Fjalar ( , "deceiver") is the mythical red
rooster
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
that is said to herald the onset of
Ragnarök
In Norse mythology, (also Ragnarok; or ; ) is a foretold series of impending events, including a great battle in which numerous great Norse mythological figures will perish (including the Æsir, gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdall, a ...
in
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...
.
Name
The
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
name ''Fjalarr'' has been translated as 'deceiver' or 'hider'. It probably derives from an earlier
Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic; Danish and ; ; ; ) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a c ...
form reconstructed as *''felaraʀ''.
Three other unrelated figures bear the name Fjalar in Norse mythology. It is an alias of
Suttungr
In Norse mythology, Suttungr ( ; Old Norse: ) was a ''jötunn'' and the son of Gilling. Mythology
Suttungr searched for his parents and threatened the dwarven brothers Fjalar and Galar who had killed them, tying them and some other dwarves w ...
in the ''
Hávamál
''Hávamál'' ( ; Old Norse: ''Hávamál'',Unnormalised spelling in the Codex Regius:''Title'': hava mal''Final stanza'': Nv ero Hava mál q''ve''ðin Háva hꜹ''l''lo i ..classical pron. , Modern Icelandic pron. , ‘Words of Hávi he H ...
'' ('Sayings of the High One') version of
Odin">he H ...
is also the name of one of the dwarfs who made the mead of poetry from the blood of Kvasir">mead of poetry. Fjalar and Galar">Fjalar is also the name of one of the dwarfs who made the mead of poetry from the blood of Kvasir in ''Skáldskaparmál'' ('The Language of Poetry'). Finally, in ''Hárbarðsljóð'' ('The Lay of Hárbarðr'), the jötunn who succeeded in deceiving Thor is also named Fjalar. In Snorri's version of the Thor's journey, however, the jötunn is named
and Paul B. Taylor argue that "of these four, probably only one (the dwarf) is actually named Fjalar, the cock and the two giants are called Fjalar because of their cunning."