Rán

thumb|right|Rán uses her net to pull a seafarer into the depths in an illustration by Johannes Gehrts, 1901 In Norse mythology, Rán (in Old Norse: ) is a goddess and personification of the sea. Rán and her husband Ægir, a jötunn who also personifies the sea, and together the two produced nine daughters who personify the sea waves, and Rán's son is Snær, who personifies the snow. Rán may also be the mother of the beautiful jötunn Gerðr, wife of the god Freyr. The goddess is frequently associated with a net, which she uses to capture sea-goers. According to the prose introduction to a poem in the Poetic Edda and in Völsunga saga, Rán once loaned her net to the god Loki.

Rán is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled during the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; the Prose Edda, written during the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson; in both Völsunga saga and Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna; and in the poetry of skalds, such as Sonatorrek, a 10th-century poem by Icelandic skald Egill Skallagrímsson.