History mystery: Heimdall – God of Sky and Light

According to Norse mythology, Heimdall was a god who possessed the resounding horn, owned a horse with golden mane and had golden teeth. He was known by many names as Rig, Hallinskioi, Gullintanni and Vindler or Vindhler. Heimdall was the guardian of the gods who was the son of nine mothers, the daughters of the Giant Geirrendour also known as God Aegir, or the nine Wave Sisters. He was the whitest of all gods and was considered to be the god of sky and light since he was born at the dawn of the world and was raised by seawater, the force of the earth and the blood of a boar.

His dwelling was in the Cliffs of Paradise, Himinbjorg and his horse was named Gulltop. Being a guardian of Gods, he would monitor the Rainbow Bridge Bifrost which was the only entrance to Asgard. His had to serve as a watchman for the gods against the giant Jotun with his strong and mighty horns known as Gjjallar along with his rooster Gullinkambi as well as other threats against the Asgardian. Nothing escaped him and needing less sleep than a bird he was capable of seeing through the night as in the day, more than a hundred miles away and his hearing was such that no sound could escape him so much so that he could even hear the grass grow or the wool of sheep curl, in other words he had an excellent sense of hearing.

Heimdall is compared to the tree of the universe standing at the top above the highest rainbow in the sky. At Ragnorak, he would be the first to draw the attention of the gods to warn them and the last to die in a duel with Loki. He would stand on the boundary of the human and the divine world with some accounts of the personification of the world tree Yggdrasil. When he was young he lived among men giving them gifts of culture. He was considered to be one of the first god which dates back to the earliest Indo European pantheons and it was Heimdall, not Odin who had fathered three classes of mankind, - the peasants, serfs and the warriors.

When the sound of the horn Gjallar was heard throughout the nine worlds, the Aesir would assemble with the knowledge of the prophecies that they were approaching their doomsday and resigning to their fate they prepared themselves to meet their enemies of the gods who gathered at the plain called Vigrior. This was the Apocalyptic Battle of Ragnorok where Heimdall was the one to take Loki down though he too would perish from his wounds where the world would be engulfed in flames and thereafter sink into the sea. In the final battle with Loki, the Bifrost, the magical rainbow bridge which was a portal between Asgard and the human world got destroyed and was later rebuilt but the fighters Asgards got separated from the rest of the universe and remained hidden.