Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/343

 Laughed then Thor's Heart in his breast; Severe in mind He knew his hammer, First slew he Thrym, Tho king of giants, Crushed then all That race of giants;

Slew the old Sister of Thrym, She who asked For a bridal gift; Slap she got For shining gold, Hammer blows For heaps of rings; Thus came Odin's son Again by his hammer.

Thrym (from þruma) is the noisy, thundering imitator of Thor. While the thunder sleeps, the giant forces of nature howl and rage in the storms and winds, they have stolen the hammer from Thor. Thor goes and brings his hammer back and the storms are made to cease. It has been suggested that Thor is the impersonation of truth, and the Younger Edda speaks of him as one never having yet uttered an. It has also been claimed that the name of his realm Thrud-vang contains the same root as our English word truth, but this we leave for the reader to examine for himself. Before the Norsemen learned to make the sign of the cross, they made the sign of the hammer upon themselves and upon other things that they thereby wished to secure against evil influences.

Now let us glance at the last appearance of Thor on the stage of this world. The Norse king, Olaf the saint, was eagerly pursuing his work of Christian reform