Þórr siðr

Some aspects of the primary female powers within the Þórr siðr. Þórr’s wife Sif and his daughter Þrúðr are described with the imagery of the valkyries, flygjur, and dísir, all interchangeable names for the female guiding spirits which determine fate and the fate of family lines in Ragnarsdrápa 8 and 9:

(…) þás hristi-sif hringa (…) “the shaking-Sif of rings”

(…) sú bœti-Þrúðr dreyrugra benja (…) “that healing-Þrúðr of bloody wounds”

The first verse shows that Sif has an element associated with determining fate, as the shaking or giving of rings is an aspect associated with war, as rings represent nobility and lordship. To this end, she can be seen as the shaker of the wills of men. It should be noted that Sif also is said to be a spákona, or a prophetess in the prologue of the Snorra Edda. Þrúðr has an aspect of healing, and an inverse element of bloody wounds, a common element for valkyries as it details an association with war. It also gives an image of how brutal she is, similar to her father, who is the gramr með dreyrgum hamri, despite being a healing spirit. These holy women ride with all Þórstrúar, guiding the fates of those who adhere to his siðr.

Mr. Frog makes an excellent point here about the Scandinavian theft of the thunder weapon mytheme. While Þrymskviða may linguistically be one of the oldest Eddic poems, it is the only one mythic traditions that humiliates the god, which likely derives from Christian discourse. https://academia.edu/resource/work/40063361 Here is his work on the Germanic traditions of the theft of the thunder weapon. A crucial read for understanding this narrative structure as a circumbaltic phenomenon.

New essay up concerning variations and even contradictions in the established mythology of Þórr. https://thorsidr.org/2024/06/05/the-fragmentation-of-the-thorr-cult/

Þórr has many reflexes of this ancient cult structure, which reveals how old his cult is: He is called Þórr smiðbelga stórra (Þórr of the huge forge-bellows) in a lausavísur by Þjóðólfr Arnórsson. Elements of smithing are in the language of Þórsdrápa, with Þórr killing Geirröðr with molten iron. He is uniquely associated with the öndvegissúlur more than any other god. These pillars are topped with nails called reginnaglar; which are also called regingaddi. The world-nail is attested in AM 748 I 4to, being called veraldarnagli. The pillar idols of Þórr as made by the Sámi were topped with nails, with flint hung from them so that ignem Thor executiat (Þórr can make a fire); the fire being associated with the sun and lightning. Þórr is linked to holy fire and other fire rituals such as landtaking and funeral fires, with fire strikers being paired often with hammer amulets (see Hesselbjerg amulet). His association with heavenly iconography: himinsjóli in Þórsdrápa denotes kingship over heaven, with sjóli being an uncommon term for a king, but has been also translated as heaven-pillar. The himinn-hamarr shared linguistic root, denoting the worldview of a vault made of stone, and later made of iron being forged indicating technological advancement came alongside the cult. His dualistic cult structure being present at an early stage (Frog, 2022), with his primary antithesis Þurisaz being later transferred to Jörmungandr, and the Jötnar as a whole anti-god faction. Read this paper here.

To produce an authentic practice, one must thoroughly investigate the language of the sagas and the historical actions of attested worshippers, as different cults had different customs.

A Sámi example of prostration before the image of a god. Very similar to the proskynesis of the Greeks, Persians and Romans. Such a method of worship is attested in the sagas in association with Þórr. In Kjalnesinga saga details that Þorsteinn lá á grúfu fyrir Þórr, that he lay on on his belly face-down before Þórr. This custom has specific verbiage and is called liggja á grúfu, to lay on one’s belly. Note that there are what look like an animal skin on the ground where one worshipper is laying. This presumably would be to keep the worshipper clean, as it was unholy to approach or look upon a sacred site of Þórr with an óþveginn líta, an unwashed appearance as Eyrbyggja saga states.

While Thor hears the calls of his worshippers and immediately responds, he also immediately punishes blasphemy and disrespect made against him.

The Lapps were convinced that the thunder (Äija) was a living being that stayed in the air and paid close attention to the speech of men. If they uttered anything evil about him, or insulted him in one way or another, he never failed to punish their crime. Nordiska resor och forskningar, volume 3; Matthias Alexander Castrén, 1853.

Thunder was one of the greater divinities. The myth sees in him an old, powerful, venerable and all-knowing old man, whose destiny was to make the human being, from whom he was maternally descended, good. He loved the people as his children, but he was, although fair, very serious and strict. He heard up to the skies what the people were saying. If someone made fun of him, it never went unpunished. If you showed him the slightest disrespect, he would inevitably take revenge. But he did not only demand reverence and sanctity for his person, but he also did not tolerate anyone disrespecting or belittling his tools. Ur Lappsk Mytologi och Lappländsk Sägen; Jakob Fellman, 1906.

Some of the oldest archaeological finds from Dublin are Anglo-Saxon, however its the Norse who are credited with the founding of Dublin or Dubh Linn – the Black Pool. A term associated with the Norse folk of Dublin was Tomar which was an Irish name for Thunor/Thor. Early Irish texts referred to Dublin’s inhabitants as the ‘Muintir Tomar’ or Thor’s People and that there was a temple just outside of Dublin’s walls called the ‘Caill Tomair’ or Thor’s Woods or Grove which housed a silver ring dedicated to Thor called the ‘Fail Tomar’.

Theology proper is fundamentally the study of the divine. This is a systematic method of study that can and should be applied across all faiths.   What this consists of is not just an analysis of the history and culture of a deity, but also a study of the essence of a deity by studying the nature of their actions, their divine narrative, attributes and power, cultic role, ritual observances and methods of worship, as well as the eschatology of a deity (if applicable).   This methodology must then be applied to ritual action and worship, as academic study when not paired with experiential wisdom is simply regurgitation and meaningless.

According to Brink, trying to make a spatial logic of the Norse cosmos according to Snorri to trying to gather up bundles of soap in one’s arms, and attempts to logically order Norse mythical spaces are a “modern, intellectualising analysis of something that was not logically structured and not set in a metaphysically coherent system” (Brink 2004: 295–296). Scholars should take care to remember that the desire for logically-structured mythical spaces is something that we may crave in modernity, but people in ancient oral cultures need not have desired this same order. The Tripartite Ideology, Austin Main, 2020.

I would give this warning not just to scholars, but also to practicing heathens.