The Gods Thor and Odin

[Cato]

I think you describe a symptom; an effect of the disintegration of heroism. It's causes lucabrating, percolating, within the very meaning of 'modern'.

It's part and parcel of the modern mentality that everyone is equal and that differences, especially and superiorities, are to be politically-corrected.

[SuuT]

It's part and parcel of the modern mentality that everyone is equal and that differences, especially and superiorities, are to be politically-corrected.

The western world's stuffy nose.

[Cato]

The western world's stuffy nose.

Caused by an existential deviated septum.

[Liffrea]

Thor?

Hmmm I’m still working on him, far more to him that the representative of order vs chaos/entropy. Enigmatic in many ways, what do we make of his struggle against Jormungandr? There is an obvious answer but I suspect it isn’t a very good answer…

Odin.

Grimnismal 42:

“Ullr and all the Gods will befriend him who first takes it off the fire,
for the worlds are opened to the sons of Ases when they heave off the cauldron.”

Odin, a God in mortal form a mortal who became a God? Probably irrelevant, perhaps even both, there’ a nice paradox for you.

What he is is a path finder, the light back to that which Heimdalr first taught us, the “worlds” in one being. Follow Odin, pull that cauldron from the fire, rebirth is such a drag…..and dying (again and again) isn’t much fun either….

[Lyfing]

Thor and the Midgard Serpent is a very old story. I suspect it stems back from as far back as far goes. There being the killing of the dragon all over where the Indo-Europeans went. I'm not so sure what the obvious and not so good answer is that you allude to though..??

I once read an interesting take on it which went something like..

Let us look again at Thor's fishhook—its bait—and turn to Figure 23, where the World Serpent comes to the Mithraic sacrifice. Let us look once again, as well, at the Tunc-page of The Book of Kells and recall that, in the Christian view, Christ, the sacrifice who appeased the Father's wrath, was by analogy the bait by which the Serpent Father was subdued. As the priest at Mass consumes the consecrated host, so did the Father consume the Willing Victim, his every-dying, ever-living Son, who was finally, of course, his very self.

Occidental Mythology, by Joseph Campbell, page 481

...

Later,
-Lyfing

[KennethStephenDoig]

You are, IMHO, partly right. Thor, or his Anglo-Saxon pronunication, "Thunor" closer to PGmc *Thunraz or *Thunoraz (the '-az' is merely a grammatical marker, usually indication an a-stem Gmc noun/adjective in the sing.nom case. It's cognate to these other IE languages' ending for the same paradigm-slot, Lat., -us, Gk., -os, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, -as and modern Icelandic, in rhotocized form -ur and attested Runic, -aR. So it is not part of the root or its essential semantical meaning) "Thunor" literally meant "thunder", the 'd' being intrusive, added to aid pronunciation. Other close Gmc cognates are OHG, "Donar", Mod-HG, "Donner" and Dutch, also with the intrusive 'd', "Donder". Thor, Thorr, or Þórr, & its mainland North-Gmc despirantalized/defricativalized [th to the stops t or d], "Tor". The only reason we use the Old-Icelandic (just one small dialect of ON [a western dialect] or Old-Norse, properly called North-Germanic, is because most of our written material was written by the Icelander [most Icelanders come from the western coastal districts of Norway, or were these same west-norsemen who'd lived, interbred with the racially, culturally very similar Goidelic Celts who spoken had a very similar culture, religion, heroic-warrior ethos, and a more distant tongue, but all inherited from the same source as the Germanics, the Indo-Europeans. (IE). They called their counterpart to Thunor, actually the same inherited god from IE, 'Tiranis'. *Thunoraz' and 'Tiranis' are genetically related, cognate, from the same parent-word in an earlier form of unrecorded IE from which Gmc & Celtic were born. Grimm's Law, very simplified, not the entire law. The proto-IE stops, b, bh, d, dh g, gh, k, p, t, th, became, if they were voiceless, became spirants, t became 'th' as in 'thin'; k to kh then to h. Voiced stops became the unvoiced counterpart. PIE to PGmc g>k; gh>g; d>t: dh>t; t>þ; k>h; p>f. Examples. PIE/Gmc *dheub- to *deup (deep), *dhwer-/*dur- (door), *brater/*broþer (brother), *ghaitos (lat. 'haedus')/*gaitaz (goat); *pater/faþer; *kuan-(Sp. 'cuando'/hwan (when). One MUST know these laws to make good assumptions about these Gods. The Tirn- in Celtic (Celtic did not take part in Grimms Law) equals the Thunr- in Germanic, so we can see both Tiranis and *Thunoraz/Thor are from the same word and have similar traits, used hammers, created Thunder, both big, husky, warrior skygods. He are the same god as Zeus, Indus, Dyauspater and Iuppiter but with different names. Thus, the god called Thunor/Thor/Tiranis are ancient, inherited gods from proto-Indo-European times. Not so for Woden. He absoultely was not from Asia, nor does the Gmc godfamily, the Æsir, or in OE Ése, but in OHG, Ensi, have anything to do with the word Asia. Woden/Odin was not from Turkland, Snorri Sturluson fabricated this, Thor Heyerdahl committed academic fraud with his utter trash-novel 'Jakten på Odin' (Hunt for Odin) where he claims that Odin around 2000 years ago was leader of the totally non-IE Udi people, funny, the W in Woden was NOT lost until 800AD and only in NGmc. So in 6th century Sweden, he would have been called *WóþinaR. He was a real man, probably a great warrior-king, later deified. Born c. 100 AD on the modern Danish island of Fyn. His birthplace still bears his name, the modern city of Odense, Óðinsvé in Icelandic and in proto-Northwest Germanic, *Wóðinaswáih or Wodens-hallow. (the EastGmc Goths, Vandals had left 300 years prior, hence there is NEVER any mention of any character, hero, king, god called anything similar to *Wóðinaz, *Wódanaz, Óðinn, Oden, Woden, Wuotan. Also the word Æsir is from PGmc ansiwiz, the singular is ansuz. Norse and Ingvaeonic (Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, etc) lost nasals, n & m before s or z. In Gothic, OHG the word ans meant a god, specifically, not the Biblical God.

Woden or the much-later NGmc pronunciation, after the loss of word-initial W's before the rounder vowels O, U & any derived forms, even if not followed by an O,U. Cf. ModSwed/OE c.900AD, ord/word, under/wundor, Ullr/Wulþor; Swed/ModEng, ull/wool, yllen/woolen; Icel/OE óska/wýscian, óður/wood[1] after c 850 AD. c. the same name Oden *Wóðdinaz Óðinn, usually written in Lat. alphabet in Old-East Norse, ODan & OSwed, Óthæn, Ódhen, Óþæn, etc.K.Doig

Odin from Lejre is a small cast silver figurine from approximately 900 AD showing a person sitting on a throne. The figurine has inlay of black niello (black-colored alloy) and some gilding.[ The height is 18 mm and the weight is 9 grams. The figurine was found by local amateur archaeologist Tommy Olesen on September 2, 2009, during Roskilde Museum's excavations at the small village of Gammel (sic) "Gamle Lejre" (pronounced [lye-ruh] or in phonetic alphabet [laiʁə] ) (Old Lejre), near the modern town of Lejre in Denmark. The figurine was unveiled at the Roskilde Museum on November 13, 2009, and is now part of the permanent exhibition.

Footnote1. wood (adj.) "violently insane" (now obsolete), from OE wód "mad, frenzied," from PGmc. *wóþ- (cf. Goth. wóþs "possessed, mad," OHG wuot "mad, madness," High.Ger. Wut "rage, fury"), from PIE *wet- "to blow, inspire, spiritually arouse;" source of L. vates or uates "seer, poet," O.Ir. faith "poet;" "with a common element of mental excitement" [Buck]. Cf. OE wóþ "sound, melody, song," and ON óðr "poetry," and the god-name Odin. (from OED)
http://www.proto-germanic.com/2011/1...eal-story.html

[Albion]

I personally think the Aesir were tribal leaders at one point immortalised as gods. Certainly there are aspects about them which suggest they were once human, especially that they have to go to Idunna (a Vanir) to get some immortality apples.

This may be of interest to the poster.
Scroll down for the bit about Idunna.

[2Cool]

They have definitely cooler than religious figures from other religions like Islam or Christianity. We can actually use them as super heroes (The Avengers was awesome so was Thor ). Imagine if Jesus was there instead... boring.

[Quorra]

They have definitely cooler than religious figures from other religions like Islam or Christianity. We can actually use them as super heroes (The Avengers was awesome so was Thor ). Imagine if Jesus was there instead... boring.

[Mistic]

I actually believe that these gods were from an earlier source that was prehistoric. Thor, Odin, ect might've been real powerful rulers.