Eikthyrnir was the great stag that stands upon the roof of Valhalla — the wondrous deer who browses the leaves of the world-tree and from whose antlers drips the water that becomes the source of all the rivers of the worlds. With the mead-goat Heidrun, he is one of the marvelous beasts that crown Odin's hall, and he is the very origin of the world's waters.
The Stag Upon the Hall
Eikthyrnir (Old Norse Eikþyrnir, “oak-thorny” or “the one with oak-tips on his antlers”) was a great hart or stag that stands upon the roof of Valhalla, Odin's hall of the slain, alongside the magical she-goat Heidrun. Like Heidrun, he feeds upon the leaves and branches of the tree called Læraðr (often identified with the world-tree Yggdrasil), browsing its foliage from his place atop the great hall.
The Source of All Rivers
Eikthyrnir's wonder lies in what flows from him. As the stag browses the leaves of the tree, water drips from his great antlers — and this water falls down into the spring Hvergelmir, the great well in the cold depths of the cosmos. And from Hvergelmir, fed by the dripping of Eikthyrnir's antlers, flow all the rivers of all the worlds — a great list of named rivers that water the realms of gods, giants, men and the dead. Thus the stag upon Valhalla is, astonishingly, the ultimate source of every river in the cosmos: the waters of the worlds begin as moisture dripping from the antlers of a deer browsing the world-tree atop the hall of the slain.
The Beast of the Cosmic Waters
Eikthyrnir takes his place among the wondrous creatures that the Norse imagined dwelling upon and around the world-tree and Valhalla — the eagle and the dragon, the squirrel Ratatoskr, the four stags that browse Yggdrasil's branches, the goat Heidrun, and Eikthyrnir himself. Together they give the Norse cosmos a teeming, living detail, in which the great structures of the world — the tree, the hall, the wells and rivers — are bound up with living beasts. Eikthyrnir is the beast of the waters, the stag whose antlers feed the spring from which all rivers flow.
The Antlers That Feed the World's Rivers
Eikthyrnir endures as one of the marvelous beasts of Valhalla and the Norse cosmos — the great stag upon Odin's hall whose dripping antlers are the source of all the world's rivers. He embodies the Norse vision of a cosmos alive in every part, where even the rivers have a living origin, and where atop the hall of the heroic dead stand two wondrous beasts: a goat giving endless mead, and a stag from whose antlers flow the waters of all the worlds.
Atop the hall of the slain a great stag browses the world-tree, and from his antlers drips the water that becomes every river in all the worlds.