvm raN dvergr nockvR; sa er Litr nefndr; en ÞoR spyrndi fæti sinvm a hann ok hratt honieldinn, ok braN hann.”1
And, after a bit of prep work…
“Þá stóð Þórr at ok vígði bálit með Mjöllni, en fyrir fótum hans rann dvergr nokkurr, sá er Litr nefndr; en Þórr spyrndi fæti sínum á hann ok hratt honum í eldinn, ok brann hann.”
…we’re ready to bake a translation:
“Then Thor stood by and consecrated the pyre with Miollnir. But a certain dwarf ran in front of his feet. His name was Lit. Thor kicked at him with his foot and thrust him into the fire and he was burned.”2
So já…all of that to say that Litr is just a dwarf who gets punted into a fire (Baldr’s funeral ship) by Thor, who basically just didn’t see the little guy scurrying around. I suggest reading the rest of that tale if you haven’t already. It has absolutely nothing to do with Litr…but a lot to do with the beginnings of Ragnarok. Pretty big stuff.
There is a little bit more to say about Litr, though…maybe. It depends upon one thing: that we assume every Litr mentioned in a mythological context is the same Litr. If we do, as some have, then he actually comes up in a few other places (before, I guess, meeting his fiery demise).
Aside from being listed among the names of the dwarves,3 “Litr” also comes up in a poem by Bragi recounted later in Snorri’s Prose Edda (in Skaldskaparmal):
“When on the hook of the old Lit’s men’s [giants’] fight challenger [Thor] hung the coiling eel [Midgard serpent] of the Volsungs’ drink [poison] coiled.”4
The kenning “old Lit’s men’s” is there translated by Anthony Faulkes as “giants’” and thus immediately complicates the assumption we just made about Litr. Is he a dwarf or a giant? Is this even the same Litr? Or do we have a conflation of stories made muddy by Snorri? John Lindow treats them as two separate Litr.5 I’m personally open to story conflation, but we don’t have enough evidence to actually argue anything concrete…so I’ll leave it up to your own contemplation.
After all, this is probably more than anyone ever wanted to know about a little dwarf named Litr that is only known for getting kicked into a fire.
But there you have it.
Many thanks for reading!
If you got this far, please comment with a 🐻 because I like bears.
— fjörn
Endnotes
- Finnur Jónsson, Edda Snorra Sturlusonar: Udgivet efter Håndskrifterne (Gyldendal, 1931), 66. ↩︎
- Snorri Sturluson, Edda, Anthony Faulkes trans., (Everyman, 1995), 49. ↩︎
- Ibid., 16. ↩︎
- Ibid., 106. ↩︎
- John Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (Oxford University Press, 2001), 209. ↩︎
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