Ran, Norse Ocean Goddess

This is the fourth in my series on mythological ocean deities.  I am trying to give them each voice. Like the ocean, they are all creative and  powerful.  They are also a little annoyed at how they have been portrayed, marketed and coopted.  This  week’s ocean deity, Norse goddess Ran, is really pissed, angry and deadly.  Watch out!

 I am the ocean and I am rough and dangerous and deadly.  My name is Ran.  That means “theft” and “robber” in my native Norse language.  I live to steal your life and rob from you all that is precious. You think you can sail on me for fish or to travel to a new land?  Stupid ones, you are nothing in my eyes.  Beware!!

People draw pictures of me with a net.  Not a helpful generous net to catch fish to feed their family.  No, a deadly net to strangle and drown them.  I drown and kill anyone who is stupid enough to trespass on my realm.  Stupid fuckers, you die on my watch.

You nice literate readers of this educated series on ocean deities -  don’t you admire Sedna and wish you had a Te-Fiti in your culture?  Well you don’t, you are so separate from all life forces created you that you think the ocean is a pretty backdrop and sweet salty friend.  Am I kind and gentle?  NO!!!  Will I embrace you with comfort and give you new life?  NO!!!

I am here to steal your life, suffocate and drown you with my net, and generally to end your life.  That’s what oceans do and that’s what I do.

You stupid ungrateful humans – you know I am the force of ocean and death, yet you draw a picture of me like this, as if I were a sweet, quiet and malleable handmaid to my husband Aegir.  Your pathetic myths say he is also an ocean god, and we are some kind of power couple.  Please, he’s just a pathetic jotunn, a giant, just half god, half mortal, just a demigod.  Look at this picture, it’s as if I were serving him!  Fuck that shit!  I am the dangerous powerful force of the sea and he is just a bit player in this drama. 

Only good thing he did was help me give birth to our beloved nine daughters, the waves.  More about them in a minute….

I just want you to get it that I am angry and loud and dangerous and scary.  I am the ocean.  Watch out!  My job is to rage and destroy!  Sure I have lots of fish here to feed you.  And I can be your path to a new home or a reunion with old friends.  Good luck travelling my path and fishing my harbors.  Don’t forget, my job is to kill you, trap you in my nets, drown you, crush you and then eat you.

So my sweet nine daughters are the waves.  Aegir and I named them Biodoughadda (Bloody Hair) Bylgia (Billow), Drofn (Foaming Sea), Dufa (Wave), Hefring (Lifting), Himinglaeva (Transparent on Top), Hronn (Wave), Kilga (Cool Wave) and Uor (Wave.)  Ok, we had some great sex and it was fun to give birth to these nine beautiful daughters.  Aegir kept saying, where are the sons?  Where are my boys I can play catch with?  Too bad, buster.  All girls and we rule the waves.  We are bloody and transparent and cool and foaming and lifting. IE, we are women, deadly and dangerous. 

So just try sailing on our bodies.  No luck.  I am Ran, ocean of all and mother of the waves.  Sail on me and die.

Copyright © 2018 Deborah Streeter