Aurvandil is a figure of Norse mythology remembered above all for a single vivid image: a frozen toe cast into the night sky to become a star. He belongs to a story preserved only briefly by Snorri Sturluson, yet his name reaches far back into the shared traditions of the Germanic peoples.
Who is Aurvandil?
Almost everything we know of Aurvandil comes from one passage in the Skáldskaparmál section of Snorri's Prose Edda. There he is bound up with the aftermath of Thor's duel against the giant Hrungnir, which left a fragment of whetstone lodged in Thor's head. Aurvandil's wife was a seeress named Gróa, and it was she whom Thor sought out to work the stone loose with her spells. Beyond this tale the sources tell us little — Aurvandil is a thinly attested figure, and much of his wider significance is reconstructed by scholars rather than spelled out in the myths.
The frozen toe and the star
Snorri tells that Thor, to gladden Gróa as she chanted over him, gave her news of her husband. He had waded from the north out of Jötunheim, the land of the giants, carrying Aurvandil in a basket on his back across the freezing river Élivágar. One of Aurvandil's toes had stuck out of the basket and frozen, so Thor broke it off and threw it up into the sky, and there it became the star called Aurvandils-tá — "Aurvandil's Toe." Thor promised that Aurvandil himself would soon be home. Gróa was so overjoyed at the news that she forgot the rest of her spells, and so the whetstone was never loosened and remained in Thor's head.
Symbols and legacy
Aurvandil's story is small, but his name is old and wide-reaching. It corresponds to the Old English Ēarendel, a word used for a shining star or the light of dawn, and to related forms across the Germanic languages — a pattern that has led scholars to see in Aurvandil an ancient personification of the morning star. Fittingly, his one preserved myth turns on ice and cold, the domain of the rune Isa, the frozen toe that becomes a point of light in the dark. Though he lingers only at the edge of the surviving Norse sources, Aurvandil the star-bearer has drawn lasting interest as one of the faint, deep echoes of a much older northern sky-lore.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Aurvandil in Norse mythology?
Aurvandil is a figure known mainly from a single story in Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, in which Thor carries him out of the land of the giants and throws his frozen toe into the sky to make a star.
What is Aurvandil's Toe?
Aurvandil's Toe is a star. When the toe froze as Thor carried Aurvandil across an icy river, Thor broke it off and cast it into the heavens, where it became a star bearing that name.
Who was Aurvandil's wife?
Aurvandil's wife was Gróa, a seeress. She was chanting spells over Thor to loosen a whetstone fragment lodged in his head when he told her the news of Aurvandil, and in her joy she forgot her charms.
Is Aurvandil connected to other myths?
Yes. The name is related to the Old English Ēarendel, a word for a bright star or the dawn, and to other Germanic forms, suggesting Aurvandil was once a wider figure of the morning star.