Snær

In Norse mythology, Snær (Old Norse Snærr, East Norse Sniō, Latin Nix, Nivis, English "snow") is seemingly a personification of snow, appearing in extant text as an euhemerized legendary Scandinavian king.

Icelandic tradition

In the Orkneyinga saga, Snow the Old (Snærr hinn gamli) is son of Frosti 'frost' son of Kári. In the account called Hversu Noregr byggdist ('How Norway was inhabited') in the Flatey Book, Snær is son of Jökul (Jǫkull 'icicle, ice, glacier') son of Kári. This Kári is lord of the wind and brother of Ægir or Hlér and Logi, all three being sons of the giant Fornjót. Fornjót is euhemerized in these traditions as an ancient king of Finland, Kvenland and Gotland. See Fornjót and Kings of Kvenland for details.

Snow's son in Orkneyinga saga and Hversu is Thorri 'frozen-snow'. The Hversu also gives Snow three daughters: Fön (Fǫnn 'Snowdrift'), Drífa 'snowfall', and Mjöl (Mjǫll, 'powdered snow'). Sturlaugs saga (section 22) brings in King Snow of Finmark and his daughter Mjöl who flies quickly through the air.

Snœr

Snœr may refer to two different figures in Norse mythology:

Rígsþula

Rígsþula or Rígsmál ("Lay of Ríg") is an Eddic poem in which a Norse god named Ríg or Rígr, described as "old and wise, mighty and strong", fathers the classes of mankind. The prose introduction states that Rígr is another name for Heimdall, who is also called the father of mankind in Völuspá.

In Rígsþula, Rig wanders through the world and fathers the progenitors of the three classes of human beings as conceived by the poet. The youngest of these sons inherits the name or title "Ríg" and so in turn does his youngest son, Kon the Young or Kon ungr (Old Norse: konungr, king). This third Ríg was the first true king and the ultimate founder of the state of royalty as appears in the Rígsþula and in two other associated works. In all three sources he is connected with two primordial Danish rulers named Dan and Danþír.

The poem Rígsþula is preserved incomplete on the last surviving sheet in the 14th-century Codex Wormianus, following Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda. A short prose introduction explains that the god in question was Heimdall, who wandered along the seashore until he came to a farm where he called himself Ríg. The name Rígr appears to be the oblique case of Old Irish rí, ríg "king", cognate to Latin rex, Sanskrit rajan. and Gothic reiks.