Old Norse The
Old Norse figure ''
is mentioned only once in Norse mythology, in Skáldskaparmál'', a book of
Snorri Sturluson's 13th-century
Prose Edda. In the passage, Thor tells to Aurvandill's wife
Gróa that he waded through the river
Élivágar, coming from the north, while carrying Aurvandill in a basket on his back. During the crossing, one of Aurvandill's toes protruded from the basket, froze, and broke off. Thor then picked up the severed toe and threw it into the sky, where it became a star known as
Aurvandils tá.Thor went home to Thrúdvangar, and the
hone remained sticking in his head. Then came the wise woman who was called
Gróa, wife of Aurvandill the Valiant: she sang her spells over Thor until the hone was loosened. But when Thor knew that, and thought that there was hope that the hone might be removed, he desired to reward Gróa for her leech-craft and make her glad, and told her these things: that he had waded from the north over Icy Stream and had borne Aurvandill in a basket on his back from the north out of Jötunheim. And he added for a token, that one of Aurvandill's toes had stuck out of the basket, and became frozen; wherefore Thor broke it off and cast it up into the heavens, and made thereof the star called Aurvandill's Toe. Thor said that it would not be long ere Aurvandill came home: but Gróa was so rejoiced that she forgot her incantations, and the hone was not loosened, and stands yet in Thor's head. Therefore it is forbidden to cast a hone across the floor, for then the hone is stirred in Thor's head. According to
Georges Dumézil, this passage appears to be part of a broader story in which Aurvandill is abducted by the
jǫtnar. The thunder-god Thor confronts one of them (
Hrungnir in Snorri's version) and ultimately frees Aurvandill, but departs with the
jǫtunn's weapon lodged in his head. At the end of the story, Aurvandill's frost-bitten toe is made into a new star by Thor. However, it is not clear what celestial object is indicated in this passage. Guesses as to its identity have included
Sirius or the planet
Venus.
Aurvandilstá ('Aurvandill's Toe') has also been identified with blue-white star
Rigel, which could be viewed as forming the foot of the constellation
Orion (the latter equated with Aurvandill itself).
Christopher R. Fee has proposed that the myth reflects an ancient Indo-European fertility tradition, in which the
jötnar represent chaotic natural forces embodied as arctic cold that threaten agricultural fertility. Gróa's practice of
seiðr (magic) associates her with the fertility gods of the
Vanir, and the toe could be associated with the frozen phallus of the captive Aurvandill.
Gothica Bononiensia The oldest attestation of this name may occur in the
Gothica Bononiensia, a sermon from
Ostrogothic Italy written in the
Gothic language not later than the first half of the 6th century, and discovered in 2009. On
folio 2
recto, within a quotation of
Isaiah 14:12, the linguist P. A. Kerkhof proposed reading the word (
auzandil) in a difficult-to-decipher part of the
palimpsest. This interpretation has been accepted by several experts, including
Carla Falluomini, Stefan Schaffner, and Roland Schuhmann. Philologist Tiffany Beechy writes that "the evidence from the early glossary tradition shows
earendel to be a rare alternative for common words for the dawn/rising sun." According to her, the "Anglo-Saxons appear to have known '''' as a quasi-mythological figure who personified a natural phenomenon (sunrise) and an astrological/astronomical object (the morning star)."
Crist I The lines 104–108 of the Old English poem
Crist I (
Christ I) describe the coming of Ēarendel to the earth: The impetus of the poem comes from the Latin
Advent Antiphon: "O Orient/Rising One (=
Oriens), splendour of eternal light and sun of justice: come and illuminate one sitting in darkness and the shadow of death". Scholars agree that ''
was chosen in Crist I
as an equivalent of the Latin '', understood in a religious-poetic context as the 'source of true light', 'the fount of light', and the 'light (which) rises from the Orient'. Traditionally, Ēarendel in
Crist I is taken to personify either
John the Baptist or
Christ himself (depicted as the rising sun), the morning star, or the dawn. In the poem, he is described as the "true(st) light of the sun" ('
) and as the "brightest of angels [≈ messengers]" ('). This portrayal suggests the idea of a heavenly or divine radiance sent both physically and metaphorically over the earth for the benefit of mankind. The lines 107b–8 (''''), translated as "all spans of time you, of yourself, enlighten always", or as "you constantly enlighten all seasons by your presence", may also imply that Ēarendel exists in the poem as an eternal figure existing outside of time, and as the very force that makes time and its perception possible. Beechy argues that the expression '''' ('O ') could be an Old English poetic stock formula, as it finds "phonetic-associative echoes" in the expressions '
and ' from the Durham Hymnal Gloss.
Blickling Homilies also appears in the
Blickling Homilies (10th century AD), where he is explicitly identified with
John the Baptist: The passage is based on a Latin sermon by the 5th-century Archbishop of Ravenna
Petrus Chrysologus: "But since he is about to appear, now let John spring forth, because the birth of Christ follows closely; let the new Lucifer arise, because now the light (=
iubar) of the true Sun is breaking forth".. Since the Old English version is close to the original Latin, '
can be clearly identified in the this passage with ', meaning in
liturgical language the 'light bearer, the planet Venus as morning star, the sign auguring the birth of Christ'. In this context, '''' is to be understood as the morning star, the light whose rising signifies Christ's birth, and whose appearance comes in the poem before the "gleam of the true Sun, God himself".
Durham Hymnal Gloss In the Durham Hymnal Gloss (early 11th century AD), the name ''
is used in specific contexts to gloss the Latin aurora'' ('dawn; east, orient') instead of the more common equivalent '''' ('dawn'), also mentioned in the same line. Hymns 15.8 and 30.1 imply that ''
appears with the dawn
, as the light that "quite suffuses the sky", rather than being the dawn itself'' ("the dawn comes up in its course, steps fully forth").
Épinal Glossary The Épinal Glossary, written in England in the 8th century, associates '
with the Latin ' ('brightness, radiance' [especially of heavenly bodies]) as an alternative to the more frequent Old English equivalent '''' ('ray of light, gleam'). Two copies of the Épinal Glossary were produced in the late 8th or early 9th century: the
Épinal-Erfurt Glossary, which gives the equation '
(≈ '), and the
Corpus Glossary, which was redacted from an archetype of the Épinal-Erfurt exemplar.
German The forms '
(≈ ', '
), dating from the 8th century, and ' (≈ ''''), dating from the 9th–10th century, are attested as personal names in
Old High German. The
Middle High German epic poem
Orendel, written in the late 12th century, presents a fictional story of how the Holy Mantle of Christ arrived in the city of
Trier. This narrative was likely inspired by the actual transfer of the Mantle to the main altar of
Trier Cathedral in 1196. The poem's style, characterized by its "
paratactic organization of episodes and the repetition of poetic formulas", suggests it may be rooted in an older oral tradition. The eponymous hero of the tale, Orendel, son of King Ougel, sets sail with a formidable fleet to reach the Holy Land and seek the hand of Bride,
Queen of Jerusalem. After enduring a shipwreck, Orendel is rescued by a fisherman and eventually retrieves the lost Mantle from the belly of a whale. The coat grants him protection, enabling him to win Bride's hand in marriage. Together, they rule Jerusalem for a time and embark on numerous adventures. In the end, Orendel disposes of the Holy Coat after bringing it to Trier. The appendix to the
Strassburger Heldenbuch (15th c.) names King Orendel (≈ '
) of Trier as the first of the heroes that were ever born. The name also gave way to various toponyms found in modern Germany, including ' (in
Grabfeld), '
(now part of Zweiflingen), and ' (in
Öhringen).
Lombardic The
Lombardic form '''' appears twice as a personal name in the 8th century. According to
Jan de Vries, these occurrences indicate the wide diffusion of the figure across the Germanic-speaking area by the
Early Middle Ages.
Danish A Latinized version of the
Old Danish name,
Horwendillus (Ørvendil), appears in
Saxo Grammaticus'
Gesta Danorum (ca. 1200) as the father of
Amlethus (Amlet): Now Ørvendil, after controlling the [Jutland] province for three years, had devoted himself to piracy and reaped such superlative renown that Koller, the king of Norway, wishing to rival his eminent deeds and widespread reputation, judged it would suit him very well if he could transcend him in warfare and cast a shadow over the brilliance of this world-famed sea-rover. He cruised about, combing various parts of the seas, until he lit upon Ørvendil's fleet. Each of the pirates had gained an island in the midst of the ocean and they had moored their ships on different sides. (...) Both gave and accepted their word of honour on this point and fell to battle. They were not deterred from assailing each other with their blades by the novelty of their meeting or the springtime charm of that spot, for they took no heed of these things. Ørvendil's emotional fervour made him more eager to set upon his foe than to defend himself; consequently he disregarded the protection of his shield and laid both hands to his sword. This daring had its results. His rain of blows deprived Koller of his shield by cutting it to pieces; finally he carved off the other's foot and made him fall lifeless. He honoured their agreement by giving him a majestic funeral, constructing an ornate tomb, and providing a ceremony of great magnificence. After this he hounded down and slew Koller's sister Sæla, a warring amazon and accomplished pirate herself and skilled in the trade of fighting. Three years were passed in gallant military enterprises, in which he marked the richest and choicest of the plunder for Rørik, to bring himself into closer intimacy with the king. On the strength of their friendship Ørvendil wooed and obtained Rørik's daughter Gerutha for his bride, who bore him a son, Amleth. In view of Saxo's tendency to
euhemerise and reinterpret traditional Scandinavian myths, philologist
Georges Dumézil has proposed that his story was based on the same archetype as Snorri's Aurvandill. In what could be a literary inversion of the original myth, Horwendillus is portrayed as a warrior who injures and vanquishes his adversary, whereas Aurvandill was taken as a hostage by the
jǫtnar and wounded during his deliverance. Dumézil also notes that, although the event does not take a cosmological turn in Saxo's version, Aurvandill's toe was broken off by Thor, while Collerus' (Koller's) entire foot is slashed off by Horwendillus. According to scholar Stefan Schaffner, Koller (
Collerus) may have originally meant 'the cold one', and the story could be based on an ancient myth of the battle between the seasons, in which the cold winter (
Collerus) is defeated by spring or summer (
Horwendillus). In this view, "Horwendillus, as the representative of summer, would fit very well with the identification of Aurvandill as Orion, the constellation that rises early in midsummer at the time of the grain harvest." ==In popular culture==