Litr

Not to be confused with litre.

Thor kicks Litr onto Baldr's burning ship, illustration by Emil Doepler (ca. 1905)

In Norse mythology Litr (often anglicized as Lit, confer Icelandic litur), which means "colour", is a name borne by a dwarf and a giant.

A dwarf

In Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning (49), Litr is kicked into Baldr's funeral pyre by Thor:

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 (12).

A dwarf named Litr also appears in Áns saga bogsveigis, where he is coerced by the protagonist Án to build him a bow.

A giant

But in a stanza by Bragi Boddason quoted in Snorri's Skáldskaparmál (42) Litr is also mentioned in a kenning for Thor: "Lit's men's fight-challenger" ("Litar flotna fangboði"). Given that Thor is the enemy of giants, it is generally assumed that, in this kenning, Litr must refer to a giant. Litr is also a giant in one version of the poem about Thor by Þorbjörn dísarskáld, where the skald lists giants and giantesses killed by the god (but Litr only appears in one manuscript, the others mentioning Lútr instead).

This led John Lindow to suggest that there may have been originally only one Litr, a giant, for "it would not have been inappropriate for Thor to have killed a giant in some earlier version of the funeral of Baldr".

References

• Snorri Sturluson, Edda, translated and edited by Anthony Faulkes, London: Everyman, 1995, ISBN 0-460-87616-3.
• Lindow, John. Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-515382-0.