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The Assembly of The Elder Troth would like to welcome you to our website. Please click on the links to the left to enter the relevant area of our site. Heil and welcome to the Articles section of the Assembly of The Elder Troth website. Here you can find items written by many wide and varied folk. The idea is to provide a venue for discussion, debate and education amongst the folk by giving people an individual flavour to the information provided. Every article here is the work of its' author. Copyright rests with the Author, reproduction is prohibited without the authors permission. Thor: Lord of the Senses An extract from Chapter Four - Social Structure: A Sacred Unity of the upcoming book by Rurik Grimnisson, Hel's Gates: An exploration of Teutonic Religion, Mysticism and Magic © 2003 Ruarik Grimnisson (NOTE: This article is presented as first written in 2003, and has been revised and rewritten for inclusion in Rurik's book which shall be published late 2004.) The epiphany of the Proto-Indo-European thunder god is his battle against the Serpent using his iconic weapon, the war-hammer or axe, riding in his chariot. In Skaldskarpamal (4), Snorri calls Thor ‘the killer of Thrivaldi’, a reference to the myth where Thor slew the thurs (giant) Thrivaldi (‘power of three’?), when recovering cattle stolen by him from Asgard. A depiction of a fight with a three-headed monster was recorded on one of the pair of the Gallehus horns (400-575 CE) unearthed in north Schleswig in the 17th-18th century. Mallory says in relation to Thrivaldi; [from] “The mythological evidence primarily drawn from the Indians and Iranians, but also from the Greeks, Romans, Germans, Celts and Hittites, Lincoln reconstructs an Indo-European myth of the first cattle raid. This concerned a hero figure *Trito 'third' (Vedic Trita Aptya, Avestan Thraetaona Athwya, Greek Herakles, Norse Hymir,1 Hittite Hupasiya) who loses his cattle to a three-headed monster, normally a serpent, which at least in Indo-Iranian tradition is closely associated with local non-Indo-European populations.”2 But what is not made clear with Mallory’s references is that the Vedic Trita –Aptya, the hero of the myth, is the thunder god Indra under another name in his role as a triadic deity whose job it was to ward the sacred ‘nectar that bestow long life’3 – the soma. Trita –Aptya literally means the ‘triadic watery energy of the gods’4. Trita, Aptya and Indra are one and the same. In this version of the myth the cows are symbolic of the soma: “Aptya, sent by Indra,
knew the weapons of the ancestors, and he waged war. Having slain Trisiras,
who had seven rays 5. Trita released the cows of the
sons of Tvastr. Indra struck down the ruler whose strength was great.
After he had driven home the cows of Tvastr’ sons, who could assume
all forms, he cut off his three heads.” Notable in this hymn is that Tvastr was the smith who forged Indra’s thunderbolt and shaped his cup used only to hold the sacred soma 7 (see the chapter Cults of Sacrifice and Death). In Norse mythology Mótsognir (‘mead-drinker’ = Mimir) is the proto-smith who shaped the dwarfs or dark-elves 8 whom, in turn, crafted the magical artefacts of the gods including Thor’s hammer - Mjollnir, his gauntlets and girdle. Tvastr’ sons have an obvious parallel with the dark-elves who are called ásmegir (sons of the Asas).9 With this established, it follows that the Norse and the Vedic myth are probably of the same origin and that Indra and Thor are heroic cognates. Here are extracts from Bridle’s summary of his reconstruction of the original myth: “…the Æsir awoke and found that the kine of Asgard were stolen” … “Thor then set off with his goats and chariot, and with him his bondsman Thjalfi (‘servant-elf’). They crossed the river Vimur and entered Jotunheim, following the tracks of the kine…and came to where the giant whose name was Thrivaldi dwelt. Thrivaldi had nine heads. He it was who had stolen the kine out of Asgard, and had penned them up in a byre which was in a cave in the heart of the mountain. When Thrivaldi knew that Asa-Thor was coming, he rolled a great crag to close the entrance to the cave … “Thor clasped about him his girdle of strength…grasped Mjollnir and smote the mountain so that it was cleft asunder. Then Thjalfi brought out the kine, and drove them on the way to Asgard. There was yet this to be done, that Thor raised Mjollnir aloft, and Thrivaldi was deprived of his nine heads and sent down to Niflheim.” 10 While these tales doubtlessly fit into the epic cycle of the Indo-European cattle raids, there are rûna to be found within the metaphors of both myths. According to Shri Aurobindo 11: “Indra is the awakened mind or the illumined mind, who in the mythology appears as the lord of the heavens and exists in the body as the Lord of the senses, one who has attained control over his senses. Vrata [Vitra, Trisiras] the snake demon, whom he slays in order to release the waters 12 for the people of earth, is the dark mentality, the mass of negative and ignorant consciousness which hides all the cows (the rays of Truth 13) in the caves of Panis or sense-driven life.” In another Rig-Veda reference it says the Panis live beyond the Rasa River,14 the demarcation between the god’s world and that of the demons. This is a parallel to the separation of the god-realm of Asgard and giant-realm of Jotunheim by the river Vimur. And with this correspondence we can attempt an esoteric interpretation of the Norse myth, in a similar manner to Shri Aurobindo’s dealing of the Vedic version. The Jotnar (plural of Jotun) are preconscious wights descended from primal beings that existed before the gods. They personify instinctual (sensual) nature, and the necessary innate force (raw power) that dissolves form, after it arises, back into its constituent elements. Thor embodies conscious (controlled) resistance to the instinctual state with its consequent desire to embrace entropy. He personifies the will to preservation. Both the Jotnar and Thor are identified with the third rune *Thurisaz – giant (thursa), reactive force, as polarities of the same energy. Thor’s polarity is resistance to the dissolution principle while the Jotnar’s polarity is resistance to the preservation principle. Thor is half Jotun; his mother is Jörd (the earth deity - a Jotun) and his father is Odin (a sky deity – an Asa). The Æsir’s cattle is the animation of *Fehu – mobile wealth, esoterically the numinous principle that is the precursor to manifestation (form) and thought (self-awareness) in the natural world. A Jotun, who personifies instinctive sensuality - unconscious reaction as desire, seizes the Asa-god’s share of Fehu (the numinous power of increase that must be circulated) and transfers it to the realm of entropy (Jotunheim) where it will be hoarded 15; thus endangering the cosmic balance between manifestation and dissolution. This mystery is associated with the sixth rune-stave, *Kenaz – torch, meaning the controlled flame of life-force and the necessary dissolution of form to facilitate reshaping of the force. Thrivaldi uses his own power of resistance – symbolised by the ‘great crag’ (the ignorance of matter), to seal the cave (unconsciousness) thereby preventing the circulation of the evolutionary energy that stimulates awareness of the divine ground of subtle being underlying gross matter. Asa-Thor (this title identifies the half-Jotun Thor’s loyalty as being with the Asa or gods of consciousness) uses the power of his hammer (the bolt of “lightning”16 – focused will that destroys resistance) to cleave the mountain (the inertia of dense matter) releasing the kine (the repressed energy of Fehu). The kine (numinous potential) are returned to their rightful place – within the garth of the Asa gods or in human terms the evolutionary/procreative energy is once again aligned with the divine principle in the individual and in society. Thor then slays the ignorant Thrivaldi, severing his nine heads - the connection to the nine worlds. This act dissolves his form; sending his wraith, the instinctual ego to the underworld, to the elemental realm of Niflheim (misty [obscured] home) - its origin. Most interesting in the reconstructed Norse myth is that Thrivaldi has nine heads – not three. Here we have the association of the ninth rune, *Hagalaz – hailstone, called the “mother of manifestation” which contains the forces of dissolution and regeneration. The mysteries of the number nine are also intrinsically tied to the sigil known as the Valknut (knot of the slain) and/or Valgrind (gate of the chosen); both devices are formed of three interlocking triangles. Thor’s slaying of the nine-headed giant could be a metaphor of the focused Will (controlled senses) unravelling the ‘knot of consciousness’, the knot that binds mankind in ignorance to the real nature of the nine worlds (realms or states of consciousness) and to our potential ability of cognisance. This very same knot binds our self-awareness (ego) to the cycle of birth and death. The conscious unravelling or severing of the knot, without having to die physically, allows us to directly experience the numinous; the knot then is transformed into a transcendental gate to freedom. Thor is, in one aspect, the archetype of the tension of human existence - the heroic struggle to defend and preserve life against forces that dissolve form and consciousness; not only on an instinctual (biological) level but from a plane of self-awareness. To discern between natural instinct and will, through reason and intuition is a human ability that separates us from the animals – a gift from the gods. It offers the opportunity for mankind to exercise some control over his destiny and his environment, to manifest a society that is supportive of the individual and the collective, while maintaining a balance with nature. On the deepest level Thor is the ‘awakened or illumined mind’ [Sanskrit Hari – ‘golden’ or ‘illumined’], ‘Lord of the heavens’, ‘Lord of the senses’ – ‘one who has attained control over his senses’. Through the above myth Thor shows us that we have the potential to transcend the human condition, to overcome the predisposition to Thursic dualism - the habitual tendency to oscillate between reactive polar absolutes, and to rediscover the timeless numinous reality that is the origin of the manifestation, preservation and dissolution cycle. The rune-stave associated with this mystery is the twenty-third, *Dagaz – [light of] day, the twilight meeting of light and dark. It is the balance between or synthesis of the extremes, the pivot of the polarities - the position of poise where the numinous is experienced.
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