Mánagarmr

"Moon-hound." The wolf who will hunt down the moon (or the sun, or both heavenly bodies) during the Ragnarök and swallow it; possibly the same as Hati Hróðvitnisson. Snorri Sturluson writes in Gylfaginning:

A witch dwells to the east of Midgard, in the forest called Ironwood: in that wood dwell the troll-women, who are known as Ironwood-Women. The old witch bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this source are these wolves sprung. The saying runs thus: from this race shall come one that shall be mightiest of all, he that is named Moon-Hound; he shall be filled with the flesh of all those men that die, and he shall swallow the moon, and sprinkle with blood the heavens and all the lair; thereof shall the sun lose her shining, and the winds in that day shall be unquiet and roar on every side.

Snorri bases his account on two stanzas in Völuspá:

32. East sat the crone,
in Iárnvidir,
Fenrir's progeny:
of all shall be
one especially
the moon's devourer,
in a troll's semblance.
33. He is sated with the last breath
of dying men;
the gods' seat he
with red gore defiles:
swart is the sunshine
then for summers after;
all weather turns to storm.

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References

Sources

  • Gylfaginning, 12.
  • Völuspá, 32-33.