[3] Hrosshárs-Grani ‘Hrosshárs-Grani (“Horse-hair Grani”)’: Lit. ‘Horse-hair’s Grani’. Grani ‘bewhiskered one’ (AEW: grani) was the name of the legendary hero Sigurðr’s horse. Later in the saga, the figure of Hrosshárs-Grani is revealed to be a manifestation of the god Óðinn (cf. Þul Óðins 4/7III and Note there). Óðinn is associated with horses in several contexts in Old Norse myth, and this may point to his connection with a horse cult (cf. Falk 1924; Simek 1993, 161, 293-4).
References
- Bibliography
- AEW = Vries, Jan de. 1962. Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. 2nd rev. edn. Rpt. 1977. Leiden: Brill.
- Falk, Hjalmar. 1924. Odensheite. Skrifter utg. av Videnskapsselskapet i Kristiania. II. Hist.-filos. kl. 1924, 10. Kristiania (Oslo): Dybwad.
- Simek, Rudolf. 1993. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Trans. Angela Hall. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
- Internal references
- Elena Gurevich (ed.) 2017, ‘Anonymous Þulur, Óðins nǫfn 4’ in Kari Ellen Gade and Edith Marold (eds), Poetry from Treatises on Poetics. Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages 3. Turnhout: Brepols, p. 741.