The Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus Valley, and Maya
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History
03-08-2024
Thor : The hero of gods
Akarsh Rajput
Thor was not just the preferred god of the Viking warrior, however, as his strength and direct response to any given problem were equally appealing across the spectrum of Viking Age social classes
Thor (Old Norse: Þórr) is the Norse god of thunder, the sky, and agriculture. He is the son of Odin, chief of the gods, and Odin's consort Jord (Earth) and husband of the fertility goddess Sif, who is the mother of his son Modi and daughter Thrud; his other son, Magni, may be from a union with the giantess Jarnsaxa.
Thor was the defender of Asgard, realm of the gods, and Midgard, the human realm, and is primarily associated with protection through great feats of arms in slaying giants. The majority of the tales featuring Thor, in fact, put him in conflict with a giant or with his nemesis the Midgard Serpent (Jörmungandr, the “huge monster”), a monstrous snake who coils and twists itself around the world. Like almost all of the Norse gods, Thor is doomed to die at Ragnarök, the end of the world and twilight of the gods, but falls only after killing the great serpent with his powerful hammer Mjollnir, dying to its poison; his sons Magni and Modi survive Ragnarök along with a small number of other gods and inherit his hammer which they use to restore order.
He developed from the earlier Germanic god Donar and became the most popular deity of the Norse pantheon. Thor continues as a popular god in the present day, too, and the modern English and German words for the fifth day of the week – Thursday and Donnerstag – both allude to Thor/Donar (“Thor's Day”/“Donar's Day”). He was thought to have ruled the sky from his land of Þrúðvangr (“Power-Field” or “Plains of Strength”) where he built his great hall of Bilskírnir, a palace of 540 rooms.
Thor's popularity reached its height during the Viking Age (c. 790-1100) at which time he was considered the greatest rival to Christ when, roughly from the 10th century onwards, Christianity was introduced to Scandinavia. More amulets and charms of Thor's hammer date from the period when Christianity and the Norse religion were in contention than from any other. Christianity finally prevailed and the cult of Thor was gradually replaced by the new religion by the 12th century.
Thor functioned primarily as a protector-god, although stories concerning him also explained natural phenomena, thus linking him with the etiological type of myth (one which explains how some aspect of life came to be). He was said to burst forth from his great hall in his chariot, drawn by two male goats – Tanngnjóstr (Tooth Gnasher) and Tanngrísnir (Snarl Tooth) – who could be killed and eaten by the god and then brought back to life the next day as long as their bones remained unbroken. The roar of thunder was the rumble of Thor's chariot's wheels across the vault of the heavens and, in another story, he is credited with creating tides.
For the most part, however, he was invoked for protection and problem-solving. Scholar Preben Meulengracht Sørensen comments that Thor “was master of thunder and lightning, storm and rain, fair weather and crops, and the pagans sacrificed to him when threatened by hunger or disease” (Sawyer, 203). He had three magical items which helped him defend Asgard and Midgard: his hammer Mjollnir, his belt of strength Megingjörð (which doubled his strength when he wore it), and his great iron gloves which he needed to wield his hammer.
Thor was invoked to seal business contracts and consecrate marriages, for agricultural abundance, for protection during voyages (especially at sea) and for victory in battle, but he seems to have been called upon whenever any need arose. Sørensen notes:
"The relationship with the pagan gods had been a sort of friendship, a contract by which man sacrificed to the gods and was entitled to their support in return…The Icelandic Landnamabok (The Book of Settlements) relates that Helgi inn Magri, who settled Iceland in about 900, believed in Christ but invoked Thor when in distress at sea. He also asked Thor to show him where to build his new farm, but he named it after Christ. (Sawyer, 223)"
The introduction of Chr
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In this blog, we will delve deeply into these civilizations, examining their rise to power, key achievements, and the factors that led to their collapse.
Thor was not just the preferred god of the Viking warrior, however, as his strength and direct response to any given problem were equally appealing across the spectrum of Viking Age social classes
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