This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
- Thor (Þórr), a big dumb thunder god with a giant hammer. Usually associated with Thunder.
- It should be mentioned that his hammer was actually made with a handle that's too short. But if he rubs it, it gets longer. He's Not Compensating for Anything.
- Also, his characterization varies; sometimes he is depicted as quite cunning, like in Allvismál, where he distracts the dwarf Allvis with lots of questions about the names of things until the sun comes up and the dwarf turns to stone.
- Has the most amusing tales about him too, especially the one where he dresses as a barmaid to get his hammer back from the Ice Giants who nicked it. Once he got it back, he slaughtered every giant in the pub.
- It should be mentioned that Thor was also a fertility god. It's not what he's known for in modern society, but there were many fertility rituals done to Thor.
- Although that may have just been Thor intruding onto Frey's territory, in much the same mannered that he usurped Tyr as the primary warrior-god.
Whichever way, it's interesting to note that the Aesir were the only Indo-European pantheon I know of where the chief god had neither thunder, oaks or fertility in his affinities. Those were all the domain of Thor. The Vanir were much more traditional in that respect. Question more fitting for a serious discussion board and possessing no evidence whatsoever: Did Thor immigrate from the Vanir? Was he originally the leader of that pantheon (notice how many Norse myths are about him or go out of their way to mention him even if he is not a central part of the story)? Question suited for TV Tropes: Should this be mentioned on the main page of this Useful Notes? ~Solarn
Reading Champion: Sorry for the mass-editing, I am still stumbling in the dark regarding this system.
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Peteman: I believe the fastest thing on Earth was Thought, and Fire was part of the eating contest.
Jordan: I think you're right. I'll look into that. Maybe there were two humans helping Thor?
Laota: The names of Thor's two sevant's translate as "Work," the girl, and her brother, "Speed". The spellings vary.
Laota: Okay, I complain of some of the Aesir's discriptions, being that I actually worship these gods and am quite anal about it. I'm not gonna edit anybody 'cause I don't know if anyone here is as OCD as I am, but I'll still complain noisily and long-windedly, 'cause I rock at it:
Firstly, Odin was not the king of the Norse gods, but the beard does get him confused with Zeus and the Christian god. Santa Clause too, but that's not a coincidence, if you catch my drift. Odin the oath-breaking Allfather was the god of poetry, death, wisdom, and war, and was cheiftan of the Aesir (battle gods), while Njord was the cheiftan of the Vanir (Fertility and Agrarian gods). The two had a peace treaty and even exchanged hostages, which is how the Vanir siblings Freyr and Freya came to be thought of as Aesir.
Secondly, as suggested in the "Hijacked By Jesus" points, (Thanks guys!) Loki was a straight-up trickster, not an "ethically deficient bastard". This was likely inserted into the myths by Christians in an attempt to squeeze a benevalent creator God, a pure and sacrificed Christ, and an evil Satin out of Odin, Balder and Loki.
Also, dividing Odin and Loki like that is fairly silly, as they were rather alike in origin, disposition, and modis operandi, as jotunns turned trickster gods who were mostly nasty and selfish, but had moments of sheer bravery and goodness, and lied, broke oaths, shapeshifted, and employed general under-handed hokey pokey that somehow always led to good things for the gods. They were so alike in fact, that they were not only thought to be aspects of the same proto-god, (Captain Proto-God, if you please) they even starred in some practically identical adventures. In two separate myths, Odin and Loki each shapeshift their way through a giant's stronghold, steal precious supernatural boons from within, then fly back to Asgard in bird-form with the villain on their heals.
The only real difference between them was that Loki appeared to be faster, trickier, and far better looking (having both eyes helps), while Odin was wiser, more powerful, was mature in comparison, and had a demanding job that usually kept him out of trouble. Both were known to pet, kick, and rape the dog. The Norse just had a different perspective on good and evil than the Christians, and when it comes to Aesir, you really gotta grade on a bell curve.
Also, in other tellings that pre-date the Eddas, (like Gesta Danorum, which came first by at least a century) Balder wasn't killed indirectly by Loki. As stated above, this was rewritten in times of Christianization, most likely to liken him to Jesus. In earlier myths bereft of Loki's presence, Balder was killed with a magic sword quite directly, by a human rival who was not his brother — the fugly but wicked cool Hother — over a human girl named Nanna, who didn't return Balder's affections, despite his winning good looks. Balder also didn't get a "Second Coming" back from the dead. I'm not sure how that one got started, but I'm guessing Jesus had something to do with it.
I think that's it, feel free to smack me around if this is out of line!
Ununnilium: I'll edit some of this in. How's that?
And IMHO, the original version of this page suffered from trying to be silly and flippant. Yes, humor is useful, but not when it's put in place of actual information.
Also, pulling this out as self-negating:
- Rape as Comedy: While it is semi-consensual in that Loki does this willingly (being threatened with death if he doesn't bail the gods out), his changing into a mare and having sex with a horse fulfils both the animal/male and male/male versions of "humorous rape".
- Actually, couldn't he have changed out of the mare's shape when he had lead away the stallion? And, being a god, he probably could have vanquished a horse, if he felt like it. So he (urgh) chose to mate with it.
Laota: (in response to Ununnilium) Thank you verily! I'm so used to people swearing by the interpritations of the gods in the Eddas exclusively, despite they're obvious bias. I've never minded them included with the other sources, but when they become definative? It's like defining Yahweh by the King James Bible.
Ununnilium: Well, some people do. Canon is the bugbear of every culture.
Phoenix Fire: Removed Our Elves Are Better. Norse "elves" were more like our conception of dwarves than anything else.
Nornagest: Well, the svartalfar were. The ordinary alfar (who were probably the archetypical ancestors of Tolkein's elves) aren't well characterized in the sources I've read, but they don't seem well distinguished from the gods — especially the Vanir.
Laota: (in response to Ununnilium) Ain't it the truth?
Twilight Pornstar: (in response to Laota) The more I read about the Norse Mythology, the more I get convinced that your bias against the Eddas is highly inaccurate. For starters, Saxo Grammaticus wrote book 1 to 9 of Gesta Danorum around year 1200, while Snorri Sturluson wrote Prose Edda around 1225. The time difference is just 25 years, not "at least a century" which you wrote above.
Furthermore, Gesta Danorum is far more Christianized and far less Mythological than the Eddas ever were. Book 1 states that Odin was credited with a false honor of godhood, that he fled from Upsala since Frigga (which has more likeness with Freya than Frigg) was too greedy to be a mere wife of a god, that he was slaughtered in Finland, and that pestilence emerged from his corpse. I understand that Odin is alive in later books, but that is still not mythological enough. Also, because he is a monk or a priest, Saxo Grammaticus wrote the women as bitches, while the Eddas is above that treatment.
Likewise, Snorre was so faithful to the old mythological sources while he wrote Prose Edda that I've read authors theorizing that he was secretly a believer of the Norse Mythology (the prologue notwithstanding). However, I'll admit that he made Loki more villainous than the original sources made him. But even with that in mind, he still made Surt as the Norse equality to Satan.
Anyway, I find your ideas of Odin and Like sharing the same proto-god intriguing. However, none of the books I've read has even mentioned something alike, so I severely doubt that it is true.
Finally, Balder's return to life doesn't need to mean the Norse likeness of a "Second Coming". The Norse people valued the survival of their genes more than anything else. Balder's return to life meant that the genes, and therefor the values, of the Aesir world survive into the new world.
Laota: I agree with a lot of what your saying, (especially about Snorri being a closet pagan) but you seem to have misunderstood me. I brought up the Gesta Danorum as a mere example of earlier work (I could've sworn it was at least a century, but I bet your right!) doesn't include Loki turning traitor, not as the entire basis of some towering belief. I know all about how Christianized the Gesta Danorum was. It was written as Christian propaganda in an attempt to disenchant people with the gods. (I was the one who listed it on the main page.) "Saxo Grammaticus wrote the women as bitches". I don't see how it's relevant to the topic. Also, I thought we had no way of knowing that Snorri was faithful to his sources, as the old Norse never wrote anything down. If you have a source that says otherwise, I'd be very, very interested and grateful for the tip.
Anyway, what I didn't say, (but should've) is that there are wildly different recordings of the Norse myths, so different that the best sense (if any) that we can make of them lies in the psychology of the individual, as Jeeves would say. What I mean by that is, the more famous Balder myths make a lot of sense in few places, and no sense in many places. The portrayal of the god himself (like his brother) seems completely antithetical to his surroundings, lacks origin and purpose, and seems to exist only to inspire the creation of a murderer. Plus, I don't believe the other Aesir would cry over the death of a god they'd never mentioned before, who doesn't really do anything for them, and whose status as a male is based on traits that oppose those of gods like Odin, Thor, and Tyr (beauty, honesty, gentleness, etc.).
Neither does Loki's Heel–Face Turn seem to make any kind of sense as he didn't seem to be on any moral trajectory until that story. The psychology given for everyone's actions (the gods all heart Balder and Loki is jealous) fails to suspend my disbelief, and even in the versions where Loki isn't present, all Balder ever does is die. If that's a death that explained natural phenomenon or some long held-belief, (like most stories with no more logical point) then the story might be a stand alone that Loki got wedged into later. In myths, the night gods normally don't need to be tricked into killing the day gods.
"However, none of the books I've read has even mentioned something alike, so I severely doubt that it is true."
As far as the "proto-god" thing, that's a scholarly hypothesis I'm interested in, as I've seen Odin and Loki serve very similar functions in the pantheons, have similar origins, and some very similar adventures. If I just went by some author's opinion, I'd severely doubt it, too, but I'm going by very obvious clues in the Norse myths, (and their parallels). I also know I could be totally wrong about any/all of the above, so it's good that someone's responding and fact-checking. I gladly concede to if I'm wrong, but I hope you study more and form your own opinion.
Twilight Pornstar: For starters I want to issue an apology for acting like I had more knowledge in Norse Mythology than you; I bet that you have studied it for far longer than I have. Since I consider the Poetic Edda to be the main source of canon, I was sort of pissed off when I thought that you meant that Gesta Danorum was a better source, so that was the main thing that I wanted to argue about – but now I don't have anything to argue about that.
What I meant about Snorri's faithfulness was that he used the Poetic Edda as a source for his own Edda. But I invalidate my own argumentation since I now feel that Sorri was as unfaithful to the old Norse mythology as Wagner was (*dramatic boous*). Originally Loki was never a slayer of Balder. The Poetic Edda only hints about that in Lokesanna, where Loki admits that he was indeed behind Balder's death (which incidentally was said in the same way as when he admitted that he killed Skadi's father – whom Thor was the slayer of). So Loki's evil Heel–Face Turn was most likely just an invention by Snorri. Yes, Loki was imprisoned in the Poetic Edda as well, but that was more for being an asshole than for being evil.
Likewise, many of the things surrounding Balder's death are exclusive to the Prose Edda. For example, the crying of the gods (nay, the entire world) is never mentioned in the Poetic Edda. But Balder's death is mentioned in several poems in the Poetic Edda, both as (past) perfect tense and as future perfect tense. Sadly I haven't read about Balder as much as I should; I have deprioritized him since I am more interested in reading about the goddesses.
I've yet to find any source mentioning the "proto-god" thing, but that still intrigues me so I'm not going to argue against you. It seems to me like how some scholars say that Freyja and Frigg shares the same "proto-god" (in that that they've different aspects of the same being).
Laota: I heard a very weird, very cool thing on the History Channel when they covered Thor for Clash of the Gods. According to them, the story about only two humans surviving Ragnarok was an invention of the Christian church while converting the Norse heathens so that the bible would pick up where Norse myths left off, to sort of sew the two together. If that's true, that would explain a lot!
Nornagest: I don't remember Sif swinging a sword in any of the stories I've read, and I've read a few; she's most notable for getting an important haircut in Skáldskaparmál, and her name's tied in various places to wealth, beauty, and (more speculatively) the harvest. I really have no idea where the Action Girl interpretation comes from. Anyone want to set me straight on this, or should I go ahead and change her description?
Kuruni: I only remember her as Action Girl in D&D Deities & Demigods sourcebook. But I'm no expert.
Nornagest: So that's where it comes from. Okay, I think I'll go ahead and change it.
Nornagest: Went in to change some problems with grammar and diction and things got out of hand; I think I pretty much just rewrote the lead.
Moonshade: Would someone please link or reference ANY source, where Tyr is seen to be Odin's child? In every single source I have seen, Tyr is the son of Hymir and either an ásynja or jotunn.
Mister Bernie: This may be a bit nitpicky, but the introductory paragraph says that at some time, Norse paganism was spread in "northern Europe, much of modern Germany and Austria, and parts of the British Isles". As the name says, Norse paganism covers the forms practiced by the Norse peoples, whereas the rest is generally divided between Continental Germanic and Anglo-Saxon paganism. I'm not sure how to rephrase it and I think separate pages on those would be redundant, but a bit of terminological clean-up might be nice.
