TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

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THUNAR.
bant, . . . prisca virorum religione cultos ;
. . . cupiens
enim antiquitas tonitruorum causas usitata rerum similitudine comprehendere,
malleos, quibus coeli fragores cieri credebat, ingenti aere
complexa fuerat (see Suppl.). To Jupiter too the silex was
(flins)
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 Thorr with a wonderful hammer
named Miolnir (mauler, tudes, contundens), which he hurls at the
giants, Ssem. 57 b 67 b 68 b ; it is also called firu&hamar, strong
hammer, Seem. 67 b 68 b , 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 harm kemr a lopt, Sn. 16), the giants know
it, lightning and thunder precede the throwing of it : J?vi
nsest sa
harm (next saw he, giant HrungnirJ eldingar oc heyrol frrumur
storar, sa hann J?a Thor i asmoSi, for hann akaflega, oc reiddi hamarin
oc kastaffi, 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, it represents 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 Eddie 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, 1 and in spite
of that defect, it was their masterpiece. In
Saxo p. 163, Thor is armed with a torrida chalybs? It is noticeable,
how Frauenlob MS. 2, 214b expresses himself about God the Father:
der smit tiz Oberlande warf sinen hamer in mine schoz. The ham
mer, as a divine tool, was considered sacred, brides and the bodies
of the dead were consecrated with it, Sasm. 74 b . Sn. 49. 66 ; men
blessed with the sign of the hammer? as Christians did with the sign
of the cross, and a stroke of lightning was long regarded in the
1 As Zeus s lightning was by the Curetes or Cyclopes.
2 That in ancient statues of the thundergod the hammer had not been for
gotten, 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^Fergut).
And in the AS. Solomon and Saturn, Thunor wields & fiery axe (ch. XXV, Mus-
pilli). 3 In the Old Germ, law, the throwing of a hammer ratifies the acquisition
of property.