Thor

Thor is the son of Odin, the All-Father, and of Jörð, the personification of the Earth, and he is the strongest of all gods and men according to the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson. His ancestry unites the sovereign lineage of the Aesir with the primordial strength of the earth, and from it derives his cosmic function: to defend Asgard and Midgard, the world of humans, against the giants (jötnar) who embody chaos. Husband of the goddess Sif, of golden hair, and father of Magni and Módi with the giantess Járnsaxa, Thor is the god most venerated by the peasants and navigators of Viking Scandinavia, who saw in him the close and vigorous protector rather than the distant and cunning Odin. Amulets in the shape of his hammer multiplied in the Viking age, in part as a pagan response to the Christian cross.

The essential attribute of Thor is Mjölnir, the hammer forged by the dwarves Sindri and Brokk that never misses the blow and always returns to his hand. To wield it he needs the strength belt Megingjörð, which doubles his divine power, and iron gloves. With Mjölnir he consecrates and destroys alike: he sanctifies weddings and births and, at the same time, crushes the skulls of the giants. Thor rules thunder and lightning, which the myths explain as the roar of his chariot pulled by two billy goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, which he can sacrifice at night and resurrect at dawn with his hammer. His strength is enormous, but the sources do not portray him as invulnerable or infallible: he is credulous before deceptions, choleric and sometimes mocked by the magic of the giants, as in his humiliating visit to the court of Útgarða-Loki.

The stories of Thor revolve around his incessant struggle against the giants. He kills in duel the jötunn Hrungnir, recovers his hammer stolen by Þrymr by disguising himself as a bride (the goddess Freyja) in the Þrymskviða, and in a famous fishing trip with the giant Hymir he manages to hook Jörmungandr, the serpent that encircles the world, although it escapes. That confrontation is settled in Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods: Thor finally kills Jörmungandr, but the serpent's venom fells him and the god falls after walking barely nine steps. He does not survive the end of the world; it is his sons Magni and Módi who endure and inherit Mjölnir in the renewed world that emerges after the catastrophe. Venerated as guarantor of order and fertility, Thor left his name in the day of the week (Thursday, "day of Thor") and is, since the 19th century, one of the Norse gods with the greatest presence in popular culture.