Thor and Valkyries

I have been working on a paper on Valkyries and Swan Maidens in reference to Volundrkvida (Wayland's Ballad). Sounds exciting? The majority of what I am reading says that the Valkyries are later developments in Norse myth, in the late first millennium after the Viking period got underway. This is about the time Thor rises to prominence as everyone's favourite Aesir. I don't think there is a connection but it is odd. And....... in connection to the Wayland myth, it is even odder when you consider Thor's weapon of choice is a hammer because Wayland (who is a smith) used a sword.

My Hero, Thor

I like Thor. He was a very popular god with the masses and why not. He was the protector of mankind. The humble dead went to his halls. His popularity was the biggest obstacle to converting the Norse to Christianity.

We were reading the story in the Grimnismal where Thor went on a trip with Loki. Loki behaved himself for once. They stopped at a peasant's home where Thor slaughtered the goats that draw his chariot and allowed them to be cooked for dinner, since the peasant did not have enough to feed his guests. The only proviso was that the bones were to be left intact but the peasant's son, Thjalfi, broke one of the bones for the marrow. So, in the morning, when Thor hallowed the bones with his hammer and brought the goats back to life, one of them was lame. Thor was angry but the peasant was so frightened that he took pity. Rather than kill the entire household, he took Thjalfi and his sister as servants with him.

Then, when they were looking for a place to sleep that night, they found an empty hall and slept in a small side chamber. The next morning, they realized that they had been sleeping in a giant's glove and a rather large one at that. Thor's normal reaction upon seeing a giant is to take up his hammer, Mjollnr, and give him/her a smack with it. When Skrymir stood up; Thor was too astonished to give him a whack. Snorri makes fun of Thor and makes him look like a meat-head. He said Thor failed to hit him and then what follows is some comical attempts by Thor to open the food bag, which he cannot untie, followed by Thor losing his temper and giving the sleeping Skrymir a thwack over the head. Skrymir wakes up and asks him if a leaf has fallen on his head. Thor waited for him to fall asleep again and struck him again, with the hammer going deep into his skull. This time Skrymir woke and asked if an acorn had fallen on his head. Thor tried one more time just before dawn and still Skrymir woke up and asked if some birds had dumped some litter on him.

Is Snorri making fun of Thor? Maybe. Snorri was a Christian. I think Skrymir's size makes it understandable that Thor was taken aback at first. At least Thor was capable of thinking and not just mindlessly going in to attack mode. I think his difficulties make him endearing. When Thor and his companions went to sleep in the glove, Thor stood at the entrance to keep watch. The Old Norse said that Thor took thought to protect himself. The pronoun 'sik' is in the accusative form, object of the infinitive, and is the most damning part of the story. However, Thor did stand in the doorway and keep watch all night. Anyone who wanted to get at Thjalfi, Roskva and Loki would have to get past him first. Clearly he was not just taking thought for his own protection alone. Later in the tale, Thor's strength and determination impress and frighten even Skrymir.

If I Had A Hammer....

I have just seen Thor in 3D. I could have done without the 3D and I expected the producers would not be strictly following Norse mythology. They didn't.

A large chunk of the movie does not take place on earth but in Asgard and Jotunheim, the abode of the ice giants. It reminds me a little of the bogus mythology that introduced Hellboy II, The Golden Army. It didn't make my head blow off that they made Nuadda a son of Balor and I could deal with the alteration of the facts here too. Odin destroyed the ice giants before there were humans but that's okay. Loki was not an ice giant or Odin's son but that's okay too. Frigg is not Thor's mother but we won't quibble about that either. Bifrost is a rainbow not a wormhole but they are trying to make it believable to a modern sophisticated audience. There was a gratuitous shirt-free scene which was awesome. We wouldn't want all that working out to go to waste. If all the Asgardians look like that - call me converted.

On the whole, it was good. Not too hokey. It was strange seeing a ninja Asgardian but every movie has their little team, made up of the big, dumb gorilla, the sassy girl, smart guy, square-jawed hero and the chinese ninja guy. At least we did not have to look at them for long. The story focused on Loki's rather complicated love/hate relationship with Asgard which works since Loki does cause most of the problems.

Thor is not the brightest thing; he just likes to fight and gets Odin angry with him. He is deprived of his hammer and sent to earth to learn some humility. He learns just enough to get his hammer back and then he starts kicking *ss again. He falls in love with a human - Natalie Portman's character. I don't like her as Thor's love interest; she is too wimpy. I can't seen him joining S.H.I.E.L.D either. Those are the good guys from Iron Man. Thor doesn't take orders from anyone but Odin.

I went with two teenaged boys, one teenaged girl and myself - middle aged mama. We all liked it. Don't look for insight into the human condition; Dostoyevsky and Zola did not write Thor novels and that's okay, too.