The combination of Svaðilfari and Loki resulted in a grey foal with eight legs: Sleipnir, the best horse in the world of men and gods. Sleipnir was born when the god Loki shape-shifted into a mare and became pregnant. The mysterious mare had been none other than Loki, who had resorted to a ruse to save his life. In Norse mythology, Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse ridden by Odin. They summoned Þór, the god of thunder, who came immediately and smashed the mountain giant’s skull with his hammer Mjölnir. They were therefore no longer bound to wait for the agreed deadline. So the gods realized that he was actually a mountain giant who wanted to deceive the gods with his disguise. When the carpenter realized that he would not be finished by the deadline, he became furious. The next day, Svaðilfari was exhausted from his adventure and so the work did not progress as it had done before. The carpenter chased after them, and so all three ran all night.
#Sleipnir loki free#
Svaðilfari stopped thinking about his work, broke free and galloped after the mare, who was running away towards the forest. The very same evening, as Svaðilfari was bringing the last missing stones, a beautiful mare suddenly came trotting up from the forest and neighing cheeringly at the stallion. The next day Svaðilfari was exhausted from his adventure… They frightened poor Loki so much that he hurriedly promised to find a solution. Loki was quickly identified as the culprit and the gods decided to kill him unless he could find a way to release them from their contract with the carpenter. The gods became restless and wondered who was actually responsible for the fact that Freyja would now probably be given to a mean carpenter and that the sky would soon lose its beauty when the sun and moon stopped shining. When only three days remained until the beginning of summer, the carpenter had almost finished his work. Time passed and the wall grew and grew and finally reached a height that even a giant would probably not be able to overcome. The gods were very surprised at the enormous quantities the horse could carry. During the day, he lay bricks and at night he had his stallion bring in huge mountains of stones. On the first day of winter, the carpenter started his work. Once again, the gods conferred and in the end, Loki* managed to convince them, and so they agreed. The carpenter thought about it and finally asked for his horse Svaðilfari to help him with the work. If it was not finished by the beginning of summer, the contract would be invalid and the carpenter would have to leave empty-handed. As a reward, he demanded Freyja, the goddess of love and fertility, as a wife – and on top of that the sun and the moon.Īfter the gods had conferred, they agreed, but only on the condition that the protective wall would be completed within one winter and without the help of humans.
The residence would be so high and stable that the giants could not invade. He promised to build a protective wall around Ásgarður, the residence of the gods, in a period of one year and six months.
A ruse and the unbridled passion of a stallion save the gods from a dilemma – so the Nordic mythology tellsĪfter the gods had created Miðgarður and built Valhöll, a carpenter appeared to them one day and proposed the following trade:
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