Summary
Huginn and Muninn are Odin's two ravens in Norse myth. Snorri says in Gylfaginning that two ravens sit on Odin's shoulders and tell into his ears all the tidings they see or hear. He sends them out at dawn to fly over the whole world, and they come back at breakfast time, so he learns many tidings, and for this people call him the raven-god.
Odin speaks of them in his own voice in Grímnismál: Huginn and Muninn fly each day over the wide earth; I fear for Huginn that he may not come back, yet I fear more for Muninn. Ynglinga saga says that Odin had two ravens he had taught to speak, which flew far over the lands and brought him many tidings, and that he also had Mímir's head, which told him news from other worlds, so that by these things he became very wise.
The idea the story turns on is that Odin knows the world by what comes to him, not only by what his eye sees. He left one eye in Mímir's well to drink wisdom, and now news reaches him each morning from two messengers who go and come back, while every day he fears they may not return. He fears most for the second, since in Norse the names are "thought" and "memory", and a messenger who does not return takes with him what he has seen.
We read the names in the Arabic tongue like this, as a reading proposed on the method. Both names end in the Norse suffix -inn, and their bases are hugr, thought, mind, and munr, mind, longing, with the related verb muna, to remember. With the suffix and the case ending removed, hug- and mun- remain. The first is Arabic ḥijā: Lane gives ḥajā, "he thought, he opined", and ḥijā, "intelligence, understanding"; Arabic ḥ becomes h and j becomes g. The second is from manā: Lane gives manā, "he meditated a thing in his mind", umniyya, "what a man meditates in his mind, applied also to what is wished and to what is read", and munya, "a thing a man wishes for". On this reading the ravens are al-ḥijā wa-l-munā, "understanding and inward longing": the mind that sees and judges, and the self that keeps what is within it and yearns, the two names the story makes into messengers between Odin and the world.
Linguistic Root
| Form | What it is |
|---|---|
| Huginn | The first raven |
| Muninn | The second raven |
| hugr | Thought, mind, mood |
| munr | Mind, longing, delight |
| muna | To remember |
| hugs, muns | Gothic: understanding; thought, intention |
| حِجا + مُنى, ḥijā + munā | The Arabic words we read the names by |
Cleasby and Vigfusson give Huginn as "the wise raven of Odin" and Muninn as the name of his other raven. They give hugr as "mind, with the notion of thought", comparing Gothic hugs; munr as "the mind", then "a mind, longing, delight", comparing Gothic muns and Old English myne, love, mind; and muna as "to mind, call to mind, remember". Orel places the two words under Germanic *xuᵹiz, understanding, mind, and *muniz, thought, intention, longing. Snorri lists munr among the names of hugr itself, so for him the two names are two names of the one mind.
Lane gives ḥajā, yaḥjū, "he thought, he opined", and ḥijā, "intelligence, understanding", said to come from ḥajā in the sense of withholding, because it withholds a man from what is bad; from it come uḥjiyya, a riddle, and muḥājāt, a contest in intelligence. He gives manā, "he meditated a thing in his mind", umniyya, "what a man meditates in his mind, applied also to what is wished and to what is read", munya, "a thing a man wishes for", and tamannāhu, "he wished for it".
The sounds follow the Juthoor sound laws. Arabic ḥ becomes h in the European languages and j becomes g; the weak final letter of ḥajā drops, leaving hug-. M is m, n is n, and the weak y of manā drops, leaving mun-. The senses meet on both sides: hugr is thought, and ḥijā the understanding that opines and judges; munr is mind and longing, and munā what one meditates within oneself and wishes for. What remains is that the "remember" sense of muna reaches manā only through what is read and recalled.
The project's Semitic essay does not read the ravens' names; it mentions them in its comparison of Odin with al-Khiḍr, both old men who know hidden things, Odin with two ravens who bring him news.
Key Mythic Narratives
Snorri counts Huginn and Muninn among the raven-names poets use, and quotes verses in which the two names stand for the raven on the battlefield: the poet Einarr Skúlason says "blue-black Muninn drinks blood out of the wounds", and calls carrion "Huginn's cargo". In poetry the ravens are the battle birds that eat the slain, as at Odin's side they are messengers of news. Snorri also gives "the wind of troll-women" as a kenning for thought, huginn.
Odin feeds his wolves Geri and Freki from his table in Valhalla and himself lives on wine, with the ravens on his shoulders.
Symbolic Reading
The essay "Rereading Norse Myths" reads the ravens as a scouting network: scouts watching distant lands, flying out each day and coming back with news. In its chapter on navigation it reads them as birds that sailors release to fly toward the nearest land. This fits the going, returning and reporting in the texts, and the texts add that the ravens speak and that their names are names of the mind, so Odin's scouting is knowledge that enters the ear and is kept.
Cross-Cultural Parallels
In Tablet XI of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim sends out a dove and then a swallow after the flood, and both come back, then a raven, which does not, and he knows the water has receded. There the raven that does not return is news read from its absence; here it is what Odin fears every day, that a messenger will go and not come back. The page on the flood myth gathers the birds that survivors send out in the other versions.