Hammer of the North

Posted by Häuptling in Culture & Tradition | 10 comments

Jun 02, 11

In various movements and subcultures, and during different periods of time, the Thor’s hammer have gained popularity – and have been widely used by different kinds of people out of different reasons. We shall take a closer look at the history behind this phenomenon, and the underlying reasons to how it came to happen from the very beginning.

By the end of the 8th century, Scandinavia and the last few heathen tribes of northern Europe stood next in turn for being christianized and put under southern European political, cultural and spiritual dominance. The Norse had long been a silent bystander, watching tribe after tribe of their fellow southern Germanic kinsmen being either eradicated or forced to submission.

A key player of the Christian invasion forces were Charlemagne, a Frankish king and later even emperor of the Romans. From year 772 and onwards, his preoccupation became converting the Saxons north-east of his borders to Christianity, and put them under the rule of his empire. That same year the Saxons most holy site with the Irminsul was destroyed, and the Irminsul was cut down. In 779, the Saxon leader Widukind was defeated and Saxony fell under Charlemagne’s rule. The resistance didn’t end there, but was kept up by autonomous groups under less influential chieftains and warlords.
In 782, Charlemagne captured, force baptized and then executed 4 500 Saxons nobles and chieftains by the river Aller near Verden. This didn’t end the Saxon resistance either, and Charlemagne tried other methods to force them to submission. Among other things he forcibly resettled over 7 000 Saxons, probably much because he wanted to drain them of manpower, so that he could carry on his mission with less disturbance. Two more force resettling campaigns were carried out a couple of years later, but the Saxon resistance was still not completely broken.
The reason why the Norse eventually decided to get involved in these ongoing conflicts becomes even more obvious, given the fact that the Saxon leader Widukind was married to Geva of Westfold, who was the daughter of King Goimo of Denmark, and sister of the Danish kings Ragnar and Siegfried. In these times, that alone could have sparked a war – as it became a family matter, at least for the Danes.

A fully natural response to this sort of ethnic cleansing and cultural imperialism, was what we have later come to call “The Viking Age”, which starts with the attack by a viking fleet in Lindisfarne at the 8′th of June in 793. Many historians argue on the reasons behind the viking campaigns, and say overpopulation is the likely explanation – which is a rather strange conclusion, since there were about 1-2 individuals per square kilometer in Scandinavia by that time, and really no lack of new land to clear. Others mention poverty as the main reason, which also would seem rather strange, given that the vikings attacked primarily and almost exclusively Christian sites (which indeed had a lot of riches), and killed everyone and destroyed these sites completely; had their interest laid in raiding for profit alone, it would have been a lot more rewarding to just loot these places, let them recover and return for more much earlier than they could if they put the place in ruins and killed everyone.
There are several historians who have realized the lack of logic here, and put the viking reaction into a bigger picture, taking into account what was going on among fellow Germanic tribes on the continent at the same time. Among them are Rudolf Simek, Bruno Dumézil (cousin of Georges Dumézil), amateur historian Östen Kjellman and professor Robert Ferguson. The later of these have written an excellent book on the subject, called The Hammer and The Cross which is highly recommended for those who wish to learn more on this subject. For those speaking Swedish, Östen Kjellman’s two volume book Den forna seden, contains a lot of valuable information.

As the degree of tension caused by Charlemagne’s activities increased, so too, in accordance with a familiar anthropological response to outside threat, did the intensity with which the Scandinavians began to mark their artifacts, as a way of asserting their cultural identity. Norse ornamentation experienced a grand boom during this time, religion became more organized, and Scandinavians started building hofs (religious practices were almost exclusively held outdoors earlier) and decorating them with riches in gold and silver. Nordic architecture, clothing & hairstyles, jewelry and poetry experienced a boost too during this period of time. And this is the time when the Thor’s hammer jewelry starts to appear as well. Obviously as a Norse/heathen counterpart to the Christians carrying their crosses – as a symbol of Norse identity, and as a symbol of resistance towards alien oppression.

By this time, the by far most honored Norse deity among the largest group of people was Þór (Thor), and thus he became the first and foremost symbol of the Norse uprising, and their struggle for independence and freedom. The myths tells us that Thor’s hammer became so small that he could carry it around his neck as an amulet when he didn’t need to use it, which is another explanation to why the hammer became the symbol of choice.
Before the Thor’s hammer became popular, there was another similar piece of jewelry around, also related to Thor – namely the” Thor’s Club”, or the Donarskeule. It was most common in the southern Germanic territories, among the Alemanni and their neighbors. It seems however, that it was mostly women who carried these miniature clubs (while hammers were carried by both men and women), and it was clearly inspired by similar jewelry called Hercules’ Club, or the Herkuleskeule from Roman territories.

Hallowed be thy name

The name of Thor’s hammer is Mjolnir, or Mjölnir/Mjolnir/Mjollnir (myol-neer), which derives from ON (Old Norse) mala (to grind) and molva (crush), which is etymologically related to words such as Slavic molnija and Welsh mellt which both means lightning.

Studying the myths surrounding Thor, it’s obvious that he often acts as a kind of ritual officiant, and that his hammer functions as a sort of ritual object. This provides us with a glimpse into the ritual system of the Norse world.
In the Prose Edda, we learn that Thor and Loki seeks shelter for the night at a farmer’s home on their way to Útgarða-Lóki. After butchering his goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr for an evening meal, he lays the bones of his goats inside their hides, and blesses them with the hammer – a ritual act that resurrects them back to life. In another myth, at the funeral of Odin’s son Balder, Thor blesses the funeral pyre with his hammer. In Trymskviða, when Thor’s hammer have been stolen and held hidden by the giant Trym, Thor impersonates Freya (Trym demanded Freya as his wife, for returning the hammer) wearing a bridal dress, eagerly waiting through the humiliation for the moment where the hammer will be laid in the “brides” lap – in this case with a quite devastating result for the blackmailer giant Trym. Apparently this describes an actual ceremonial act, as there are both earlier and later sources, involving wedding couples and hammers as well.
Part of these customs have survived well into later documented history. It has been a custom in Scandinavia and elsewhere in northern Europe well into the medieval ages, to put a hammer under the bed of a newly wed couple , to bless them, grant them fertility and to protect them from the envy of others. There are also several rock carving from the Bronze Age, that seems to depict a unification of a man and a woman (or more precisely – Hieros gamos – the holy unification of the masculine and the feminine elements), with a third bystanding person holding a hammer or an axe, in what seems to be a sort of hallowing gesture.
In Germany, a hammer or an axe was laid at the kitchen table even until the 1800′s on Christi Himmelsfahrt (a time popular for weddings even today, which is also always a Thursday – Thor’s day!), a holiday known to be related to Thor in earlier days, and the myth of Trymskviða and the fetching of Thor’s hammer more specifically.

Thor’s role as a blessing deity is furthermore well documented in preserved runic inscriptions, such as Thur uiki, meaning Thor bless or May Thor hallow. Even today, the marrying of a bridal couple is referred to as att viga in modern day Sweden.
Another evidence of the idea of the protective nature of Thor’s hammer, is that there have been several Iron Age houses found, where a Stone Age axe have been buried under the floor (sometimes decorated with Iron Age ornamentation, even though the axe itself is several thousand years older). When farmers and land clearing woodcutters found Stone Age axes in the ground, they believed that these were Åskviggar or Torviggar, i.e. lightning bolts, a secondary weapon of choice for Thor. According to tradition, he threw these bolts after trolls when he were out hunting them, and they were thus buried in the ground as they hit the ground. The reason why these were put beneath the house is actually quite logic and simple, namely that the thunder is said to never strikes twice at the same place. Burying one beneath the house was a sort of insurance from having the house struck by lightning. As late as the 1800′s, people still placed Stone Age axes under their doorsteps, probably not only to prevent the lightning from striking their house, but also to make sure trolls would not dare to step into the house (Thor is their worst enemy).
The belief of the magical properties of the Stone Age axes survived all the way into the 1900′s, in the field of folk medicine at the countryside. It was a usual part of healing potions, to scrape such Stone Age axes – “Torviggar” – with a steel object, to generate dust with healing or maybe even protective properties.

Silver cures all evils

As one of the most obvious aspects of Thor is in his role as chief protector of Midgard, he is known as Alda bergr (defender of mankind), Véurr (hallower), Vinr Verlidha (the friend of man), Veorr Midgards (warder of earth) and so forth. Thus naturally, it is also quite probable that Thor’s hammer pendants where regarded as protective amulets (even though most symbols are wrongfully labeled as symbols for “fertility” and “protection”, as an easy explanation where there’s an obvious lack of better interpretations). As a matter of fact, this conception does indeed have some support in the field of science, at least when pendants are made of silver – because silver is actually a powerful antiseptic and antibacterial agent. More specifically, this function is dependent of the silver ion (Ag+), which is also known as colloidal silver. It has the capability to kill not only spores, bacteria, fungus and amoeba – unlike modern antibiotics it is also effective against viruses.
Ever since antiquity – and prior to the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940′ies – silver has been used for food containers to prevent spoiling, and as late as in the field hospitals of WWI for treating of the wounded. As another example, it’s also a widely spread folk remedy to put a silver coin in a bucket of fresh milk, in order to prevent it from going sour. It is doubtful that the people who were doing so knew why this was working, they only knew that it did (as is often the case with folk remedies).
During the plague, it’s said that the nobility and silversmiths made through it better, and a part of the explanation (apart from higher living standards and a better hygiene) might be that they were in daily contact with silver; where the nobility were using silver tableware etc., and because the silversmiths naturally came in contact with a lot of silver. The traditions surrounding werewolves and vampires (which transfer their state of being on to others through an “infectious bite”) and their intolerance to silver, might very well be based on an naive understanding of the protective properties silver have against the “forces of evil”.

Those eyes

Anyone who are familiar with different traditional designs of the Thor’s hammers that have been unearthed in archaeological excavations, must have noticed that these hammers often have depictions of eyes, or something which resembles eyes. And there is indeed something about Thor and those eyes of his, maybe not that obvious – but right there beneath the surface, there are often references to Thor and his eyes, or him and eyes in general.
To mention a couple of examples: According to the Eddic poem Hárbarðsljóð, Thor threw the eyes of the giant Thiazi into the sky, where they became stars. In the aforementioned myth Trymskviða, we are told that Trym gets terrified and retreats to the other side of the hall, when he tries to unveil the face of Thor posing as Freya, and looks into his flashing eyes. Trym says: “Why are so fearful, the eyes of Freyja? Fire, methinks, from her eyes burns forth”.
Likewise in the Prose Edda, we learn that the father of Tjalfi (Tjalfi, who – by the trickery of Loki – broke a bone on one of Thor’s goats, even though Thor expressly forbid anyone to harm the bones) almost faints out of fear when he looks into the eyes of the raging Thor. In the later of these instances, we are told that the eyebrows of Thor “sunk down over his eyes”. It might be interesting to know, that the eyes of the great scald and berserk Egil Skallagrimsson are described in a similar fashion when he is about to go berserk, where he raises one eyebrow while simultaneously lowering the other, giving him a ferocious appearance.

Nowhere are we being told of the hammer Mjolnir itself having a head or even eyes (or even having anthropomorphic traits or characteristics at all), but eyes are still often depicted on the amulets that have been found. A reasonable explanation is that this is simply a part of the symbolism associated with Thor; just as there have been several hammers found that have heads resembling goats heads (there’s a striking goatlike similarity worth mentioning, between the hammer found in Kabbarp in Skåne/Sweden, and the upper parts of the amulets found in the Hiddensee treasure). Goats are – as you should know – animals intimately associated with Thor, and therefore a part of his symbolism too.

Comparsion of the Kabbarp and Hiddensee amulets.

Do you carry your hammer?

These days we are swarmed with cheap mass produced base metal jewelry from Asia and elsewhere, sometimes inspired by traditional designs that have been unearthed in various parts of Europe, sometimes more or less repulsive modern inventions, with heavy influences of either fantasy imagery, or otherwise Celtic ornamentation – or a mishmash between all the three of these.
Some people carrying these hammers, probably don’t even know what they are wearing, or may know very little of it, but not the fundamental principle of why it was originally worn historically. Just as some people watching the Marvel Comics movie Thor (released by Paramount Pictures in May 2011) probably thinks that Marvel Comics made up Thor, along with The Hulk, Captain America and the Spider Man.

An increasing number of people however, are wearing their hammers fully aware of the underlying historical background, and does it out of the same reason as their ancestors did over a thousand years ago.