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Eyyy at last I share my renditions of my own gods. I know, it's about time XD As today is Sunday, and the summer solstice recently passed us by, I figured it's the perfect time to talk about Sól and Norse conceptions of the Sun in general. Germanic mythology is actually surprisingly disinterested in the heavenly bodies, at least when compared to say the religions of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East who divine so much from the patterns in the night. Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda tells us that all the twinkling things in the sky, including the sun and moon, were sparks cast from the primordial fires of Muspelheim. Here he references the narrative in the Völuspá which says that in those earliest days of creation, these bodies had no clue what the hell they were doing and just kinda jittered about. Just like my earliest days. And my current days, actually. The heavenly bodies at least had the gods come along and set them in their orbits across the night sky so that mortals could tell time. I meanwhile can't even remember how to read my watch sometimes.

Once on their set paths, that's pretty much all there is to say about the things in the sky. They're not given any sort of mythical tales or constellations, they're just kind of background noise. They're very much inanimate objects, not personified in any way. There is a sun goddess and a moon god, more on that in just a second, but these are beings who have dominion over the bodies they're named after, not the embodiment of them. The sun and moon are said to be drawn by chariots across the sky, which those sibling gods ride through the day and night. In Grímnismál, the sun specifically is pulled by two horses: Árvakr and Alsviðr, who have bellows tied beneath them to keep the sun's heat from roasting their asses. In fact, the sun also requires the shield Svalinn (literally "the Chill") to be affixed before it so that it doesn't evaporate the oceans and light literally everything on fire. It's unclear what relation the sun's horses have, if any, to the horse Skinfaxi ("Shining Mane"), who pulls the personified day, Dagr.

So what about those divine siblings who drive the sun and moon, Sól and Máni? In Vafþrúðnismál, it's said that the father of these siblings was a mortal man named Mundilfari, whose name probably has something to do with timekeeping, fittingly. He named them Sól and Máni because these words literally just mean "Sun" and "Moon" in Old Norse, and he believed his children to be so beautiful that they rivaled the celestial bodies themselves. For whatever reason, the gods took offense to this audacious act, and punished his children by putting them in the sky to guide the chariots of their respective namesakes. Sounds a bit like Mundilfari should've been punished since he's the one that actually named the kids, but I never claimed these stories were supposed to make any lick of sense. The siblings have been situated there ever since, and will continue to ride across the sky until Ragnarök. The Völuspá and Grímnismál say the Sun's light will blacken as it is caught and devoured by the son of the wolf Fenrir, Sköll, while Sköll's brother Hati consumes the Moon. When Odin inquired the jötunn Vafþrúðnir about the eventual fate of the celestial beings, the giant responded that all is not lost, for the Sun will have given birth to a daughter before she is consumed by Fenrir's ilk. That daughter will assume her mother's course after the end of days, bringing light to the mysterious new world at the end of time which even the Norns have nothing to remark about.

One last quick side note, you may have seen this goddess being named "Sunna" in scattered places across the Internet. This is the Old English and Old High German word for "Sun", cognate with our modern English word for the big nuclear explosion in the sky. As far as I can tell the only place this name appears in Old Norse texts is in the poem Alvíssmál. This text is pretty much just an Old Norse thesaurus for poets to reference when they need something to alliterate (because whereas we modern English speakers consider poems to need to rhyme, Old Norse poetry had the opposite stipulation). Interestingly enough, the dwarf relaying all these different names for things says that the sun is called "Sól" among men and "Sunna" among the gods. For those curious, he also says that the dwarves call it "Dvalin's Toy", the jötnar call it "Ever-Glowing", elves call it "Fair Wheel", and sons of Æsir call it "All-Shining". The only other place where "Sunna" is used as a character's name is in the Merseburg Charms, a 9th century text in Old High German which seems to contain pagan incantations of some sort. All "Sunna" does when she is mentioned is help her sister Sinthgunt (an otherwise unattested character) is help Odin heal the broken leg of Baldr's horse. Whenever the name is used in Old English, it's just referring to the sun as in the object.

All that out of the way, I'd actually like to dip a little bit into my own personal speculation. Normally I'm hesitant to do so, as I have a case of chronic dumbass and prefer to confine these blurbs on religious figures to strict academia so that everyone is free to draw their own conslusions. However, since this affects the lore of the Drake Hero Universe, imma go ahead and let you in on a little nugget of my personal theology. I haven't seen this take proposed in any scholarly context anywhere, so 100% feel free to dismiss it as just my headcanon. I think that Sól the charioteer is the daughter mentioned in Vafþrúðnismál. I think this because of the way that Dr. Henrik Williams of the University of Uppsala interprets a section of the famous Rök Runestone. This is a 9th century artifact which is one of the longest medieval runic inscriptions in Scandinavia. There's a specific passage which asks a riddle pertaining to someone "who nine generations ago lost their life with the Hraiðgutar, but still decides the matter." As this was carved in the 9th century, "nine generations ago" would've been in the ballpark of the 6th century. In 536 specifically, massive volcanic activity in the Americas spurred on a climate catastrophe that brought about great famine across the world and preceded the infamous Plague of Justinian. Reading Byzantine records of this apocalyptic era of history certainly makes it seem like the world was, for all intents and purposes, ending. The Romans also make note of an eclipse taking place at this time, and since a common turn of phrase for describing an eclipse in Old Norse is to say that the sun dies, Dr. Williams hypothesizes that the Rök Runestone refers to this very prevalent catastrophe, and that which "still still decides the matter" is in fact the sun who died and came back to life as the catastrophe eventually passed and the world didn't end. I personally look at this situation and I imagine a scenario where Sól the object, as this sort of eldritch primordial god forged in the fires of Muspelheim, gave birth to Sól the mortal as a way of keeping its course under control and eventually take its place after the wolves eat Sól the object. I'm inclined to agree with the theory that the 536 event is what inspired the myth of Ragnarök and the events leading up to it to begin with, so it also lines up with the idea of the culture shifting to prepare for the end of days like the Sun giving birth to her daughter. That's entirely just my theory, and it's how I work the story into the lore of Drake Hero and my personal practice. As I said, feel free to take it or leave it depending on how you look at the evidence. Theological discussion is welcome and encouraged here on my page ^^

Design notes, fitting with the usual lack of attention given to the sun and moon in Norse myth itself, there's not too much historical art of the divine siblings. Most of the depictions that do feature these characters just kind of draw them in generic potato sacks, which just simply won't do for my tastes. Her skirt is inspired by a combination of two archaeological finds from the Nordic Bronze Age: the Egtved Girl and the woman from Borum Eshøj. The big disk at the front of her belt, meanwhile, is taken directly from the Trundholm Sun Chariot. This is a fascinating artifact because it demonstrates just how old the motif of a sun being pulled by a chariot is in these early Nordic cultures, though of course it's already suggested as being older by parallel myths in related Indo-European mythologies. I based Sól's dress, face, and hair primarily off of… Luke Skywalker XD Her face specifically was inspired by some genderbent photoshops someone made on Reddit. It may be silly, but that is genuinely the exact facial structure and haircut I'd expect Sól to have. I think there's also some poetic symmetry there that the goddess of our star would bear some resemblance to the child of two suns. But hey, maybe that's just me being a nerd.

Description
Eyyy at last I share my renditions of my own gods. I know, it's about time XD As today is Sunday, and the summer solstice recently passed us by, I figured it's the perfect time to talk about Sól and Norse conceptions of the Sun in general. Germanic mythology is actually surprisingly disinterested in the heavenly bodies, at least when compared to say the religions of the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East who divine so much from the patterns in the night. Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda tells us that all the twinkling things in the sky, including the sun and moon, were sparks cast from the primordial fires of Muspelheim. Here he references the narrative in the Völuspá which says that in those earliest days of creation, these bodies had no clue what the hell they were doing and just kinda jittered about. Just like my earliest days. And my current days, actually. The heavenly bodies at least had the gods come along and set them in their orbits across the night sky so that mortals could tell time. I meanwhile can't even remember how to read my watch sometimes.

Once on their set paths, that's pretty much all there is to say about the things in the sky. They're not given any sort of mythical tales or constellations, they're just kind of background noise. They're very much inanimate objects, not personified in any way. There is a sun goddess and a moon god, more on that in just a second, but these are beings who have dominion over the bodies they're named after, not the embodiment of them. The sun and moon are said to be drawn by chariots across the sky, which those sibling gods ride through the day and night. In Grímnismál, the sun specifically is pulled by two horses: Árvakr and Alsviðr, who have bellows tied beneath them to keep the sun's heat from roasting their asses. In fact, the sun also requires the shield Svalinn (literally "the Chill") to be affixed before it so that it doesn't evaporate the oceans and light literally everything on fire. It's unclear what relation the sun's horses have, if any, to the horse Skinfaxi ("Shining Mane"), who pulls the personified day, Dagr.

So what about those divine siblings who drive the sun and moon, Sól and Máni? In Vafþrúðnismál, it's said that the father of these siblings was a mortal man named Mundilfari, whose name probably has something to do with timekeeping, fittingly. He named them Sól and Máni because these words literally just mean "Sun" and "Moon" in Old Norse, and he believed his children to be so beautiful that they rivaled the celestial bodies themselves. For whatever reason, the gods took offense to this audacious act, and punished his children by putting them in the sky to guide the chariots of their respective namesakes. Sounds a bit like Mundilfari should've been punished since he's the one that actually named the kids, but I never claimed these stories were supposed to make any lick of sense. The siblings have been situated there ever since, and will continue to ride across the sky until Ragnarök. The Völuspá and Grímnismál say the Sun's light will blacken as it is caught and devoured by the son of the wolf Fenrir, Sköll, while Sköll's brother Hati consumes the Moon. When Odin inquired the jötunn Vafþrúðnir about the eventual fate of the celestial beings, the giant responded that all is not lost, for the Sun will have given birth to a daughter before she is consumed by Fenrir's ilk. That daughter will assume her mother's course after the end of days, bringing light to the mysterious new world at the end of time which even the Norns have nothing to remark about.

One last quick side note, you may have seen this goddess being named "Sunna" in scattered places across the Internet. This is the Old English and Old High German word for "Sun", cognate with our modern English word for the big nuclear explosion in the sky. As far as I can tell the only place this name appears in Old Norse texts is in the poem Alvíssmál. This text is pretty much just an Old Norse thesaurus for poets to reference when they need something to alliterate (because whereas we modern English speakers consider poems to need to rhyme, Old Norse poetry had the opposite stipulation). Interestingly enough, the dwarf relaying all these different names for things says that the sun is called "Sól" among men and "Sunna" among the gods. For those curious, he also says that the dwarves call it "Dvalin's Toy", the jötnar call it "Ever-Glowing", elves call it "Fair Wheel", and sons of Æsir call it "All-Shining". The only other place where "Sunna" is used as a character's name is in the Merseburg Charms, a 9th century text in Old High German which seems to contain pagan incantations of some sort. All "Sunna" does when she is mentioned is help her sister Sinthgunt (an otherwise unattested character) is help Odin heal the broken leg of Baldr's horse. Whenever the name is used in Old English, it's just referring to the sun as in the object.

All that out of the way, I'd actually like to dip a little bit into my own personal speculation. Normally I'm hesitant to do so, as I have a case of chronic dumbass and prefer to confine these blurbs on religious figures to strict academia so that everyone is free to draw their own conslusions. However, since this affects the lore of the Drake Hero Universe, imma go ahead and let you in on a little nugget of my personal theology. I haven't seen this take proposed in any scholarly context anywhere, so 100% feel free to dismiss it as just my headcanon. I think that Sól the charioteer is the daughter mentioned in Vafþrúðnismál. I think this because of the way that Dr. Henrik Williams of the University of Uppsala interprets a section of the famous Rök Runestone. This is a 9th century artifact which is one of the longest medieval runic inscriptions in Scandinavia. There's a specific passage which asks a riddle pertaining to someone "who nine generations ago lost their life with the Hraiðgutar, but still decides the matter." As this was carved in the 9th century, "nine generations ago" would've been in the ballpark of the 6th century. In 536 specifically, massive volcanic activity in the Americas spurred on a climate catastrophe that brought about great famine across the world and preceded the infamous Plague of Justinian. Reading Byzantine records of this apocalyptic era of history certainly makes it seem like the world was, for all intents and purposes, ending. The Romans also make note of an eclipse taking place at this time, and since a common turn of phrase for describing an eclipse in Old Norse is to say that the sun dies, Dr. Williams hypothesizes that the Rök Runestone refers to this very prevalent catastrophe, and that which "still still decides the matter" is in fact the sun who died and came back to life as the catastrophe eventually passed and the world didn't end. I personally look at this situation and I imagine a scenario where Sól the object, as this sort of eldritch primordial god forged in the fires of Muspelheim, gave birth to Sól the mortal as a way of keeping its course under control and eventually take its place after the wolves eat Sól the object. I'm inclined to agree with the theory that the 536 event is what inspired the myth of Ragnarök and the events leading up to it to begin with, so it also lines up with the idea of the culture shifting to prepare for the end of days like the Sun giving birth to her daughter. That's entirely just my theory, and it's how I work the story into the lore of Drake Hero and my personal practice. As I said, feel free to take it or leave it depending on how you look at the evidence. Theological discussion is welcome and encouraged here on my page ^^

Design notes, fitting with the usual lack of attention given to the sun and moon in Norse myth itself, there's not too much historical art of the divine siblings. Most of the depictions that do feature these characters just kind of draw them in generic potato sacks, which just simply won't do for my tastes. Her skirt is inspired by a combination of two archaeological finds from the Nordic Bronze Age: the Egtved Girl and the woman from Borum Eshøj. The big disk at the front of her belt, meanwhile, is taken directly from the Trundholm Sun Chariot. This is a fascinating artifact because it demonstrates just how old the motif of a sun being pulled by a chariot is in these early Nordic cultures, though of course it's already suggested as being older by parallel myths in related Indo-European mythologies. I based Sól's dress, face, and hair primarily off of… Luke Skywalker XD Her face specifically was inspired by some genderbent photoshops someone made on Reddit. It may be silly, but that is genuinely the exact facial structure and haircut I'd expect Sól to have. I think there's also some poetic symmetry there that the goddess of our star would bear some resemblance to the child of two suns. But hey, maybe that's just me being a nerd.