Grani

In the Völsunga saga (chapter 13) Sigurðr encounters a grey-bearded old man while choosing horses at the river Busiltjörn. The man directs Sigurðr to a single choice: "a large, young, and handsome gray horse that no one had ever mounted." The man declares the horse to be from "Sleipnir's kin" and instructs that "he must be nourished heedfully, for it will be the best of all horses." The old man then vanishes and is later identified in the narrative as Odin; Sigurðr names the horse Grani. This chapter of the saga is the primary literary source for Grani's origin and divine pedigree.

The Völsunga saga describes Grani in the selection episode (Busiltjörn) as "a large, young, and handsome gray horse that no one had ever mounted." In later visual and runic-stone iconography associated with the Sigurd cycle, the horse is often represented by the motif of a horse bearing a chest, a pictorial shorthand taken to represent Grani carrying treasure in the aftermath of Sigurd's slaying of Fafnir.

The sources attest that Grani is of divine lineage — explicitly called "from Sleipnir's kin" — and that Odin directs Sigurðr to choose and care for him. Beyond this pedigree and his role as Sigurðr's chosen mount in the saga, the provided material does not ascribe explicit supernatural powers such as speech, shape-change, or magical feats. Iconographic and poetic traditions (kennings) associate Grani with bearing treasure (e.g., the kenning "Grani's beauteous burden"), but the saga itself presents him as an exceptional, divinely-descended heroic steed rather than detailing miraculous abilities.