Þórr's Weapons & Gear: A Cosmic Electrical System?

This is a thought experiment by the author, and is in no way intended to be taken as Lore or Orthodoxy. This is an attempt to show that scientific principles exist in the Lore, if you know where to look.

God of Thunder…or Lightning?

If you ask any man on the street what he knows about our Gods, there is no question that the one god’s name that will most often come to their mind is Lord Þórr. Yes, they most likely will be thinking of Stan Lee’s pop culture reimagining of the beloved Champion of Miðgarðr, but they know the basics: has hammer, smites foes mightily, and can call down lightning.

In modern Ásatrú, most Ásatrúar know far more than the Marvel fanbase, and what’s more, they get their knowledge from the actual lore of our Folk. Most can tell you of his voyage to Útangarðr and the famous feats that he accomplished there, or the ordeal he had to endure to retrieve his most prized possession, Mjólnir, back from the giants who would rather he stay separated from it. But not as many are aware of or focus on his other accoutrements that are listed in some of the lesser-known tales featuring arguably the most famous of the Æsir. If you don’t “nerd-out” on the lore, or if you haven’t stood in awe in front of the mural in the Vé at Þórshof, you might not be up to speed on belts, gloves, and rods.

Drawn and painted by Spekingr Svan Herul

Tools of the Trade

As you can see from the image above, Mjólnir is not the only thing that the Thunder God has at his disposal; there are three other items that he wears and carries that are not equal to that Holy Hammer, but certainly augment its power and his power to wield it.

Firstly, there is Megingjörð, or ‘power belt’ that is secured around his waist. Þórr is already the strongest among the Æsir, which is why he is not only their champion but ours as well. So with his strength doubled now, he should more than ready and able to use the Best of Weapons, right? Not quite. There s an immense amount of heat generated by summoning so much power and so he needs his Járngreipr, his ‘iron-grippers’ to shield himself. Lastly, tucked into his power belt is Gríðarvölr, the iron rod that he uses not only as a weapon, but as a tool for grounding and stability in certain situations.

So where did the Hammer-Hurler get all these extra pieces of kit? We already know that Mjólnir was crafted by Eitri/Sindri and Brokkr in response to the challenge that they could not possibly craft something more amazing that Sif’s golden hair, which Loki had maliciously cut. These three things, however, were not made in an underground forge by the ‘swarthy elves.’ He got these pieces of gear from Gryðr, a giantess who is the mother of Viðarr, to better prepare him to fight Geirröðr the Giant. Due to an unfortunate series of circumstances, Þórr did not have Mjólnir with him, so Gryðr graciously gave him the belt, the gloves, and her own iron rod. He made use of them nearly immediately after leaving her dwelling, having to use them all to cross the River Vimur, which began to flow over its banks just as he was crossing the middle. He braced himself against the iron rod that he had driven hard into the river bed, with the power belt doubling his strength. After cursing the river aloud and promising that the river’s attempt to drown him would rouse more god-strength in him, he noticed the source of the problem. One of Geirröðr’s daughters, Gjálp, had straddled the river and was literally causing the overflow by pissing in it. Without his hammer, Þórr was forced to rip a giant stone from the river and hurl it at the source of the problem, and it is said that whatever he throws at he never misses. Crisis averted, he pulled himself up the far bank and continued on his journey to defeat Geirröðr.

Is every thunderstorm Þórr, or…?

One of the hallmarks of maturity in Ásatrú is the movement over time from new adherent fervor to experiential wisdom. One of the more noticeable examples of this is young Folk wanting every thunderstorm that rolls through their area to be Lord Þórr fighting the giants. Years later, after many cycles through the holy tides and gaining knowledge of the lore, a more seasoned Ásatrúar knows that not every lightning strike is the divine Hammer-Hurler, but sometimes…

This seems like solely a philosophical matter, an aphorism that speaks to the common theological pitfalls of the initiate or the young. But there is actually scientific truth to back it up. When it comes to lightning strikes, 95% are negative to positive, meaning that the cloud bank is the negative side of the polarity and the earth is the positive. The other 5% is the reverse, positive to negative, sky to earth. This smaller percentage of positive strikes are orders of magnitude more powerful and destructive than negative ones, and can even originate far away from the strike point, out of a clear sky. This is where we get the term “bolt out of the blue.”

So, one could say that these ‘bolts from the blue’, viewed in a theological sense, would be more fitting to ascribe to the Divine striker god from the North. The power of strikes from Mjólnir are seen as the most powerful offensive force in the cosmos, able to decisively smash the forces of chaos and literally change the mythological landscape. And in the same sense that these more rare strikes are positive to negative, so too is Lord Þórr's action, bringing right action and order down to dispel disorder and chaos.

Science and Lore: Companions not Opponents

So when we take Mjólnir and all of the other tools that Lord Þórr carries and uses and view them through a scientific lens, we are then faced with what could be seen as a complete electrical system. His belt, Megingjörð, when viewed in this light is a dead ringer for a magnetic coil. When making a magnetic coil, you wind the wire into a coil, and each loop adds its own magnetic field to the others, to create a unified magnetic field inside the coil. On the outside, they loop back, creating a pole on either end. When you insert a ferromagnetic material (like an iron rod) into the center of the coil it concentrates the magnetic flux, thereby magnifying the strength of the magnetic field by hundreds or thousands of times

Now if we switch back to viewing this through the mythological lens, we can see Megingjörð as the coil, with Gríðarvölr as the ferromagnetic core that amplifies its power. His power is already tremendous, but I believe that like us, the gods don’t believe in a “fair” fight. When the River Vimur threatens to wash him away, Lord Þórr loudly proclaims that such an affront will only rouse more godly power from within him. This is something of an anomaly in the lore, since I don’t know of any other time he says something along these lines. More interesting is that at that moment, he is wearing Megingjörð and is using Gríðarvölr to brace himself.

So in both of these cases, once you’ve generated all this power, what do you do with it? You put it to work. Looking at the world scientifically, electricity is used to accomplish a great many things everyday, from giving us light and warmth, to giving us peace and security. Looking at the lore and the Thunderer’s role as the Striker God, I believe him to be providing those same things to both the Æsir and the sons of man. Mjólnir is the last step in the system. All that power generated and grounded, himself being shielded from it’s immense heat, he makes positive contact with the negative enemies of us all, shattering them into nothingness. In doing so, he is providing the peace and security by which the Æsir and ourselves may continue to live in the light and feel that life-sustaining warmth.

In conclusion, I believe that more parallels and comparisons can be found in the lore, if only we turn our modern eyes to it and look. They were put there by the gods and ancestors not to separate us from our modern world, but to help us make sense of it.

Goði Bodi Mayo

bmayo@runestone.org