Sól and Máni: The Keepers of Celestial Courses

“Mundilfare hight the man who had two children. They were so fair and beautiful that he called his son Moon, and his daughter, whom he gave in marriage to a man by name Glener, he called Sun. But the gods became wroth at this arrogance, took both the brother and the sister, set them up in heaven, and made Sun drive the horses that draw the car of the sun, which the gods had made to light up the world from sparks that flew out of Muspelheim. These horses hight Arvak and Alsvid.”

38. “Svalin the shield is called, which stands before the sun, the refulgent deity; rocks and ocean must, I ween, be burnt, fell it from its place.”

In Gylfaginning, a man named Mundilfari has a son and a daughter so fair that he calls them Máni and Sól, Moon and Sun. The gods take offence at the pride of it. They set the pair in heaven, and Sól drives the horses Árvakr and Alsviðr, in Anderson’s spelling Arvak and Alsvid, which draw the sun’s car. The gods made the car from sparks that flew out of Múspellsheimr (see The Sparks of Múspell) and placed cooling wind-bags, or in some songs something iron-cold, under the horses’ withers.

Máni steers the moon and rules its waxing and waning. He once took two children, Bil and Hjúki, as they came from the well Byrgir carrying the bucket Sæg on the pole Símul, and they go with him still. The poem Grímnismál adds the shield Svalin, which stands before the sun. The sources give Sól and Máni no halls of their own.

Sól means “sun” and Máni “moon”, and their father’s name is given as Mundilfari. Anderson’s translation says Sól was given in marriage to a man named Glener. In Gylfaginning the sun is chased by a wolf, Sköll, and the moon by another, Hati; Grímnismál names the same pair in stanza 39 of Thorpe’s numbering. In Thorpe, the Grímnismál shield stands before the sun, and if it fell, rocks and ocean would burn.

Snorri’s version has the gods make the sun’s car from sparks of Múspellsheimr, which ties the sun to the fiery world.