Nott- Norse GiantGiant
Also known as: Nótt
Description
Hrímfaxi's foam falls as dew across sleeping fields while its dark rider circles the world, and each dawn she yields the sky to her bright son Dagr and his shining horse behind her.
Mythology & Lore
The Ride Across the Sky
Nótt was dark and swarthy like her father Nörvi, a jötunn. When the gods set the cosmos in order, they gave her a horse and a chariot and placed her in the sky to ride around the earth. Her horse was Hrímfaxi, "frost-mane." From his bit a foam fell each morning that scattered dew across the sleeping fields as night yielded to dawn.
Her son Dagr rode behind her on Skínfaxi, "shining-mane," whose mane lit the sky and the ground below. Nótt always rode first. In Vafþrúðnismál, Odin asks the wise giant Vafþrúðnir who brings night over the gods, and Vafþrúðnir names her: Nótt, daughter of Nörvi, set in the sky by the gods' decree.
Three Marriages
Snorri records in Gylfaginning that Nótt married three times. Her first husband was Naglfari, and their son was Auðr, of whom little else is told. Her second was Annarr, and with him she bore Jörð, the earth herself, who would become the mother of Thor. Her third husband was Dellingr, described as kin to the Æsir, and their son was Dagr. He took his father's brightness rather than his mother's darkness, and it was he whom the gods set on Skínfaxi to follow his mother's chariot across the sky each day.