text: dagr in norse mythology , dagr ( old norse " day " ) is day personified . this personification appears in the poetic edda , compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources , and the prose edda , written in the 13th century by snorri sturluson . in both sources , dagr is stated to be the son of the god dellingr and is associated with the bright - maned horse skinfaxi , who " draw [ s ] day to mankind " . depending on manuscript variation , the prose edda adds that dagr is either dellingr 's son by nótt , the personified night , or jörð , the personified earth . otherwise , dagr appears as a common noun simply meaning " day " throughout old norse works . connections have been proposed between dagr and other similarly named figures in germanic mythology . attestations poetic edda dagr is mentioned in stanzas 12 and 25 of the poem vafþrúðnismál . in stanza 24 , the god odin ( disguised as " gagnráðr " ) asks the jötunn vafþrúðnir from where the day comes , and the night and its tides . in stanza 25 , vafþrúðnir responds : delling hight he who the day 's father is , but night was of nörvi born ; the new and waning moons the beneficent powers created , to count the years for men . in stanza 12 , the horse skinfaxi , his mane gleaming , is stated by vafþrúðnir as " drawing day to mankind " . in sigrdrífumál , after the valkyrie sigrdrífa is woken from her sleep curse by the hero sigurd , sigurd asks her name , and she gives him a " memory - drink " of a drinking horn full of mead , and then says a prayer . the first verse of this prayer features a reference to the " sons of dagr " and the " daughter of nótt " : hail to the day ! hail to the sons of day ! to night and her daughter hail ! with placid eyes behold us here , and here sitting give us victory . hail to the æsir ! hail to the asyniur ! hail to the bounteous earth ! words and wisdom give to us noble twain , and healing hands while we live ! in the poem hrafnagaldr óðins , the appearance of dagr and his horse and chariot are described : the son of delling urged on his horse adorned with precious jewels . over mannheim shines the horse 's mane , the steed 's dew in his chariot . prose edda in the prose edda book gylfaginning , dagr is again personified . in chapter 10 , the enthroned figure of high states that dagr is the son of the couple of dellingr of the æsir and his wife nótt ( " night " ) . dagr is described as " as bright and beautiful as his father 's people " . odin took dagr and his mother nótt , gave them each a chariot and a horse — dagr receiving the horse skinfaxi , whose mane illuminates all the sky and the earth — and placed them in the sky to ride around the earth every 24 hours . dagr is again personified in chapter 24 of the prose edda book skáldskaparmál , where he is stated as a brother of jörð . as a common noun , dagr appears in chapter 58 , where " skinfaxi or glad " is stated as pulling forth the day , and chapter 64 , where dagr is stated as one of various words for time . however , scholar haukur thorgeirsson points out that the four manuscripts of gylfaginning vary in their descriptions of the family relations between nótt , jörð , dagr , and dellingr . in other words , depending on the manuscript , either jörð or nótt is the mother of dagr and partner of dellingr . haukur details that " the oldest manuscript , u , offers a version where jǫrð is the wife of dellingr and the mother of dagr while the other manuscripts , r , w and t , cast nótt in the role of dellingr 's wife and dagr 's mother " , and argues that " the version in u came about accidentally when the writer of u or its antecedent shortened a text similar to that in rwt . the results of this accident made their way into the icelandic poetic tradition " . theories otto theorized that dagr may be related to ( or may be the same figure as ) the hero svipdagr ( whose name means " the suddenly dawning day " ) who is attested in various texts . among other sources , this figure is found in two poems compiled together and known as in the poetic edda , the prologue to the prose edda , and by the name in the mythical genealogies of the anglian houses of anglo - saxon england . otto also proposed that svipdagr may have been a " dagr of the suebi " , and because of the names of his family members , ( " the sun - light " , indicating a potential god of the skies ) and ( " growth " , indicating a possible goddess of growth ) , and his wooing of menglöð ( often identified with the goddess freyja ) , he further suggested that svipdagr may have been a fertility god .