Who is the god of the moon in Norse mythology?

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Who is the god of the moon in Norse mythology? Máni is the god and personification of the moon in Norse mythology.

Máni is attested in both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. He is the son of Mundilfari and the brother of Sól, the goddess who personifies the sun. In the Prose Edda, the gods place the siblings in the heavens after becoming angry at their father’s naming of them.

Máni guides the moon’s course and controls its waxing and waning. The Prose Edda also says that he took the children Hjúki and Bil from Earth while they fetched water; they follow him through the sky, an episode often linked with folklore about figures seen on the moon.

Máni is commonly confused with Sól because the two are paired celestial figures. Their genders are reversed from what many modern readers might expect: Sól is female, while Máni is male. At Ragnarök, a wolf is said to catch the moon.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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