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 peoples; some branches focus particularly on him. The Old Norse theonym "Óðinn" (popularly anglicised as "Odin") and its cognates, including Old English "Wōden", Old Saxon "Wōden", and Old High German "Wuotan", derive from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic theonym "*wōđanaz". The masculine noun "*wōđanaz" developed from the Proto-Germanic adjective "*wōđaz", related to Latin "vātēs" and Old Irish "fáith", both meaning 'seer, prophet'. Adjectives stemming from "*wōđaz" include Gothic "woþs" 'possessed', Old Norse "óðr", 'mad, frantic, furious', and Old English "wōd" 'mad'. The adjective "*wōđaz" (or "*wōđō") was further substantivised, leading to Old Norse "óðr" 'mind, wit, soul, sense', Old English "ellen-wōd" 'zeal',