Aurvandil
Aurvandil is mentioned once in Norse Mythology, in the "Skáldskaparmal" section of Snorri Sturluson's Edda:
Thor went home to Thrúdvangar, and the hone remained sticking in his head. Then came the wise woman who was called Gróa, wife of Aurvandill the Valiant: she sang her spells over Thor until the hone was loosened. But when Thor knew that, and thought that there was hope that the hone might be removed, he desired to reward Gróa for her leech-craft and make her glad, and told her these things: that he had waded from the north over Icy Stream and had borne Aurvandill in a basket on his back from the north out of Jötunheim. And he added for a token, that one of Aurvandill's toes had stuck out of the basket, and became frozen; wherefore Thor broke it off and cast it up into the heavens, and made thereof the star called Aurvandill's Toe. Thor said that it would not be long ere Aurvandill came home: but Gróa was so rejoiced that she forgot her incantations, and the hone was not loosened, and stands yet in Thor's head. Therefore it is forbidden to cast a hone across the floor, for then the hone is stirred in Thor's head.
Guesses as to the identity of this star have included the polestar, the planet Venus, Sirius and the star Rigel which forms the toe of the constellation Orion, though if Aurvandil is to be identified with the constellation Orion one would expect to find Aurvandil himself being translated into the sky, not just his toe.
The name is cognate to the English name Earendel which is interpreted in Old English glosses as jubar: 'beaming light, radiance'. Varro in Lingua Latina Book VII explains specifically: juba dicitur stella Lucifer, that is jubar is called the star Lucifer and Lucifer is the planet Venus. Also in the Old English poem Crist are the lines éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended, which can be translated roughly as Hail Earendel, brightest of angels, sent over Middle-earth to men.
This metaphor fit well enough, at least to some, with Blickling Homilies (p. 163, I. 3) which state Nu seo Cristes gebyrd at his aeriste, se niwa eorendel Sanctus Johannes; and nu se leoma thaere sothan sunnan God selfa cuman wille, that is, "And now the birth of Christ (was) at his appearing, and the new day-spring (or dawn) was John the Baptist. And now the gleam of the true Sun, God himself, shall come."
The name Horvandillus applied to the father of Amleth (Shakespeare's Hamlet) in Saxo Grammaticus' Danish History is also almost certainly cognate as is the German name Erentil or Orentil. Orentil is the hero of a medieval poem of the same name. He is son of a certain Eigel of Trier and has numerous adventures in the Holy Land. But neither of these figures have anything obvious to do with stars and nothing is told about any of their toes.
That did not prevent Viktor Rydberg from throwing it all together and coming up with the figure of Orendil as the greatest archer in Norse mythology and the father of Swipdag (whom Rydberg equates with Ullr as he does Gróa with Sif).
See also
sv:Aurvandil