This series, Godshapes, is intended as a resource for creatives interested in what ancient sources say about the physicality of the North Germanic gods—their shapes. Prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia (and to some extent after), the people of the region appear to have vividly pictured the many deities and entities that populate what we today call Norse mythology. For more information on Godshapes’ purpose and approach, click here.

Our first Godshapes entry focuses on a lesser known figure, one of the most difficult figures in the corpus to conceptualize: a god by the name of Hœnir. Hœnir’s case is a curious one. In the body of Old Norse narratives that come down to us today, the god generally lurks in the shadows, a quiet companion to other gods. While the record strongly implies that Hœnir was an important figure, what we are told seems cryptic and obtuse and lacks the clarity to confidently place his characteristics in context.

Hœnir is only mentioned a handful of times but these brief mentions are enough to raise plenty of questions, important questions that reach into the heart of the written record of the North Germanic peoples. And while many of these questions simply can't be answered, those that invest the time to draw from the deep wells of the corpus are rewarded with not only great mysteries but also colorful and vibrant imagery from the minds and mouths of the ancients.

Literary Sources

Early in the 13th century, on the remote Atlantic island of Iceland, a book like no other was composed. This book is commonly known today as the Prose Edda. The author (and, in time, authors) of this enigmatic book drew from earlier traditional sources, such as the work of pagan poets, and appears to have composed the book as a manual for a fading art, the art of the skald—an individual who composed and recited traditional North Germanic poetry.

This ancient poetry, known as alliterative verse, focuses on the quality of alliteration rather than, say today's popular fixation with rhyme. Think more along the lines of Sally sells seashells by the seashore than a wise old owl lived in an oak, the more he saw the less he spoke.



Alliterative verse, as used by the skalds, is excellent for memorization and recitation. While the ancient Germanic peoples were not illiterate (they developed an indigenous alphabet, the runic alphabet, somewhere around the first few centuries CE), they appear to have placed a greater emphasis on oral culture. Poems were passed down from person to person, generation after generation, perhaps in the form of song or somehow otherwise performed.



This fixation on traditional poetry plays a central role in the Prose Edda, where Christian scribes put to parchment at least some of what they knew about their pagan predecessors, much of it no doubt derived from circulating oral culture. Surviving manuscripts of the Prose Edda are divided into four sections. Portions of two of these sections, Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál, are in some ways quite similar: the two provide prose retellings of scores of narratives from Norse mythology. They’re backed with quotations from various Old Norse sources, such as the aforementioned pagan poets. But Skáldskaparmál differs from Gylfaginning in that, as the section grows longer, it transforms into a series of metrical lists (called þulur, singular þula, in Old Norse).

These lists function as a sort of readily memorizable catalogue for poets and, like the work of skalds in general, appear to be carefully crafted. Skaldic poetry relies heavily on a poetic device called a kenning, a poetic circumlocution that consists of two elements placed together to invoke specific images, such as two nouns. Consider, for example, the famous kenning hronrād found in the Old English poem Beowulf. It's composed of two elements: hron, meaning 'whale', and rād, meaning 'road'. Together, these two elements produce an image: [whale] + [road] = [sea]. In other words, the whale-road is the sea.

Kennings are works of art. They evoke imagery, themes, and moods. They may also transmit information unmentioned elsewhere in the record. And kennings weren’t just for flavor: they're tailored to meet the structural demands of alliterative verse, allowing skillful poets to create ornate and complex constructions ready to set to memory. When kennings are chained together, they can also form puzzles with many layers, accessible to only the most lore-wise skalds.

A list of kennings used by skalds to described Hœnir can be found in Skáldskaparmál but its contents are, well, see for yourself—here’s what the source says:

Hvernig skal kenna Hœni? Svá at kalla hann sessa eða sinna eða mála Óðins ok hinn skjóta Ás ok hinn langa fót ok aurkonung. (Faulkes 1998: 19)

How should Hœnir be known? He should be called bench-mate, companion or friend of Odin, and the swift ás [‘god’] and long-legs and mud-king. (Hopkins trans.)

The word aurkonungr translates quite readily to ‘mud-king’ but a few scholars (such as prominent scholar Rudolf Simek) propose alternate explanations, including that the word may represent a kenning referring to a lost narrative of some sort.

A fast, long-legged, “mud king” sounds a lot like a water bird. Picture a crane, heron, or some similar creature wading about in a reedy pool, majestically plumed and ready to strike a passing fish. While Hœnir is rarely discussed today in Ancient Germanic Studies, the interdisciplinary field focused on the academic study of the ancient Germanic peoples, scholars in the field have commented on the bird-like implications of these curious kennings now and then since at least the late 19th century.

Hœnir is more explicitly associated with birds in another, later text. This piece, Loka Táttur, is from the Faroe Islands, a lonely cluster of 18 rocky islands in the Atlantic, triangulated by Iceland, Scotland, and Norway. Loka Táttur is generally dated somewhere around the 14th century, centuries after the Christianization of the islands, but elements of its contents ultimately stem from the pre-Christian era.