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Gather around people, and I shall tell you a story ✨ Way way back, the gods were holed up in Asgard, fearing impending attacks from the titans. They were searching for solutions to guard themselves, and they thought the best way to defend themselves was to raise a big wall around their palace.

However, it would be an enormous feat, even for the gods to set up this wall quickly enough. As they were contemplating how to solve that problem, an old, frail man requested audience with the gods and claimed that he, with his trusted stallion Svaðilfari could make the wall for them.

But he would want a reward if he could do it; the beautiful Freya's hand in marriage. The gods scoffed at the possibility he could build that wall and wouldn't even want to consider the possibility of giving up Freya to this stranger. But Loki, cunning as he was, had an idea.

He proposed that the gods let him do it; but he'd have to finish within one year. He knew there was no chance he could do it, and at the very least they'd have an incomplete wall to finish up themselves. An easy win for free labor. Freya was against it either way, but the gods sided with Loki.

And thus the old man got to work. Each day, he brought huge rocks on a cart with Svaðilfari, he laid them on the wall and he was raising that wall, little by little. Weeks went by, then months. The old man did not slow down. The year was almost done, and he was proving the gods wrong.

The gods, and especially Freya were extremely anxious and displeased to see he could actually finish that wall. So they hatched a plan, to slow him down. Loki would disguise himself as a mare, and lure Svaðilfari away, so the old man could not finish his wall.

And so he did, Loki lured Svaðilfari away into the woods, and mated with him. And as a result, Loki in the form of a mare was pregnant and gave birth to Sleipnir, the legendary eight-legged horse ridden by Odin.