Dunst Opening Lambertville, New Jersey), giving the opening its most popular name in the United States. The Dutch International Master and correspondence grandmaster Dirk Daniel ("Dick D.") van Geet (March 1, 1932 – April 29, 2012) frequently played 1.Nc3, so it is often called the van Geet's Opening in the Netherlands. The appellation Sleipnir seems to come from Germany. Sleipnir is Odin's ("Wotan" in German) magical eight-legged horse, and chess knights are horses with up to eight different possible moves each turn. Czech Jan Kotrč (1862–1943), editor and publisher of the magazine "České Listy", said the opening was analyzed by English players.
Horse worship a horse, Arion, which was capable of human speech. This bears some resemblance to the Norse mythology reference to the gender-changing Loki having turned himself into a mare and given birth to Sleipnir, "the greatest of all horses". Tacitus (Germania) mentions the use of white horses for divination by the Germanic tribes: In Gallo-Roman times, the worship of Epona was widespread in the north-western portions of the Roman Empire. The Welsh legend of Rhiannon and the Irish legend of Macha, although first recorded in Christian times, may indicate memories of horse worship. The white horse of Rhiannon is another example