Perun, Slavic thunder god wielded an axe...
Thor, Norse thunder god, wielded a hammer...
Both Slavs and Norse wore axe (hammer) protective amulets...
Left: Thor's hammer amulet
Right: Perun's axe amulet
I always thought that Thor's hammer looked like a stylised axe...
That Thor's "hammer" probably was originally an axe, can be seen from this next artifact. A museum in Utrecht has a relic called "the hammer of St. Martin of Tours".
The "hammer" was made in the 13th or 14th c. from a Bronze Age stone axe dated to 1,000 - 700 BC...
What does this have to do with Thor's hammer? Well, St Martin thunder god in saintly disguise. Oh and Utrecht was founded by Slavic tribe Wiltzi (who worshiped thunder god with an axe) and was originally called Wiltaburg. More in my post "Axe of Martin"...
But the main indication that Thor's hammer was originally an axe, is the etymology of the the Thor's axe name: Mjǫllnir, "which is disputed among historical linguists". You'll quickly see why. Here are proposed etymologies, and you tell me which one is most plausible...
1. Old Norse Mjǫllnir developed from Proto-Norse *melluniaR. This connects it to Old Church Slavonic mlunuji and Russian molnija meaning "lightning", which would make Mjǫllnir "the lightning-maker" (either borrowed from a Slavic or both stemming from a common source)...
2. Another proposal connects Mjǫllnir to Old Norse mjǫll meaning "new snow" and modern Icelandic mjalli meaning "the color white", rendering Mjǫllnir as "shining lightning weapon"???
3. Finally, another proposal connects Old Norse Mjǫllnir to Old Norse mala meaning "to grind" and Gothic malwjan "to grind", yielding Mjǫllnir as meaning 'the grinder'???
Considering the amount of mixing between Slavs and Norse and mutual cultural influences, and the fact that Thor made lightning with his "hammer" (actually axe), I would go with number one...Controversial!!! 🙂 But most logical...
Particularly in light of the fact that stone axes were directly linked with thunder gods for millenniums in Eurasia...And that so many thunder gods wielded axes...I talked about this in my post "Kataibates"...
One last thing: In Scandinavia thunderstones (Neolithic/Bronze Age flint axes) were frequently worshiped as family gods who kept off spells and witchcraft...So...
And finally (promise 🙂) The word "mo(ld)nya" (lightning) exists in all Slavic languages. It's cognates, apart from Norse Mjǫllnir are: Latvian milna (hammer of the thunderer 🙂), Old Prussian mealde (lightning), Middle Welsh mellt, myllt (lightning)...
Also, did I mention that the word for Thursday (Thor’s day) was in the Polabian Baltic Slavic language, Peründan (Perun's day)...
PS: Someone asked me: Did Perun's axe have a name like Thor's hammer?
Considering that Mjǫllnir just means lightning, and that both Slavs and Norse believed that stone axes were remnants of lightnings, then I would guess that Thor's hammer's "name" is just misunderstanding of Slavs pointing to a stone axe and saying: look, lightning...
Given that the Romans referred to Thor as a Germanic god, it's hard to see the Slavic connection here, other than in the background Indo-European sense. There's a deep Norse/Viking connection for sure, but that comes later.
ReplyDeleteThat Thor was a Germanic god is not in question. The name of his hammer (axe) is...
Delete3rd point: "to grind/grinder". Could it come from the use of fire striker? For bringing the light/fire from the strike, which happens little sideways, grinding.
ReplyDeleteIn finnish the word "valkea(t)" means both white(s) and fire(s) which circles my thoughts back in to the 2nd point: "new snow & the color white"