I'm Israel Gutierrez. I'm hosting a new podcast called Four Years of Heat. It takes you to Miami from 2010 to 2014

with LeBron James, Chris Bosch and Duane Wade, set the NBA ablaze.

You know, having an opportunity to team up with the best trio to ever play the game of basketball

will take you inside those four monumental years with behind-the-scenes access and insight about one of the greatest teams ever

for a semi-four years of heat on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is The Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind

focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.

Given that tomorrow's core episode, Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focuses on the horse-sooth

and at least one legendary account of exceptional horse anatomy, I thought it fitting to discuss Slip-near,

the fabulous eight-legged steed of the Norse god-open.

In the old Norse collection of poems, the poetic edda, Slap-near is described as the best of horses,

swifter than all other mortal and divine steeds.

The horse's eight legs propelled it at great speeds across water, land, air and ice,

even to the gates of hell in one account.

Quote, then Osan rose the enchanter old, and the saddle he laid on Slip-near's back.

Thence rode he down to Nithil-Deak, and the howl he met that came from hell,

bloody he was on his breast before, at the father of magic he howled from afar,

forward wrote Oothen, the earth resounded till the house so high of hell he reached.

This is via the Henry Adams-Bello's translation of the poetic edda, 1936.

As for Slip-near's parentage, well, it's a bit tricky.

As Carol Rose explains in Giants, Monsters and Dragons, the trickster god Loki took on the form of a mare

...