Word.ws English Dictionary

Rauðskinna

Rauðskinna proper noun: a legendary Icelandic grimoire about black magic, which is said to have been buried with its author: the bishop Gottskálk grimmi Nikulásson.

Proper noun

Rauðskinna or the Rauðskinna

  1. A legendary Icelandic grimoire about black magic, which is said to have been buried with its author: the bishop Gottskálk grimmi Nikulásson.
    • This concerns Bishop Gottskalk the Grim and his powerful book of magic, the Rauðskinna (The Red Book, lit. “redskin”).1967 December 1, Einar Haugen, Fire and Ice: Three Icelandic Plays, University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 20
    • […]but it seems much the same as another book often mentioned in the Icelandic magicians’ legends, the Rauðskinna (Redskin). Legend generally credits the authorship of the Rauðskinna to Gottskálk Nikulásson,[…]According to legend, he gathered together all the black spells, none of which had been...1997 July 31, Kevin J. Hayes, Folklore and Book Culture, University of Tennessee Press, →ISBN, page 51

Examples of Rauðskinna in a sentence

  • […]but it seems much the same as another book often mentioned in the Icelandic magicians’ legends, the Rauðskinna (Redskin).1997 July 31, Kevin J. Hayes, Folklore and Book Culture, University of Tennessee Press, →ISBN, page 51:
  • The most famous and sinister of all these books was Rauðskinna (Red-Skin).[…]Rauðskinna is said to be a book of the blackest magic, drawn from the Heathen Age.2016 January 22, Stephen E. Flowers, Icelandic Magic: Practical Secrets of the Northern Grimoires, Inner Traditions – Bear & Company...

Forms of Rauðskinna

alternative formRaudskinna

Origin of Rauðskinna

Learned borrowing from Icelandic Rauðskinna, from rauður (“red”) + skinn (“skin”). Piecewise doublet of redskin.

Questions about Rauðskinna

What does Rauðskinna mean?
Rauðskinna means a legendary Icelandic grimoire about black magic, which is said to have been buried with its author: the bishop Gottskálk grimmi Nikulásson.
How do you use Rauðskinna in a sentence?
[…]but it seems much the same as another book often mentioned in the Icelandic magicians’ legends, the Rauðskinna (Redskin).
What part of speech is Rauðskinna?
Rauðskinna is a proper noun.

Words near Rauðskinna in the dictionary

  1. Rautjärvi
  2. rauvite
  3. rauwolfia
  4. rauwolfias
  5. rauwolscine
  6. Rauðskinna
  7. rav
  8. rava
  9. Rava-Ruska
  10. ravage
  11. ravageable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Rauðskinna (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Rauðskinna.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rau%C3%B0skinna. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.