Dæl is the great huntress-goddess of the Svan highlands, mistress of the ibex, chamois and deer that graze the snowfields above the tree line. She is imagined as a nude, luminous woman of surpassing beauty with long golden hair, dwelling on cliffs no mortal can reach. She herds the wild game as her cattle and grants it to hunters who keep her strict prohibitions, especially sexual purity while in the mountains; those who violate her rules, betray her, or boast of her love she casts from the crags to their deaths. She chooses individual hunters as lovers, and her doomed dalliance with the hunter Betkil is among the most celebrated of Svan ballads. From her union with a mortal hunter comes the culture-hero Amirani, cut living from her body after a jealous rival severs her golden hair. Sources differ on whether Dæl is a single goddess or a class of mountain spirits, but the Svan tradition consistently treats her as one named divinity.