(European mythology)
When the Anglo-Saxons accepted the Roman calendar about 300 they named the fifth day Thunres-daeg, Thursday, after the Latin Jovis dies, Jupiter's day. For hot-tempered, red-headed Thor was the Germanic version of the Indo-European thunder god: his peers were Jupiter, Zeus, Indra, and the Hittite weather god. Though acknowledged as the archenemy of the frost giants, Thor was in many aspects—his strength, his size, his energy, his huge appetite—more like one of the giants than one of the gods.
Two goats drew his chariot across the sky; their names were Tooth-grinder and Toothgnasher. His three magic weapons were the hammer, really a thunderbolt; iron gauntlets with which he handled the hammer-shaft; and a strength-increasing belt, capable of increasing his size by a half. Writing just before 1200, Adam of Bremen described the three gods worshipped in the great temple at Uppsala thus: ‘Thor, the mightiest of the three, stands in the centre of the building, with Wodan and Fricco on his right and left. Thor, they say, holds the dominion of the air. He rules over thunder and lightning, winds and rain, clear weather and fertility…. When plague or famine threatens, sacrifice is offered to Thor.’
The most famous journey to Giantland was the occasion that Loki accompanied Thor, and they encountered Skrymir, ‘Vasty’, a frost giant so immense that the gods inadvertently slept in the thumb of his empty glove, thinking it was a room. When Thor attempted to hammer in the skull of the sleeping giant, Vasty awoke in the belief that either a leaf or a twig had brushed his brow. Afterwards they came upon the city of Outgard, the summit of whose battlements they could not see even though they pressed back the crowns of their heads on the napes of their necks. Inside the great city Thor and his companions failed in a number of contests, the thunder god himself being wrestled down on one knee by ‘an old, old woman’. Only on the journey home did the gods appreciate that Skrymir and Outgard were illusions, stupendous creations sent out by the timorous frost giants to baffle mighty Thor.
Once Thor and the giant Hymir went fishing together for the sea serpent Jormungandr. A colossal hook baited with a giant ox caught in the monster's throat, and Thor would have landed the prize had not the sight of Jormungandr rising from the depths of sea terrified Hymir. In panic the giant cut the line and then dived overboard—to escape the wrath of the frustrated fisherman. Another giant who annoyed Thor was Hrungnir. The thunder god was recalled from his pastime of hunting trolls—those shadowy ex-giants of Scandinavia, somehow reduced in stature and potency to become confused with elves and dwarfs—and asked by the gods to be their champion against the stone giant Hrungnir, the pursuer of Odin. In single combat Thor felled Hrungnir with his hammer, but sustained injury himself, a piece of whetstone having got stuck in his head.
The hammer, the sole protection of the gods against the giants, figures in one of the oldest poems in the Eddas, the collection of Icelandic epics. Dating from about 900, the ‘Thrymskvida’ relates how the hammer was stolen by the giants and hidden in the bowels of the earth. This intelligence Loki brought from Thrymr, the frost giant king, as well as the terms by which it could be redeemed: namely, that Freya marry Thrymr. The goddess refused point blank, and so it was decided by the gods that Thor should go instead. Overcoming his extreme reluctance to don a dress, Thor set out disguised as Freya, with Loki pretending to be a maid-servant. At the nuptial feast Thrymr was astonished when the ‘bride’ ate a whole ox, eight salmon, all the dainties intended for the ladies and washed the lot down with three barrels of wine. Cunning Loki explained away the singular appetite: the ‘bride’ had been too excited to eat or drink for a week before the marriage. Then Thrymr took out the hammer, which Thor grasped and with it laid low all the giants in attendance.
The thunderbolt of ‘the Thunderer’ was saved. The gods had gained a temporary respite in their long struggle with the giants. But after a time they would be overwhelmed at ragnarok, the destruction of the gods, Thor slaying Jormungandr but meeting his own death too in that titanic struggle.
A Dictionary of World Mythology. Copyright © Arthur Cotterell 1979, 1986, 2003. All rights reserved.
