Today Léon Calloway as...

Series 6 Post 15: Hammer-wielding God associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, and fertility.

🌸 “Thor” has become in Icelandic Þór, Old German and Dutch Donar, Anglo-Saxon Þūnor, Faroese Tórur, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish Tor, Frisian Tonger; the runic letter Þ is pronounced th. The name "Thor" and its variants all derive from the Proto-Germanic *Thunraz, i.e. "lightning", "thunder" (in today's Germanic languages ​​it has become thunder, Dutch donder, German Donner in English).

🌸 According to mythology he is the son of Odin, father of the gods, and of Jǫrð; belonging to the divine lineage of the Aesir, he lives in Ásgarðr, in the kingdom of Þrúðvangar and more precisely in the hall called Bilskirnir: it has more than five hundred and forty rooms and it is the largest abode among those of the gods.

🌸 Moreover, he lives there with his family: his wife, the goddess of the harvest, of the grain, of the harvest and of the earth, is called Sif: little is known about her except that she has golden hair like the grain, made for her by the dwarves after Loki cut off her original hair. However, Thor had other lovers: the giantess Járnsaxa gave birth to his son Magni while with Sif he had Þrúðr and Móði; according to tradition he also has a stepson, Ullr, who was in reality the only son of Sif. He also has two servants, Röskva and Þjálfi, perhaps given to him by a giant.

🌸 The loud and terrible storms that appear in the sky, accompanied by the violent roar of thunder and lightning, are a clear sign of his passage and of his divine power. The Icelandic terminology itself manifests the influence of the god and his figure in the daily lexicon, as well as in the Scandinavian collective imagination: in fact, until the seventeenth century, in Sweden, the word corresponding to "thunder" it was åsekia, literally 'the proceeding of the god (ase) on a vehicle'.