Who is Thor?

Thor, God of Thunder and Storms, was probably one of the most popular deities – if not the most popular – of all the Nordic/Germanic Gods; so much so that his hammer-symbol is used as a generic symbol of modern Heathenry and Asatru. He was called Thunor  in Old English and Donar in German, all stemming from an Old Germanic root word meaning “thunder”; we get the weekday name “Thursday” from his name. He is also a deity of fertility, hallowing, and strength. Like the Greek thunder-god Zeus, Thor is associated with the oak tree. This is because oak bark, being corrugated and “astringed” around the tree, makes oaks a poor conductor of lightning. Unlike other trees, oaks explode when struck, creating a field of flaming wooden bits that could be collected and used to start fires. It has been speculated that oak-fire was the first controlled fire, before mankind managed to learn to make it themselves; as such, Thor was associated with giving humans their first warmth and safety.

Thor is the patron of the common man – the “working class Joe”, which in ancient times meant farmers. As the thunder-god, hurling his lightning-hammer in one of his famous rages, he is the champion of Asgard, and the one who gets sent out to deal with troublesome invaders. Thor is tall and broad and has immense strength - showing the blood of his giantess mother Jord - and red-haired, and red-bearded. He is impulsive and honest, quick to anger and quick to party, over-hasty in judgment and prone to drinking and carousing, but completely reliable when others are depending on him. Though he is teased for being simple - sort of the uberjock - Thor is very concerned with honesty and honor, and keeping one's promises. He has no patience with prevarication and hypocrisy, or fancy word-games that come perilously close to being either of those. To Thor, whatever you do, you do it with your whole heart. You defend what's valuable to you, you keep your commitments, you are a loyal friend and tribesman, you don't need to lie about anything.

Thor is the son of Odin by his first lover, Jord – the Earth Mother and daughter of ancient Nott. He is married to the goddess Sif, and with her has a daughter, Thrud. His earlier lover, the giantess Jarnsaxa, bore him the two sons Magni and Modi (“Mighty” and “Moody”). He has a younger brother by a different father, Meile (“Mile-stepper”). He is also the stepfather of Ullr, who was born of Sif’s first marriage. He rides through the sky in a chariot drawn by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr (“Teeth-barer” and “Teeth-gnasher”), while flinging his ever-returning hammer Mjollnir as a thunderbolt. He has a magical belt of strength named Mengingjord, a pair of magical iron gloves named Jarngreipr, and a magical staff named Gridavolr. These were given to him as gifts by the giantess-goddess Grid, another lover of his father Odin who took a liking to Thor when he passed through.

Thor’s hall in Asgard is named Bilskirnir, and is the largest single building in the Nine Worlds. With six hundred and forty-four rooms, it is practically a small city, swarming with the overflow of Valhalla – specifically those who died while sworn to Thor. Chief among his servants are Thjialfi and Roskva, two of the three children of Aurvandil (Thor’s hunting companion and Sif’s former husband) and his giantess-wife Groa. (In other accounts, they are the children of some peasants who put up Thor for a night and accidentally hurt one of his goats, and Thor took the children as servants in payment.) They are Thor’s pages, said to be swift of foot and knowledgeable about Bilskirnir’s ways.

Thor can shift from ordinary (if large) human size to being as immensely huge as any giant, which is why he gets trotted out to fight them so often in Asgard’s defense. However, one of the side-effects of this talent is that even when he is only six feet tall, he weighs as much as he would if he was twenty feet tall. Because of this, he is the only God who cannot cross from Asgard on Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge, and must get in and out of Asgard by wading through the Thund Thvitr river that surrounds it.

There are more myths about Thor and his adventures in Norse mythology than about any other deity except perhaps Loki (and as the two of them were traveling companions for quite some time, many of those stories overlap). Perhaps the most famous story involves Thor’s hammer being stolen by the storm-giant-king Thrym, who demanded Freya as a bride in payment for the hammer’s return. Thor dresses up as Freya and Loki as her handmaiden, and in those disguises they manage to get into Thrym’s hall and retrieve the missing Mjollnir. Other stories tell of Thor’s confrontation with the urbane sorcerer-warlord Utgard-Loki, his accidental hooking of the Midgard Serpent during a fishing trip, and various giants and giantesses that he was sent out to slay. Some of these tales are told on this site; other smaller tales can be found all through Norse mythology.