ᚴᛅᚱᛚᛋᚢᛅᚴᚾ karlsuakn

Karlsvagn and Leiðarstjarna: the Wain and the guiding star

Medieval Icelandic texts call the Big Dipper simply 'the wain' and the pole star 'the guiding star'; Karlsvagn, the carl's wain, is its later Scandinavian name.

Vagn, the wain, is the Big Dipper: Medieval source Karlsvagn, the carl's wain: Later folk tradition Óðinsvagn, Óðinn's wain: Modern guess Leiðarstjarna is the pole star: Medieval source

What the sources say

How should the heaven be periphrased? Thus: call it Skull of Ymir ... Land of the Sun, of the Moon, and of the Stars of Heaven, of the Wains and the Winds.
Skáldskaparmál, ch. 23, tr. Brodeur (1916)

The names

ᚢᛅᚴᚾvagn: wain, wagon; also the constellation
ᚴᛅᚱᛚᛋᚢᛅᚴᚾKarlsvagn: 'the carl's wain' (Swedish Karlavagnen, Danish Karlsvognen)
ᛚᛁᚦᛅᚱᛋᛏᛁᛅᚱᚾᛅLeiðarstjarna: 'the way-star', the pole star
ᛋᛏᛁᛅᚱᚾᛅstjarna: 'the star': for sailors, the pole star

Runes: our letter-by-letter spelling in the Viking-age Younger Futhark; these names come down to us in manuscripts written in the Latin alphabet. How we write runes.

The story and what it means

The seven bright stars of the Big Dipper, the tail and haunches of the Great Bear, have been a wagon in northern Europe for as long as we have records. A medieval Icelandic astronomical manuscript (GKS 1812 4to, written in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) names the constellation vagn, the wain, and skaldic poets could call the sky 'the land of the wains' or 'the wain-road'.

Karlsvagn, 'the carl's wain', the man's wagon, is the form in later Scandinavian use: Karlavagnen in Swedish, Karlsvognen in Danish, Karlsvagninn in modern Icelandic, and Charles's Wain in English. Whose wagon it was is uncertain; 'carl' may be the common man or, as in English, Charlemagne.

You may read that the Vikings called it Óðinsvagn, Óðinn's wain. That name is not found in any Old Norse text. Jacob Grimm, who looked for it, found only 'the wain in the heavens' in Norse and a Dutch 'Woden's wain' in a manuscript of 1470; the Norse form is a nineteenth-century reconstruction.

The two stars at the end of the Dipper's bowl point to Leiðarstjarna, 'the way-star', the pole star. Medieval Norse texts use the word, and sailors spoke of going 'north under the Star'. It is the one star that does not move: from Reykjavík it stands 64° up, from Oslo 60°, from London 51°, always due north.

How sure are we?

Claim	Grade	Basis
Vagn, the wain, is the Big Dipper	Medieval source	Medieval Icelandic computistic manuscript GKS 1812 4to (Cleasby-Vigfusson s.v. vagn); 'wains' in sky kennings (Skáldskaparmál).
Karlsvagn, the carl's wain	Later folk tradition	Later Scandinavian and Icelandic usage; Old Swedish 15th-century attestation reported by Grimm.
Óðinsvagn, Óðinn's wain	Modern guess	Not found in Old Norse; reconstructed in the 19th century (Grimm noted he had never met it).
Leiðarstjarna is the pole star	Medieval source	Medieval Norse prose (Cleasby-Vigfusson s.v. leiðar-stjarna).

See it tonight

The Big Dipper is best placed in the evening sky around May; from Scandinavia and Iceland it never sets.

City	Tonight, Mon 26 Oct (local time)
Reykjavík	Up all night, circling the pole, highest around 07:00 (58° up in the east-northeast)
Oslo	Up all night, circling the pole, highest around 05:45 (55° up in the east-northeast)
Stockholm	Up all night, circling the pole, highest around 05:15 (55° up in the east-northeast)
London	Up all night, circling the pole, highest around 05:30 (51° up in the northeast)
New York	Already up in the north-northwest when it gets dark, low in the north-northwest by 21:00; and again clear of the north-northeast horizon from about 01:00, 43° up in the northeast as dawn comes
Sydney	never rises

Follow the line from Merak through Dubhe, the two stars at the front of the bowl, about five times their distance, to reach Polaris. Its height above the horizon equals your latitude.

Sources

Texts: Skáldskaparmál ch. 23 (sky kennings); GKS 1812 4to (Icelandic computus). Quotations from the public-domain translations of the Poetic Edda by Henry Adams Bellows (1923) and the Prose Edda by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur (1916); Brodeur's chapter numbers. Cleasby-Vigfusson s.v. vagn, leiðar-stjarna, stjarna, reið; Zoëga s.v. stjarna; J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ch. VII and XXII.