Hati was the great wolf that chases the moon across the night sky — the counterpart of his brother Sköll who hunts the sun, pursuing the moon-god Mani and fated, at Ragnarök, to catch and devour him. He is the hunger at the heels of the moon, the darkness that hunts the night-light to its doom.
The Wolf at the Moon's Heels
Hati (Old Norse Hati Hróðvitnisson, “he who hates,” son of Hróðvitnir) was a monstrous wolf who pursues the moon across the night sky. As his brother Sköll chases the sun-goddess Sol by day, so Hati races after the moon-god Mani by night, hungering to catch and swallow the moon. His pursuit drives the moon onward across the dark, the night-light fleeing the jaws at its back just as the sun flees by day. The two wolves were said to be of monstrous brood, born in the Iron Wood to a giantess, bred to hunt the lights of heaven.
The Hunt Across the Night
The image of Hati forever chasing the moon is the Norse explanation for the moon's motion through the night sky and for the terror of a lunar eclipse. When the moon darkened and seemed to be swallowed, the Norse saw the moment when Hati had drawn near and almost seized his prey — and people would raise a great noise to frighten the wolf and drive him back from the moon. Night after night the chase goes on, Hati at the moon's heels, the pale light fleeing across the dark, never able to rest for the hunger that pursues it.
The Devouring at Ragnarok
At Ragnarök, Hati's chase reaches its terrible end. As the world rushes to its doom, Hati at last catches the moon and devours it, even as his brother Sköll swallows the sun. The two great lights of heaven are extinguished together, swallowed by the wolves that hunted them, and the sky goes dark — one of the great signs that the end has come and the final battle is at hand. The stars, too, vanish from the sky. With sun and moon both devoured, the world is plunged into a darkness that heralds the doom of the gods.
The Darkness That Hunts the Moon
Hati endures as the wolf that chases the moon — the night-time counterpart of Sköll, the hunger at the heels of the moon, the pursuer whose final triumph at Ragnarök extinguishes the night-light. Together, the two wolves embody the Norse vision of the heavens as a place of eternal flight and pursuit, the sun and moon forever fleeing the jaws of the wolves, the precious lights of day and night both hunted by a devouring darkness — and both, at the end of the world, swallowed at last.
As Sköll hunts the sun by day, Hati hunts the moon by night — and at the end of the world the two wolves swallow the lights of heaven together, and the sky goes dark.