Sleipnir
Odin’s eight-legged horse in Norse myth, grey and the best of all horses, able to cross between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
Meaning
Store norske leksikon describes Sleipnir as grey, eight-legged and, in the myths, the best of all horses; the Eddic poem Grímnismál names “Sleipnir the best of steeds”. The Danish encyclopedia Lex adds what makes him Odin’s: he can cross the border between the living and the dead. In Snorri’s Edda it is on Sleipnir that the god Hermod rides to Hel to ask for Balder’s return.
Origin and history
Snorri’s Edda tells how Sleipnir was born. A giant builder offered to wall Asgard in a single winter with the help of his stallion Svadilfari; to stop him finishing, Loki took the shape of a mare and lured the stallion away, and “some time after bore a foal. It was gray, and had eight feet, and this is the best horse among gods and men.” Sleipnir is older than Snorri. The National Museum of Denmark shows a gold bracteate of the Iron Age with Odin and his eight-legged horse, and Store norske leksikon points to the Tjängvide picture stone from Gotland, dated to about 700 and now in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, where an eight-legged horse is shown at the top.
The rider on the Tjängvide stone
Store norske leksikon reports that several scholars read the Tjängvide scene as the person the stone commemorates arriving in the land of the dead on Sleipnir, met by a valkyrie holding a drinking horn.
Runes on his teeth
In the Eddic poem Sigrdrífumál the valkyrie lists the places where runes of power are carved, and they include Sleipnir’s teeth. Store norske leksikon adds that in the Völsunga saga Sigurd’s horse Grani is descended from Sleipnir, as Odin himself, in disguise, tells the young Sigurd.
See also
Mjölnir (Thor’s hammer), Gungnir, Huginn and Muninn, Yggdrasil, Valknut, Triple horn of Odin.
Sources
- Sleipne (Store norske leksikon), Store norske leksikon
- Sleipner (Lex), Lex, Danmarks Nationalleksikon
- The Younger Edda (Anderson translation), Snorri Sturluson, trans. Rasmus B. Anderson, 1880, Project Gutenberg
- The Poetic Edda (Bellows translation), Henry Adams Bellows (trans.), 1923, American-Scandinavian Foundation (Project Gutenberg), Grimnismol, stanza 44; Sigrdrifumol, stanza 15
- The old religion, National Museum of Denmark
Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research