However, this iconography derives from Near Eastern art and does not reflect
Indo-European tradition.^54
Thekeraunos affects its victim in much the same way as does the vajra-.
Hesiod’s description of the thunderbolting of Typhoeus (Th. 853–68) is
sufficient illustration. The monster’s multiple heads are comprehensively
scorched. He collapses crippled on the earth, setting it on fire and melting it
like tin or iron. Finally he is flung into Tartarus’ dark prison.
Celtic myth does not deal in explicit thunderbolts. However, the Irish
Dagda’s iron club, with which he kills the living or revives the dead, has been
seen as the counterpart of Indra’s and Thor’s weapons.^55 Thor’s, at least, had
the power of bring the dead back to life (see below).
Saxo Grammaticus describes Thor as wielding a mighty club whose handle
was broken off (clava, 3. 2. 10 p. 66). In the Norse sources it is a hamarr, which
we render as ‘hammer’, though we should not imagine something too much
like a carpenter’s hammer.^56 Thiodolf (Haustlo ̨ng 18. 3) calls it ‘sharp’. It was
forged from iron by the dwarf Eitri with the help of his brother Brokk. When
Brokk gave it to Thor he told him that ‘he would be able to hit as hard as he
wished, whatever was before him, and the hammer would not fail; and if he
threw it, it would never miss and never fly so far that it would not find its way
back to his hand. And if he wished, it was small enough for him to keep inside
his shirt. But it had the defect that the handle was rather short’ (Skáldsk. 35).
That Thor’s weapon represents the thunderbolt follows from his own name
and is acknowledged in the story of the giant Hrungnir, who saw lightning
and heard thunder immediately before Thor appeared and hurled the
hammer at him to fatal effect (Skáldsk. 17). The killing of giants and trolls is
the hammer’s principal occupation. Its effect is regularly described as break-
ing the victim’s head (Gylf. 21, 48; Skáldsk. 17); there is no scorching or
burning. But it can also restore to life, as appears from an episode where Thor
kills his goats, feasts on them, and resurrects them the next morning, using
the hammer to hallow the skins (Gylf. 44).
The name of the hammer was Mio ̨ llnir, from a proto-Germanic melðuni-
yaz. Pe ̄rkons’ mace has a similar designation in Latvian, milna, from Baltic
mildna ̄. These terms relate on the one hand to a series of words in other
languages meaning ‘hammer’ or ‘mallet’ (Luwian maldani-, Latin malleus,
Russian mólot, Breton mell), and on the other to words meaning ‘lightning’
(^54) Paul Jacobsthal, Der Blitz in der orientalischen und griechischen Kunst (Berlin 1906).
(^55) de Vries (1961), 38 f. In Chapter 3 (p. 150) I compared the implement with Hermes’ rod as
described in the Iliad.
(^56) On Thor’s hammer cf. Grimm (1883–8), 180–2, 1344 f.; de Vries (1956), ii. 124–8;
Turville-Petre (1964), 81–5; Klaus von See et al., Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, ii (Heidel-
berg 1997), 529–31.
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