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Concept
Aurvandill
Summary
Aurvandill (Old Norse) is a figure in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the god Thor tosses Aurvandill's toe – which had frozen while the thunder god was carrying him in a basket across the Élivágar rivers – into the sky to form a star called Aurvandils-tá ('Aurvandill's toe'). In wider medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, he was known as Ēarendel in Old English, Aurendil in Old High German, Auriwandalo in Lombardic, and possibly as auzandil in Gothic. An Old Danish Latinized version, Horwendillus (Ørvendil), is also the name given to the father of Amlethus (Amleth) in Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum. Comparative studies of the various myths where the figure is involved have led scholars to reconstruct a Common Germanic mythical figure named *Auza-wandilaz, which seems to have personified the 'rising light' of the morning, possibly the Morning Star (Venus). However, the German and – to a lesser extent – the Old Danish evidence remain difficult to interpret in this model.
The Old Norse name Aurvandill stems from a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as *Auza-wandilaz, *Auzi-wandalaz, or *Auzo-wandiloz. It is cognate with Old English Ēarendel, Old High German Aurendil (≈ Orentil), and Lombardic Auriwandalo. The Gothic word auzandil, translating the Koine Greek ἑωσφόρος (eosphoros, 'dawnbringer'), may also be related.
The original meaning of the Common Germanic name remains obscure. The most semantically plausible explanation is to interpret Auza-wandilaz as a compound meaning 'light-beam' or 'ray of light', by deriving the prefix auza- from Proto-Germanic auzom ('shiny [especially of liquids]'; cf. ON aurr 'gold', OE ēar 'wave, sea'), and -wandilaz from *wanđuz ('rod, cane'; cf. Goth. wandus, ON vǫndr). The latter probably stems from the root *wanđ- ('to turn, wind'), so that the etymological connotation is that of suppleness or flexibility. This theory is encouraged by the Old English association of the idea of 'rising light' with Ēarendel, whose name has been translated as 'radiance, morning star', or as 'dawn, ray of light'.
Official source
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