Horses of the Æsir Horses of the Æsir The horses of the Æsir are listed twice. The Eddic poem "Grímnismál" gives the following names: Snorri Sturluson paraphrases this stanza in his "Gylfaginning": Apart from Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse, and Gulltoppr, who belongs to Heimdallr according to the "Prose Edda", nothing is known about these horses, especially their owner. These names are yet listed in the "þulur". Other horses are mentioned elsewhere: Gullfaxi, which originally belonged to Hrungnir, but who was given by Thor to his son Magni after he killed the giant ("Skáldskaparmál", ), Blóðughófi, which belongs to Freyr ("Kálfsvísa") and Hófvarpnir, which is
Divine twins Divine twins The divine twins are a mytheme of Proto-Indo-European religion. The Yoruba orishas Ibeji, the Maya Hero Twins, and the Haitian vodoun Marassa Jumeaux are similar examples outside the Indo-European realm. O'Brien (1982) reconstructs a horse goddess with twin offspring, pointing to Gaulish Epona, Irish Macha (the twins reflected in Macha's pair, Liath Macha and Dub Sainglend), Welsh Rhiannon, and Eddaic Freyja in the tale of the construction of the walls of Asgard, seeing a vestige of the birth of hippomorphic twins in Loki in the form of a mare (in place of Freyja) giving birth to eight-legged Sleipnir.