Richard N. Frye

Richard Nelson Frye (January 10, 1920 – March 27, 2014) was an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest were Iranian philology and the history of Iran and Central Asia before 1000 CE.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, to a family of immigrants from Sweden, "Freij" had four children, his second marriage being to an Iranian-Assyrian scholar, Dr Eden Naby, from Urmia, Iran who teaches at Columbia University. He spoke fluent Russian, German, Arabic, Persian, Pashto, French, Uzbek, and Turkish, and had extensive knowledge of Avestan, Pahlavi, Sogdian, and other Iranian languages and dialects, both extinct and current.

Although Frye is mostly known for his works about Iran and Iranian Central Asia, but the scope of his studies was much wider and includes Byzantine, Caucasian, and Ottoman history, Eastern Turkistan, ancient and medieval Iranian art, Islamic art, Sufism, Chinese and Japanese archeology, and a variety of Iranian and non-Iranian languages including Avestan, Old Persian, Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Khotanese, and Bactrian, New Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and even Chinese, beside research languages which include French, German, Italian, and Russian.

Råån

Råån is a river in Sweden.

References

Rán

In Norse mythology, Rán (Old Norse perhaps "robber") is a goddess associated with the sea. According to Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, in his retelling of the Poetic Edda poem Lokasenna, she is married to Ægir and they have nine daughters together. Snorri also reports that she had a net in which she tried to capture men who ventured out on the sea:

Her net is also mentioned in Reginsmál and in the Völsunga saga, where she lends it to Loki so that he can capture Andvari.

Attestations

Poetic Edda

Her willingness to capture sailing men is referred to in this citation from the Eddic poem Helgakviða Hundingsbana I where escaping the perils of the sea is referred to as escaping Rán:

Whether men drowned by her doing or not, she appears to have received those drowned at sea, as exemplified in the section called Hrímgerðarmál in the Eddic poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar, where the giantess Hrímgerðr is accused of having wanted to give the king's warriors to Rán, i.e. to drown them:

Røn

Røn is a village in the municipality of Vestre Slidre, Norway. It is located where the Slidrefjord and the Strondafjord meet, a few miles along the E16 south of the centre Slidre. Its population (SSB 2005) is 302.

Coordinates: 61°2′17″N 9°3′13″E / 61.03806°N 9.05361°E / 61.03806; 9.05361