Chapter 8

So then, as the god who lightens has red hair ascribed to him, and he who thunders a waggon, he who smites has some weapon that he shoots. But here I judge that the notion of arrows being shot (wilder pfîl der ûz dem donre snellet, Troj. 7673. doners pfîle, Turnei von Nantheiz 35. 150) was merely imitated from the khla Dioj, tela Jovis; the true Teutonic Donar throws wedge-shaped stones from the sky: 'ez wart nie stein geworfen dar er enkæme von der schûre,' there was never stone thrown there (into the castle high), unless it came from the storm, Ecke 203. ein vlins (flint) von donrestrâlen, Wolfram 9, 32. ein herze daz von vlinse ime donre gewahsen wære (a heart made of the flint in thunder), Wh. 12, 16. schûrestein, Bit. 10332. schawerstein, Suchenw. 33, 83. sô slahe mich ein donerstein! Ms. h. 3, 202. We now call it donnerkeil, Swed. åsk-vigg (-wedge); and in popular belief, there darts out of the cloud together with the flash a black wedge, which buries itself in the earth as deep as the highest church-tower is high. (28) But every time it thunders again, it begins to rise nearer to the surface, and after seven years you may find it above ground. Any house in which it is preserved, is proof against damage by lightning; when a thunder-storm is coming on, it begins to sweat. (29) Such stones are also called donneräxte (-axes) donnersteine, donnerhammer, albschosse (elfshots), strahlsteine, teufelsfinger, Engl. Thunder-bolts, Swed. Thors vigge, Dan. tordenkile, tordenstraale (v. infra, ch. XXXVII), (30) and stone hammers and knives found in ancient tombs bear the same name. Saxo Gram. p. 236: Inusitati ponderis malleos, quos Joviales vocabant..............prisca virorum religione cultos;............cupiens enim antiquitas tonitruorum causas unsitata rerum similitudine comprehendere, malleos, quibus coeli fragores cieri credebat, ingenti aere complexa fuerat (see Suppl.). To Jupiter too the silex (flins) was sacred, and it was held by those taking an oath. From the mention of 'elf-shots' above, I would infer a connexion of the elf-sprites with the thundergod, in whose service they seem to be employed.

The Norse mythology provides Thôrr with a wonderful hammer named Miölnir (mauler, tudes, contundens), which he hurls at the giants, Sæm. 57 67 68; it is also called þruðhamar, strong hammer, Sæm. 67 68, and has the property of returning into the god's hand of itself, after being thrown, Sn. 132. As this hammer flies through the air (er hann kemr â lopt, Sn. 16), the giants know it, lightning and thunder precede the throwing of it: þvî næst sâ hann (next saw he, giant Hrûngnir) eldîngar oc heyrði þrumur stôrar, sâ hann þâ Thôr î âsmôði, fôr hann âkaflega, oc reiddi hamarin oc kastaði, Sn. 109. This is obviously the crushing thunderbolt, which descends after lightning and thunder, which was nevertheless regarded as the god's permanent weapon; hence perhaps that rising of the bolt out of the earth. Saxo, p. 41, represents it as a club (clava) without a handle, but informs us that Hother in a battle with Thor had knocked off the manubium clavae; this agrees with the Eddic narrative of the manufacture of the hammer, when it was accounted a fault in it that the handle was too short (at forskeptit var heldr skamt), Sn. 131. It was forged by cunning dwarfs, (31) and in spite of that defect, it was their masterpiece. In Saxo p. 163, Thor is armed with a torrida chalybs. (32) It is noticeable, how Frauenlob MS. 2, 214 expresses himself about God the Father: der smit ûz Oberlande warf sînen hamer in mîne schôz. The hammer, as a divine tool, was considered sacred, brides and the bodies of the dead were consecrated with it, Sæm. 74. Sn. 49. 66; men blessed with the sign of the hammer, (33) as christians did with the sign of the cross, and a stroke of lightning was long regarded in the Mid. Ages as a happy initiatory omen to any undertaking. Thôrr with his hammer hallows dead bones, and makes them alive again, Sn. 49 (see Suppl.).---But most important of all, as vouching for the wide extension of one and the same heathen faith, appears to me that beautiful poem in the Edda, the Hamars heimt (hammer's homing, mallei recuperatio), (34) whose action is motivated by Thôr's hammer being stolen by a giant, and buried eight miles underground: 'ek hefi Hlôrriða hamar umfîlginn âtta röstom for iörd nedan,' Sæm. 71. This unmistakably hangs together with the popular belief I have quoted, that the thunderbolt dives into the earth and takes seven or nine years to get up to the surface again, mounting as it were a mile every year. At bottom Thrymr, þursa drôttinn, lord of the durses or giants, who has only got his own hammer back again, seems identical with Thôrr, being an older nature-god, in whose keeping the thunder had been before the coming of the âses; this is shown by his name, which must be derived from þruma, tonitru. The compound þrumketill (which Biörn explains as aes tinniens) is in the same case as the better-known þôrketill (see Suppl.).

Another proof that this myth of the thundergod is a joint possession of Scandinavia and the rest of Teutondom, is supplied by the word hammar itself. Hamar means in the first place a hard stone or rock, (35) and secondly the tool fashioned out of it; the ON. hamarr [[hammer]] still keeps both meanings, rupes and malleus (and sahs, seax again is a stone knife, the lat. saxum). Such a name is particularly well-suited for an instrument with which the mountain-god Donar, our 'Faírguneis,' achieves all his deeds. Now as the god's hammer strikes dead, and the curses 'thunder strike you' and 'hammer strike you' meant the same thing, there sprang up in some parts, especially of Lower Germany, after the fall of the god Donar, a personification of the word Hamar in the sense of Death or Devil: 'dat die de Hamer! i vor den Hamer! de Hamer sla!' are phrases still current among the people, in which you can exchange Hamer for Düvel, but which, one and all, can only be traced back to the god that strikes with the hammer. In the same way: 'dat is en Hamer, en hamersken kerl,' a rascally impudent cheat. (36) de Hamer kennt se all! the devil may know them all, Schütze 2, 96. Hemmerlein, meister Hämmerlein, signified the evil spirit. Consider also the curses which couple the two names; donner und teufel! both of which stood for the ancient god. By gammel Thor, old Thor, the common people in Denmark mean the devil; in Sweden they long protested by Thore gud. The Lithuanians worshipped an enormous hammer, Seb. Frankes weltbuch 55 (see Suppl.).  
 



ENDNOTES:

28. This depth is variously expressed in curses, &c. e.g. May the thunder strike you into the earth as far as a hare can run in a hundred years!  (back)

29. Weddigens westfäl. mag. 3, 713. Wigands archiv 2, 320, has nine years instead of seven.  (back)

30. The Grk name for the stone is belemnithj a missile.  (back)

31. As Zeus's lightning was by the Curetes or Cyclopes.  (back)

32. That in ancient statues of the thundergod the hammer had not been forgotten, seems to be proved by pretty late evidence, e.g. the statue of a dorper mentioned in connexion with the giants (Ch. XVIII, quotation from Fergût). And in the AS. Solomon and Saturn, Thunor wields a fiery axe (ch. XXV, Muspilli).  (back)

33. In the Old Germ. law, the throwing of a hammer ratifies the acquisition of property.  (back)

34. No other lay of the Edda shows itself so intergrown with the people's poetry of the North; its plot survives in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian songs, which bear the same relation to that in the Edda as our folk-song of Hildebrand and Alebrand does to our ancient poetry. Thor no longer appears as a god, but as Thorkar (Thorkarl) or Thord af Hafsgaard, who is robbed of his golden hammer, conf. Iduna 8, 122. Nyerups udvalg 2, 188. Arvidsson 1, 3. Schade's beskrivelse over öen Mors, Aalborg 1811, p. 93. Also the remarkable legend of Thor með tungum hamri in Faye's norske sagn. Arendal 1833, p. 5, where also he loses and seeks his hammer.  (back)

35. Slav. kamen gen. kamnia, stone; Lith. akm°u gen. akmens; kam = ham. (back)

36. Brem. wtb. 2, 575. dat di de hamer sla! Strodtm. p. 80, conf. Schm. 2, 192. the hammer, or a great hammer strike you! Abeles künstl. unordn. 4, 3. Gerichtsh. 1, 673. 2, 79. 299. 382. verhamert dür, kolt, Schütze 2, 96 = verdonnert, verteufelt, blasted, cursed &c. How deeply the worship of the god had taken root among the people, is proved by these almost ineradicable curses, once solemn protestations: donner! donnerwetter! heiliges gewitter (holy thunderstorm)! And, adding the christian symbol: kreuz donnerwetter! Then, euphemistically disguised: bim (by the) dummer, potz dummer! dummer auch! Slutz 1, 123. 2, 161-2. 3, 56. bim dummer hammer 3, 51. bim dumstig, dunnstig! as in Hesse: donnerstag! bim hamer! In Flanders: bi Vids morkel hamer! Willem's vloeken, p. 12.  (back)