White horse (mythology) Poseidon was also the creator of horses, creating them out of the breaking waves when challenged to make a beautiful land animal. In Norse mythology, Odin's eight-legged horse Sleipnir, "the best horse among gods and men", is described as grey. Sleipnir is also the ancestor of another grey horse, Grani, who is owned by the hero Sigurd. In Slavic mythology, the war and fertility deity Svantovit owned an oracular white horse; the historian Saxo Grammaticus, in descriptions similar to those of Tacitus centuries before, says the priests divined the future by leading the white stallion between a series of fences
Odin Woden was equated with Mercury, the god of eloquence (among other things). The tales about the Norse god Odin tell how he gave one of his eyes in return for wisdom; he also won the mead of poetic inspiration. Luckily for Christian rune-masters, the Latin word could be substituted without ruining the sense, to keep the outward form of the rune name without obviously referring to Woden." In the poem "Solomon and Saturn", "Mercurius the Giant" () is referred to as an inventor of letters. This may also be a reference to Odin, who is in Norse mythology the founder