Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/92

70 of hammer, it was just as natural for people to imagine Thor's weapon to be an iron hammer. They represented it then as one of the hammers used in that period.

In old songs Thor's hammer is called Mjöllnir, which form the name has in the Icelandic Edda. The word means "the comminuting one," and corresponds to our mjōlnare (miller). It refers to the terrible power of the hammer to crush whatever it encountered.

Of the circumstances under which the hammer was made, legend gives the following account. Loke let some gnomes, the sons of Ivalde, make three valuable presents for Odin, Thor, and Frö (Frey). Then he laid a wager on his own head with a gnome called Brock, that the latter's brother Sindre would not be able to make three equally fine things. Thus provoked, Sindre forged several things, amongst which was Mjöllnir, the iron hammer. The gods declared that the hammer was the best of all the gifts, and that Loke had lost the wager. He only saved his head by a quibble that reminds one of "The Merchant of Venice." When the gnome wanted to take his head, Loke answered that the head was certainly his to take, but that to the neck he had no right.

The hammer had only one flaw, the legend goes on,—the handle was too short. The reason for this was that, when Brock was working the bellows while the iron was in the forge, a fly placed itself between his eyes and hurt his eyelids. As the blood then came into his eyes and blinded him, he put up his hand for a moment to rub them. To do this, however, he was obliged to let the bellows stop for a moment, and thus the forging did not succeed so well as Sindre would have liked. The handle was made too short.

Brock gave the hammer to Thor, and told him that he could strike as hard as he liked with it, and whatever he liked, still it would not break. If he threw the hammer, it would never miss the mark and never go too far to