Svaðilfari: The Horse Who Nearly Earned the Sun

“When they told him these terms, he requested that they should allow him to have the help of his horse, called Svadilfare, and at the suggestion of Loke this was granted him.”

“...a mare suddenly ran out of the woods to the horse and began to neigh at him. The steed, knowing what sort of horse this was, grew excited, burst the reins asunder and ran after the mare, but she ran from him into the woods.”

“But Loke had run such a race with Svadilfare that he some time after bore a foal. It was gray, and had eight feet, and this is the best horse among gods and men.”

In Gylfaginning, Anderson’s translation, a builder offers the gods a fortress safe from mountain-giants and frost-giants, finished within one winter. His price is Freyja, the sun and the moon, and the gods agree if the work is done by the first day of summer with no man helping. At Loki’s suggestion the builder may use his horse Svaðilfari, and the horse does half again as much work as the man, hauling huge rocks.

Three days before summer only the gate remains. The gods threaten Loki, who runs out as a mare and lures the horse away. The work falls behind, the builder shows his giant form, and Thor, ignoring the oaths, kills him with Mjöllnir. Loki later bears an eight-legged grey foal, Sleipnir. Snorri then cites Völuspá for the broken oaths.

The builder is never named in Gylfaginning, only called a builder and then a mountain-giant, and the horse is the only one of the pair with a name. The text cited here does not explain the meaning of Svaðilfari, and Anderson’s glossary calls him a horse, the sire of Sleipnir.

The tale explains how Odin came by his eight-legged horse and how the gods’ fortress was raised, and it shows the gods breaking their own oaths. Loki appears as the one whose advice led to the bargain and as the one who saves the gods from it.