much more than the simple thunderer. He was the controller of the weather
and hence of the fertility of the crops. He was man’s friend and protector
against demonic forces in general, one of the most popular and highly
regarded of the gods.
In the Eddic poems, as mentioned earlier, he is the son of Fio ̨ rgyn, who was
identified with Earth. Earth (Io ̨rð) is explicitly given as his mother in other
passages (Lokasenna 58, Gylf. 9). But we have seen that Fio ̨ rgyn and her male
counterpart Fio ̨ rgynn are linked by their names to Perkunas. It is conjectured
that the obscure Fio ̨ rgynn was once Thor’s father and himself the old
Germanic storm-god. That ‘Thunder’ should be his son would be analogous
to Brontes, Steropes, and Arges as sons of Ouranos and assistants of Zeus, and
to the thundering sons of Pe ̄rkons.^42
Thor’s connection with trees is shown by Danish and Swedish place-names
such as Thorslund, Torslunde, ‘Thor’s grove’. An oak forest was dedicated to
him at Dublin. The evidence goes back to antiquity. In 16 Germanicus
crossed the Weser in the territory of the Cherusci and faced Arminius’ army,
which had gathered in a wood that was sacred to ‘Hercules’, i.e. *Þunaraz
(Tac. Ann. 2. 12).
Thor’s weapon is his great hammer Mio ̨ llnir, which he hurls at his victims.
His targets are creatures located outside our world, typically giants, some of
whom have many heads.^43 He also overcame the cosmic monster known as
Io ̨ rmungand or the Miðgarð Serpent. On account of this achievement he
is called orms einbani, ‘the slayer of the serpent’ (Hymiskviða 22. 3). The title
has been compared with Indra’svr
̇
trahán-,^44 though we have seen that this
probably did not at first refer to a specific victim.
Thor has several of the other features that we have seen to be characteristic
of the Indo-European storm-gods.^45 He rides in a car drawn by two goats,
and the thunder is the rumbling of his vehicle.^46 He is a mighty eater and
drinker.^47 He is known for his great red beard (Óláfssaga Tryggvasonar 213),
(^42) R. Koegel, GGA 159 (1897), 653 n. 1; von Schroeder (1914–16), i. 518, ii. 629.
(^43) On many-headed giants see pp. 299 f.
(^44) Vittoria Grazi in Poetry in the Scandinavian Middle Ages (Seventh International Saga
Conference, Spoleto 1990), 561.
(^45) His similarities with Indra have long been the subject of comment, and sometimes
Heracles too has been brought into the comparison. Cf. W. Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen
(Berlin 1858), 1–242; Müller (1897), 744–9; von Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 625–8; Oldenberg
(1917), 138; F. R. Schröder, Zeitschrift für Deutsche Philologie 76 (1957), 1–41; M. E. Huld in
Dexter–Polomé (1997), 179; Oberlies (1998), 248 n. 484.
(^46) Thiodolf, Haustlo ̨ng 15. 3; Gylf. 21, 44. He is the ‘lord of goats’ (Hymiskviða 20. 2, 31. 2) or
‘user of goats’ (Bragi, Ragnarsdrápa 18). Cf. Grimm (1883–8), 166 f.; von Schroeder (1914–16),
ii. 610 f. Some classical poets represented the thunder as the noise of Zeus’ chariot: Pind. Ol. 4. 1
with sch., Hor. Carm. 1. 34. 8 with Porphyrio.
(^47) Hymiskviða 15. 5–8, Þrymskviða24, Gylf. 46; Grimm (1883–8), 189.
250 6. Storm and Stream