Sköll and Hati: Pursuit Through the Heavens

39. Sköll the wolf is named, that the fair-faced goddess to the ocean chases; another Hati hight, he is Hrôdvitnir’s son; he the bright maid of heaven shall precede.

“...It is two wolves. The one hight Skol, he runs after her; she fears him and he will one day overtake her. The other hight Hate, Hrodvitner’s son; he bounds before her and wants to catch the moon, and so he will at last.”

“Then happens what will seem a great miracle, that the wolf devours the sun, and this will seem a great loss. The other wolf will devour the moon, and this too will cause great mischief.”

Grímnismál names two wolves in a single stanza. Sköll chases the fair-faced goddess, the sun, toward the ocean, and Hati, son of Hróðvitnir, runs ahead of the bright maid of heaven. The poem says no more about them there.

In Gylfaginning the sun runs hard because someone is close behind her, and the speaker Hár names the two wolves. Sköll follows the sun and will one day overtake her. Hati Hróðvitnisson bounds in front and wants the moon, and in the end will catch it. Hár says they come from a giantess who lives east of Midgard in the forest Ironwood (see Járnviðr), mother of many giant sons in wolf shape. One of that brood is the mightiest, Mánagarm, who will swallow the moon and stain the sky with blood, a thought Snorri backs with a stanza of Völuspá about the moon’s devourer. When Gylfaginning later describes Ragnarök, a wolf devours the sun and the other wolf the moon.

Snorri treats Sköll, Hati and Mánagarm as separate wolves of one race.

Thorpe’s glossary gives the root of Sköll as a verb meaning to stick to, to adhere, to strike or to smite. That is a gloss on the word, not an explanation the sources offer. Hróðvitnir, the father’s name in both texts, is spelled Hrôdvitnir in Thorpe and Hrodvitner in Anderson.

Völuspá speaks of a moon-devourer in troll’s shape among Fenrir’s offspring, raised by a crone in Járnviðr. Snorri names that figure Mánagarm, and Thorpe’s glossary renders the name “the moon’s wolf”, adding that it can mean a monster wolf or dog. The poem’s own stanza does not use the name.

Another poem, Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar, has a giant called Hati whose daughter is Hrímgerðr. The name is the same, and no source says this is the wolf.