Eir

"Help", "Mercy." A name of a minor Norse goddess who is, according to Snorri Sturluson, "the best physician." In the eddic poem Fjölsvinnsmál, Eir is one of nine handmaidens who sit at Menglöð's knees on Lyfjaberg, a hill or mountain with healing properties. The other maidens are Hlíf, Hlífþrasa, Þjóðvarta, Björt, Blíð, Blíðr, Fríð, and Aurboða. They protect those who give offerings (blóta) to them:

Every summer

in which men offer to them,

at the holy place,

no pestilence so great shall come

to the sons of men,

but they will free each from peril.

The name also appears in the list of valkyrie names in the Nafnaþulur section of Skáldskaparmál, but not among the list of Ásynjur in the same work.

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