Bil

In Norse mythology, Hjúki (Old Norse, possibly meaning "the one returning to health") and Bil (Old Norse, literally "instant") are a brother and sister pair of children who follow the personified moon, Máni, across the heavens. Both Hjúki and Bil are solely attested in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Scholarly theories that surround the two concern their nature, their role as potential personifications of the craters on the moon or its phases, and their relation to later folklore in Germanic Europe. Bil has been identified with the Bilwis, an agriculture-associated figure that is frequently attested in the folklore of German-speaking areas of Europe.

In chapter 11 of the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning, the enthroned figure of High states that two children by the names of Hjúki and Bil were fathered by Viðfinnr. Once while the two were walking from the well Byrgir (Old Norse "Hider of Something") — both of them carrying on their shoulders the pole Simul (Old Norse, possibly meaning "eternal") that held the pail Sæg between them — Máni took them from the earth, and they now follow Máni in the heavens, "as can be seen from the earth".

Hjúki is otherwise unmentioned, but Bil receives recognition. In chapter 35 of Gylfaginning, at the end of a listing of numerous other goddesses in Norse mythology, both Sól (the personified sun) and Bil are listed together as goddesses "whose nature has already been described". Bil appears twice more in the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál. In chapter 75, Bil appears within another list of goddesses, and her name appears in chapter 47 in a kenning for "woman".

As the two are otherwise unattested outside of Snorri's Prose Edda, suggestions have been made that Hjúki and Bil may have been of minor mythic significance, or that they were made up outright by Snorri, while Anne Holtsmark (1945) posits that Snorri may have known or had access to a now lost verse source wherein Hjúki and Bil personified the waxing and waning moon. Holtsmark further theorizes that Bil may have been a dís (a type of female deity).

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