Sleipnir

Odins horse, is the best of all horses. Sleipnir has eight legs. Loki is the mother of Sleipnir but his father is a giant horse. (Loki transformed himself into a mare on that one occasion) Once Sleipnir happened to touch Iceland with one of his feet and you can still see a mark of his hoof at Ásbyrgi, in NE-Iceland.

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Sleipnir´s footprint, Ásbyrgi.

 

It was early time of the Gods. Midgardur og Valhalla had been built. The Gods wanted to build a city. A carpenter came to Valhalla and offered to build the city for them. It would only take three years to build and it would be so strong and safe that even the giants or trolls could not break in. In return the carpenter wanted Freyja as his wife and in addition he wanted the Sun and the Moon.

The Gods had a meeting to discuss the carpenters offer. The Gods decided that the carpenter would get what he asked for but he had to build the city in one winter. If on the first day of summer any part of the city was not finsh he would not get anything. The carpenter was not allowed to have anyone to help him. He had to build the city alone. When the Gods  told the carpenter this diction, he only asked if he could use his horse Svadilfara. The Gods agreed to that.

The carpenter started his work on the first day of winter but during the nights he used his horse to pull stones.  The Gods were amazed how huge stones the horse could pull.

The horse did much more work than the carpenter. There were many strong  witnesses and  promises to the agreement between the Gods and the carpenter because giants did not feel save if  Thor came home, but he had gone east to fight trolls.

As the winter progressed the building of the city was on time. It was very high and strong. When there were three days to summer the carpenter was working on the city gate.

Now the Gods had a meeting to try to find a solution to get out of their agreement with the carpenter. They asked each other what would happened if they gave Freyja to the giants and then spoil the air and the sky by giving the Moon and the Sun to the giants too. They agreed that their only possibility was to contact the one who controlled almost all evil, Loki Laufeyjarson. The Gods told Loka that he would be killed if he didn´t come up with a solution for their problem with the carpenter. Loki was afraid and promised that he would take care of the problem so that the carpenter would not get his reward.

 

That evening when the carpenter was moving rocks with the horse “Svaðilfara”, Loki disguised as a female horse (mare), came running to “Svaðilfara” and  whinnyed. When “Svaðilfari” saw her he became very excited, broke the cords that were holding him down and ran after the mare into the woods.

The carpenter followed them and tried to stop them, but the horses ran all night so the carpenter did not build anything that night. The next day the performance was not as good as usual. When the carpenter saw that he would have problem with finishing his work on time he was able to find some extra power. When the Gods saw this power and released that they would have to keep their promises they called “Thor”. He came instantly. The next thing that happened was that “Thors” hammer “Mjölnir” went up in the air and and hit the carpenter on the head so that his head broke into small parts sending the carpenter straight down to “Niflungaheim”.

After that meeting in the woods “Loki” gave birth to a foal, it was grey and it had eight legs and that horse became the best horse among the Gods and humans.