Tuesday, October 31, 2006

A Mural


The horse at the top of the picture, whom we only see the half of, is Óðinn's horse Sleipnir, the finest of all horses. You can identify Sleipnir easily because he has eight legs. He is the son of Svadilfari, a grey stallion belonging to a frost giant, and Loki the god of trickery, who turned into a white mare in order to entice Svadilfari away from his owner. As you might be able to guess, there's a story behind this, but I'll leave it till later. Anyhow, Sleipnir is sometimes depicted with six legs, four at the back and two at the front, but here he has all eight, so you can distinguish him from a beetle. But mistake him for a spider, perhaps.

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