The story of the horse with eight legs comes from Norse mythology, which is the pre-Christian mythology of North Europe. Norse mythology has become quite popular nowadays because of the popularity of Thor and Loki in Hollywood movies, because of Neil Gaiman’s famous book now a miniseries called American Gods, where the central character is Odin; and because of Lord of the Rings, which has motifs of elves, dwarves and rings, that originate from Norse mythology.

Much of the information on Norse mythology comes to us via Christian priests, and through eddas, or sagas, of the Northern people. Vikings were fierce warriors who believed that death in battle would earn them the admiration of the Valkyries. The Valkyries were the daughters of the king of the gods, Wuotan, also known as Odin. The Valkyries would take the best of fallen warriors to Asgard, the hall of the gods, where they would be resurrected and  they would eat and drink with the gods and ride with them into the final battle of Ragnarok. The unique belief of the Norse, not shared by other cultures, was that the world would eventually end, and in the final battle, even the gods would die, fighting the giants and goblins.