Thor is a prominently mentioned god throughout the recorded history of the Germanic peoples, from the Roman occupation of regions of Germania, to the Germanic expansions of the Migration Period, to his high popularity during the Viking Age, when, in the face of the process of the Christianization of Scandinavia, emblems of his hammer, Mjlnir, were worn and Norse pagan personal names containing the name of the god bear witness to his popularity.
Into the modern period, Thor continued to be acknowledged in rural folklore throughout Germanic-speaking Europe. Thor is frequently referred to in place names, the day of the week Thursday bears his name (modern English Thursday derives from Old English unresd, 'unor's day'), and names stemming from the pagan period containing his own continue to be used today, particularly in Scandinavia. Thor has inspired numerous works of art and references to Thor appear in modern popular culture. Like other Germanic deities, veneration of Thor is revived in the modern period in Heathenry.
Thor 6
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Beginning in the Viking Age, personal names containing the theonym rr are recorded with great frequency, whereas no examples are known prior to this period. rr-based names may have flourished during the Viking Age as a defiant response to attempts at Christianization, similar to the widespread Viking Age practice of wearing Thor's hammer pendants.[10]
The first clear example of this occurs in the Roman historian Tacitus's late first-century work Germania, where, writing about the religion of the Suebi (a confederation of Germanic peoples), he comments that "among the gods Mercury is the one they principally worship. They regard it as a religious duty to offer to him, on fixed days, human as well as other sacrificial victims. Hercules and Mars they appease by animal offerings of the permitted kind" and adds that a portion of the Suebi also venerate "Isis".[12] In this instance, Tacitus refers to the god Odin as "Mercury", Thor as "Hercules", and the god Tr as "Mars", and the identity of the Isis of the Suebi has been debated. In Thor's case, the identification with the god Hercules is likely at least in part due to similarities between Thor's hammer and Hercules' club.[13] In his Annals, Tacitus again refers to the veneration of "Hercules" by the Germanic peoples; he records a wood beyond the river Weser (in what is now northwestern Germany) as dedicated to him.[14] A deity known as Hercules Magusanus was venerated in Germania Inferior; due to the Roman identification of Thor with Hercules, Rudolf Simek has suggested that Magusanus was originally an epithet attached to the Proto-Germanic deity *unraz.[15]
The first recorded instance of the name of the god appears upon the Nordendorf fibulae, a piece of jewelry created during the Migration Period and found in Bavaria. The item bears an Elder Futhark inscribed with the name onar (i.e. Donar), the southern Germanic form of Thor's name.[16]
Around the second half of the 8th century, Old English texts mention Thunor (unor), which likely refers to a Saxon version of the god. In relation, Thunor is sometimes used in Old English texts to gloss Jupiter, the god may be referenced in the poem Solomon and Saturn, where the thunder strikes the devil with a "fiery axe", and the Old English expression unorrd ("thunder ride") may refer to the god's thunderous, goat-led chariot.[17][18]
A 9th-century AD codex from Mainz, Germany, known as the Old Saxon Baptismal Vow, records the name of three Old Saxon gods, UUden (Old Saxon "Wodan")[clarification needed], Saxnte, and Thunaer, by way of their renunciation as demons in a formula to be repeated by Germanic pagans formally converting to Christianity.[19]
The Kentish royal legend, probably 11th-century, contains the story of a villainous reeve of Ecgberht of Kent called Thunor, who is swallowed up by the earth at a place from then on known as unores hlwe (Old English 'Thunor's mound'). Gabriel Turville-Petre saw this as an invented origin for the placename demonstrating loss of memory that Thunor had been a god's name.[21]
In the 11th century, chronicler Adam of Bremen records in his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum that a statue of Thor, who Adam describes as "mightiest", sits in the Temple at Uppsala in the center of a triple throne (flanked by Woden and "Fricco") located in Gamla Uppsala, Sweden. Adam details that "Thor, they reckon, rules the sky; he governs thunder and lightning, winds and storms, fine weather and fertility" and that "Thor, with his mace, looks like Jupiter". Adam details that the people of Uppsala had appointed priests to each of the gods, and that the priests were to offer up sacrifices. In Thor's case, he continues, these sacrifices were done when plague or famine threatened.[22] Earlier in the same work, Adam relays that in 1030 an English preacher, Wulfred, was lynched by assembled Germanic pagans for "profaning" a representation of Thor.[23]
Two objects with runic inscriptions invoking Thor date from the 11th century, one from England and one from Sweden. The first, the Canterbury Charm from Canterbury, England, calls upon Thor to heal a wound by banishing a thurs.[24] The second, the Kvinneby amulet, invokes protection by both Thor and his hammer.[25]
Pictorial representations of Thor's hammer appear on a total of five runestones found in Denmark (DR 26 and DR 120) and in the Swedish counties of Vstergtland (VG 113) and Sdermanland (S 86 and S 111).[26] It is also seen on runestone DR 48.[citation needed] The design is believed to be a heathen response to Christian runestones, which often have a cross at the centre. One of the stones, S 86, shows a face or mask above the hammer. Anders Hultgrd has argued that this is the face of Thor.[27] At least three stones depict Thor fishing for the serpent Jrmungandr: the Hrdum stone in Thy, Denmark, the Altuna Runestone in Altuna, Sweden and the Gosforth Cross in Gosforth, England. Sune Lindqvist argued in the 1930s that the image stone Ardre VIII on Gotland depicts two scenes from the story: Thor ripping the head of Hymir's ox and Thor and Hymir in the boat,[28] but this has been disputed.[29]
In the 12th century, more than a century after Norway was "officially" Christianized, Thor was still being invoked by the population, as evidenced by a stick bearing a runic message found among the Bryggen inscriptions in Bergen, Norway. On the stick, both Thor and Odin are called upon for help; Thor is asked to "receive" the reader, and Odin to "own" them.[30]
In the poem Vlusp, a dead vlva recounts the history of the universe and foretells the future to the disguised god Odin, including the death of Thor. Thor, she foretells, will do battle with the great serpent during the immense mythic war waged at Ragnark, and there he will slay the monstrous snake, yet after he will only be able to take nine steps before succumbing to the venom of the beast:
Afterwards, says the vlva, the sky will turn black before fire engulfs the world, the stars will disappear, flames will dance before the sky, steam will rise, the world will be covered in water and then it will be raised again, green and fertile.[34]
In the poem Grmnisml, the god Odin, in disguise as Grmnir, and tortured, starved and thirsty, imparts in the young Agnar cosmological lore, including that Thor resides in rheimr, and that, every day, Thor wades through the rivers Krmt and rmt, and the two Kerlaugar. There, Grmnir says, Thor sits as judge at the immense cosmological world tree, Yggdrasil.[35]
In Skrnisml, the god Freyr's messenger, Skrnir, threatens the fair Gerr, with whom Freyr is smitten, with numerous threats and curses, including that Thor, Freyr, and Odin will be angry with her, and that she risks their "potent wrath".[36]
Thor is the main character of Hrbarslj, where, after traveling "from the east", he comes to an inlet where he encounters a ferryman who gives his name as Hrbarr (Odin, again in disguise), and attempts to hail a ride from him. The ferryman, shouting from the inlet, is immediately rude and obnoxious to Thor and refuses to ferry him. At first, Thor holds his tongue, but Hrbarr only becomes more aggressive, and the poem soon becomes a flyting match between Thor and Hrbarr, all the while revealing lore about the two, including Thor's killing of several jtnar in "the east" and women on Hlesey (now the Danish island of Ls). In the end, Thor ends up walking instead.[37]
Thor is again the main character in the poem Hymiskvia, where, after the gods have been hunting and have eaten their prey, they have an urge to drink. They "sh[ake] the twigs" and interpret what they say. The gods decide that they would find suitable cauldrons at gir's home. Thor arrives at gir's home and finds him to be cheerful, looks into his eyes, and tells him that he must prepare feasts for the gods. Annoyed, gir tells Thor that the gods must first bring to him a suitable cauldron to brew ale in. The gods search but find no such cauldron anywhere. However, Tr tells Thor that he may have a solution; east of livgar lives Hymir, and he owns such a deep kettle.[38]
After a lacuna in the manuscript of the poem, Hymiskvia abruptly picks up again with Thor and Hymir in a boat, out at sea. Hymir catches a few whales at once, and Thor baits his line with the head of the ox. Thor casts his line and the monstrous serpent Jrmungandr bites. Thor pulls the serpent on board, and violently slams him in the head with his hammer. Jrmungandr shrieks, and a noisy commotion is heard from underwater before another lacuna appears in the manuscript.[40]
After the second lacuna, Hymir is sitting in the boat, unhappy and totally silent, as they row back to shore. On shore, Hymir suggests that Thor should help him carry a whale back to his farm. Thor picks both the boat and the whales up, and carries it all back to Hymir's farm. After Thor successfully smashes a crystal goblet by throwing it at Hymir's head on Tr's mother's suggestion, Thor and Tr are given the cauldron. Tr cannot lift it, but Thor manages to roll it, and so with it they leave. Some distance from Hymir's home, an army of many-headed beings led by Hymir attacks the two, but are killed by the hammer of Thor. Although one of his goats is lame in the leg, the two manage to bring the cauldron back, have plenty of ale, and so, from then on, return to Tr's for more every winter.[41] 152ee80cbc
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