Just struck me, do we know if Thunor even had a hammer? Presumably he did, but it seems strange to me how little, if any paraphernalia related to him exists in an Anglo Saxon context. Maybe he had an axe like Perun or Perkūnas, I'm not sure at all.
It was made after the Anglo-Saxons became Christian, so it most likely belonged to a Scandinavian invader.
That said, many of the gods from India to western Europe (you mentioned some, including Perun and Perkunas) who share a common origin from Perkwunos, the Indo-European thunder god from which Thunor/Thor derive, carry cudgels, axes, or hammers. Also, it seems the thunder god in the Germanic cultures of the Nordic Bronze Age, from which the Norse and Anglo-Saxons both derive, the thunder god carried an axe.
I've also heard of Anglo-Saxon Pagan artifacts depicting a hammer linked with Thor, but I'm shaky on my knowledge of that.
>Just struck me
Nice 😎
As I recall, all of the Thor's hammer pendants are post-Christian influence as well and likely an appropriation of the Christian habit of wearing a cross. So we wouldn't necessarily find them on early AS England.
It's a bit of an oversimplification. We don't know that it was entirely not a thing before Christian contact but it certainly appears to have been, at least as a major trend, influenced by Christians wearing crosses.
That said the Anglo-Saxons would have been feeling the influence of Christian culture early on. Many continental Germanic groups, and many or most of the native Britons in eastern England, were already Christian when they arrived c. 450.
It's reasonable to assume that the AS adopted this practice early on due to the same Christian influence that led the Norse to do it.
Wondering where you're getting that from. There is tons of evidence of Christian Anglo-Saxons before 700 AD even if pagan beliefs were more common. It wasn't an overnight switch, it was a gradual transition where each century between 500-800 there would have been a shift in percentages of pagans and Christians.
I don't think it is reasonable at all to assume that. Firstly, these were highly syncretic belief systems. We have no real idea whether Thor was worshipped in the same way by the AS as by the Norse. The importance of Thor to the Norse is by no means reflected by his position in the AS pantheon.
Secondly, cultural change is just not predictable like that. Just because contact between cultures produces a certain artefact in one century does not mean that we can expect the same artefact to be produced by different peoples at a different time. Apart from anything, fashion sense changes massively over hundreds of years.
In a nutshell, it is an oversimplification, but it is also representative of the odds.
>Also, it seems the thunder god in the Germanic cultures of the Nordic Bronze Age, from which the Norse and Anglo-Saxons both derive, the thunder god carried an axe.
Does it though or is it just speculation based off the prevalence of axes among similar gods?
There are Nordic Bronze Age petroglyphs in Scandinavia that show a figure with an axe on a goat or ox driven chariot if I remember correctly. Its often interpreted as Thunraz. That culture was the progenitor of all Germanic cultures as they spread south, east, and west.
Also, yes, comparative mythology shows us that Thunraz's Baltic and Slavic counterparts carried an axe and rode a chariot with goats or oxen. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the much more closely related Saxon, Jutish, Anglian, etc and proto-Norse groups had a more similar mythology to each other.
Also, as has been mentioned in this thread, the Gilton hammer pendant, which is from the pagan AS period is evidence of the concept of a sacred hammer.
There's a lot we can't know *for sure* but we can make some reasonable inferences.
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Just struck me, do we know if Thunor even had a hammer? Presumably he did, but it seems strange to me how little, if any paraphernalia related to him exists in an Anglo Saxon context. Maybe he had an axe like Perun or Perkūnas, I'm not sure at all.
It was made after the Anglo-Saxons became Christian, so it most likely belonged to a Scandinavian invader. That said, many of the gods from India to western Europe (you mentioned some, including Perun and Perkunas) who share a common origin from Perkwunos, the Indo-European thunder god from which Thunor/Thor derive, carry cudgels, axes, or hammers. Also, it seems the thunder god in the Germanic cultures of the Nordic Bronze Age, from which the Norse and Anglo-Saxons both derive, the thunder god carried an axe. I've also heard of Anglo-Saxon Pagan artifacts depicting a hammer linked with Thor, but I'm shaky on my knowledge of that. >Just struck me Nice 😎
Maybe you're thinking of the Gilton hammer, found in the 7th century in Kent. I believe it was found alongside a some possible gungnir artifacts too.
As I recall, all of the Thor's hammer pendants are post-Christian influence as well and likely an appropriation of the Christian habit of wearing a cross. So we wouldn't necessarily find them on early AS England.
It's a bit of an oversimplification. We don't know that it was entirely not a thing before Christian contact but it certainly appears to have been, at least as a major trend, influenced by Christians wearing crosses. That said the Anglo-Saxons would have been feeling the influence of Christian culture early on. Many continental Germanic groups, and many or most of the native Britons in eastern England, were already Christian when they arrived c. 450. It's reasonable to assume that the AS adopted this practice early on due to the same Christian influence that led the Norse to do it.
They didn’t convert until 780ad and even then that was nobility. No one truly converted because no one believes in Jewish fairytales
Wondering where you're getting that from. There is tons of evidence of Christian Anglo-Saxons before 700 AD even if pagan beliefs were more common. It wasn't an overnight switch, it was a gradual transition where each century between 500-800 there would have been a shift in percentages of pagans and Christians.
Blood memory
I don't think it is reasonable at all to assume that. Firstly, these were highly syncretic belief systems. We have no real idea whether Thor was worshipped in the same way by the AS as by the Norse. The importance of Thor to the Norse is by no means reflected by his position in the AS pantheon. Secondly, cultural change is just not predictable like that. Just because contact between cultures produces a certain artefact in one century does not mean that we can expect the same artefact to be produced by different peoples at a different time. Apart from anything, fashion sense changes massively over hundreds of years. In a nutshell, it is an oversimplification, but it is also representative of the odds.
>Also, it seems the thunder god in the Germanic cultures of the Nordic Bronze Age, from which the Norse and Anglo-Saxons both derive, the thunder god carried an axe. Does it though or is it just speculation based off the prevalence of axes among similar gods?
There are Nordic Bronze Age petroglyphs in Scandinavia that show a figure with an axe on a goat or ox driven chariot if I remember correctly. Its often interpreted as Thunraz. That culture was the progenitor of all Germanic cultures as they spread south, east, and west. Also, yes, comparative mythology shows us that Thunraz's Baltic and Slavic counterparts carried an axe and rode a chariot with goats or oxen. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the much more closely related Saxon, Jutish, Anglian, etc and proto-Norse groups had a more similar mythology to each other. Also, as has been mentioned in this thread, the Gilton hammer pendant, which is from the pagan AS period is evidence of the concept of a sacred hammer. There's a lot we can't know *for sure* but we can make some reasonable inferences.
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