The Common Man’s God – Thor

Thor’s reputation as someone who works hard, fights hard, and parties hard sets him up as the common man’s god. According to Dr. Jackson Crawford, Thor is also known as the greatest “drinking man” in the Norse universe.

Thor’s Battles in the East

Despite his well-known proclivities toward feasting and celebration, Thor’s work ethic often puts him in the middle of battles with giants while the other gods remain at home in the west. Although the enemies of the gods are not always located in the east, Thor is most often described as traveling there to fight giants. Crawford suggests that one reason for this may be the structure of Old Norse poetry itself. The “yuh” sound in Jotunheimr alliterates with any vowel, and “austr” is the only direction that starts with a vowel.

Crawford also proposes that there may have been only one mythological route to Jotunheimr, which passed eastward through Midgard. A third explanation is geographical: the Icelanders who preserved many of these myths descended from Norwegians, whose wilderness regions lay primarily to the east.

Thor’s Representation in the Eddas

Thor isn’t always stern. Some stories make him look comic, even foolish: in the Poetic Edda poem Thrymskvida, he has to disguise himself as a bride, veil and all, to get Mjolnir back from the giant who stole it.

He is also genuinely frightening. In Lokasenna, Loki insults every god at Aegir‘s feast. When Thor arrives, Loki trades a few jabs with him, too, but when Thor threatens him with the hammer for the fourth time, Loki leaves: ‘I know that you will strike.’

Fate of the Common Man’s God

Thor’s fate is sealed in the prophecy of Ragnarök. During the final battle, Thor will kill the Midgard Serpent, Loki’s monstrous son. After taking nine steps, he will collapse and die from the serpent’s venom.

Vikings wore Thor’s hammer around their necks. Archaeologists have found around a thousand Mjolnir amulets across Scandinavia, many from the late Viking Age, when Christians wore crosses and some Norse answered with the hammer. The dwarves Brokkr and Eitri forged the real one after a wager with Loki; Snorri says it never missed, always returned to Thor’s hand, and could be made small enough to carry inside his shirt. Reliable, strong, straightforward: no wonder ordinary people loved him.