Hár and Hárr


Hár and Hárr are among the many names of Odin. The Prose Edda depicts Hár in particular as one of the figures in the legendary trio that respond to the questions posed by Gangleri, along with Jafnhárr and Þriði.

Name

The Old Norse name Hár means 'High' or 'High One', stemming from Proto-Norse *hauhaR. In the eddic poem Hávamál, Odin adopts the name Hávi as a variant form of Hár. According to the catalogue in the Völuspá, Hár is also the name of a dwarf.
The origin of the name Hárr remains unclear. A number of scholars, including Jan de Vries, E. O. G. Turville-Petre and Vladimir Orel, have proposed the meaning 'One-eyed'. The word may derive from a Proto-Norse form *Haiha-hariR, itself a derivative of the Proto-Germanic root *haihaz. A Proto-Indo-European origin is also suggested by the Latin caecus and the Old Irish caech. Hárr has also been interpreted as 'the hoary one', 'with grey hair and beard', or as an adjectival form of the lexeme Hár.

Attestations

In Gylfaginning, the king Gylfi, assuming the form of an old man named Gangleri, comes to visit the place of the gods Ásgard. But the Æsir, who have foreseen his journey, prepare a visual delusion where Gilfy thinks he arrives at a great hall where he meets the chiefains Hár, Jafnhárr, and Þriði. Then Gangleri asks the three men a series of questions about the identity of gods or the creation of the cosmos. The answers are usually given by Hár with occasional amplification by Jafnhárr or Þriði. Finally, Gangleri asks about Ragnarök and its aftermath, then he hears a crash and the hall disappears.
A variant of Hár, Hávi, appears in the poem Hávamál as the name of Odin.