Guðmundr of the sheaf in Norwegian Yule celebrations. According to "Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks", the Norwegians came to see Guðmundr as a god; Höfler argued that in both the wolf-form suggested by "Úlfhéðinn" and the horse-form suggested by "faxi", Guðmundr was a death-demon and his death-horse the prototype of the death-horse Sleipnir portrayed on the Gotland picture stones. Ingemar Nordgren regards the first Guðmundr as "a cult-god" and his son, the Guðmundr of the sagas, as portraying him in theriomorphic form, and suggests that he is either an earlier fertility god who came to be identified with Óðinn and that Glæsisvellir
Eight-legged essay The following is a translation of an original eight-legged essay, written by Wang Ao (1450–1524), who was considered to be a master of the form. Essay Topic: "If the people enjoy sufficiency how could the ruler suffer from insufficiency?" 1. Pòtí: When the people below are rich, the ruler at the top will naturally be rich. 2. Chéngtí: This is so because the wealth of the ruler is something kept by the people. If the people are already rich, how can it stand to reason that the ruler alone is poor? 3. Qǐjiǎng: You Ruo spoke from profundity the idea