Aurvandill (Old Norse) is a figure in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the god Thor tosses Aurvandill's toe – which had frozen while the thunder god was carrying him in a basket across the Élivágar rivers – into the sky to form a star called ('Aurvandill's toe'). In wider medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, he was known as in Old English, in Old High German, in Lombardic, and possibly as auzandil () in Gothic. An Old Danish latinized version, Horwendillus (Ørvendil), is also the name given to the father of Amlethus (Amleth) in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum.
Comparative studies have led scholars to reconstruct a Common Germanic mythic figure, ('light-beam' or 'ray of light'), associated with brightness and dawn-light imagery. On the basis of the Old English and Gothic evidence, and to a lesser degree the Old Norse text (which mentions a star without additional details), this figure has been interpreted as relating to the rising light of the morning, sometimes identified with the Morning Star (Venus). The German and Old Danish material, however, is more difficult to integrate into this interpretative model.; ; ; ; .
Name and origin Etymology The Old Norse name stems from a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as , , or . It is cognate with Old English , Old High German (≈ ), and Lombardic .; ; . The Gothic word , which can be read in the Gothica Bononiensia according to the interpretation of several experts, is probably another cognate.; ; .
Main interpretation The exact meaning of the Proto-Germanic name has been the subject of sustained scholarly discussion.; ; . Most scholars favour a connection with dawn-light imagery, making Aurvandill a figure associated with brightness, the morning star, or a celestial phenomenon.
A commonly cited interpretation, first proposed by Rudolf Much in 1934, analyses as a compound meaning 'light-beam' or 'ray of light'. In this view, the prefix - is derived from Proto-Germanic ('gloss, shiny liquid'), while the second element is traced to ('rod, cane').; cited by and ; see also . The latter likely originates from the verb ('to wind'),; . carrying connotations of suppleness and flexibility, that is, something that bends or moves with ease.
On this basis, Proto-Germanic may be interpreted as denoting the 'Morning Star' (Venus) or, more broadly, the 'rising light of the morning' (sunrise), a meaning that would be semantically parallel to Latin ('light-bringer, morning star'). Support for this interpretation comes from its descendant cognates, particularly the Old English figure Ēarendel, whose name is associated with the idea of 'rising light'.; Ēarendel has been variously translated as 'brilliance, ray of light', 'dawn, sunrise', and 'morning star',; ; ; . and is attested as a rendering of Latin in the Blickling Homilies. Further evidence have been drawn from the Gothic word , which translates the Koine Greek word heōsphóros ('dawn-bringer') in the Septuagint, itself rendered in Latin as lūcifer. In Old Norse tradition, Aurvandill is likewise connected with a star, though its identity remains uncertain.
Alternative theories Other etymologies have been suggested. A different line of interpretation takes the prefix from Proto-Germanic ('mud, sand, sediment'), rendering the name as 'gravel-beam' or 'swamp-wand'.Originally proposed by . Mentioned by , and , with doubts, although still supported by . Christopher R. Fee thinks that this may imply the idea a phallic figure related to fertility, and notes that the name of Aurvandill's spouse, Gróa, literally meaning 'Growth'. Rudolph Much initially suggested to derive the second element from ('Vandal'), with interpreted as 'the shining Vandal', although this has been rejected by later scholarship.Originally proposed by . Rejected by and .
More recently, Piotr Gąsiorowski (2012) has proposed deriving the name from a Pre-Proto-Germanic form ('the one wandering in the early morning'), yielding interpretations such as 'shining wanderer' or 'wandering light'. However, this raises phonological difficulties, since regular Gothic sound laws would be expected to produce **aurawandils rather than auzandil(s). Alternatively, Stefan Schaffner (2021) has posited an original form ('the little one rising in the morning'), with a diminutive suffix -eló.
Origin
Commentators since at least the time of Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, published in 1835, have emphasized the great age of the tradition reflected in the mythological material associated with this name, without being able to fully reconstruct the motifs of a Common Germanic myth. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the narratives surrounding Orendel and Horwendillus appear to be unrelated to those of Ēarendel and Aurvandill. However, some scholars, including Georges Dumézil and Stefan Schaffner, have attempted to demonstrate that Saxo's Horwendillus and Snorri's Aurvandill may ultimately derive from a shared archetypal myth.
The apparent discrepancies may be partly explained by the occurrence of derivatives of as personal names in the Lombardic and German traditions. Such usage is attested by historical figures named Auriwandalo and Aurendil in the 8th century AD, suggesting that the name circulated beyond a strictly mythological context. From this perspective, the Orendel of the Middle High German epic could represent an independent figure who bore the same name and developed independently. Although some scholars have also conjectured that he may constitute a saga-figure derived from the myth, they acknowledge that no substantive correspondences with the Old Norse tradition can be established.
Nevertheless, Rudolf Simek and John Lindow argue that the linguistic relationship between the Old Norse and Old English names still points to a Common Germanic origin of the myth, despite the absence of Aurvandill from the Poetic Edda. They maintain that Aurvandill was probably already associated with a star in the original tradition, and that Snorri, in order to explain the name Aurvandils tá ('Aurvandill's Toe'), may have reshaped the narrative on the model of the tale in which Thor casts Þjazi's eyes into the sky to form stars.;
Attestations
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.A. G. Brodeur's translation (New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1916).
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. Some scholar have suggested emending the form to *auzandils to better account for its etymological relationship with other Germanic names. The term translates the Koine Greek word (heōsphóros, 'dawn-bringer') from the Septuagint, which is rendered in Latin as lūcifer ('light-bringer, morning star'). In this passage, auzandil corresponds precisely to Old English ēarendel ('morning star'), which likewise serves as a translation of Latin in the Blickling Homilies.
... ...... how Lucifer did fall from heaven, he who emerges in the morning ...
Old English
The term (≈ , ) appears seven times in the Old English corpus, where it is used in certain contexts to interpret the Latin ('rising sun'), ('light-bringer'), ('dawn') or ('radiance'). According to J. E. Cross, textual evidence indicate that it originally meant 'coming or rising light, beginning of light, bringer of light', and that later innovations led to an extended meaning of 'radiance, light'. 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: Crist I (104–108): Eala Earendel, engla beorhtast, ofer middangeard monnum sended, ond soðfæsta sunnan leoma, torht ofer tunglas, – þu tida gehwane of sylfum þe symle inlihtes.B. C. Row translation (1997): Oh rising light, brightest of angels sent to men throughout the world, and true light of the sun, bright above the stars, you constantly enlighten all seasons by your presence.T. Beechy translation (2010): Eala earendel, brightest of angels, sent over the earth to mankind, and truest light of the sun, bright above the stars, all spans of time you, of yourself, enlighten always.
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'.