NOTES FOR "THE VIKING GODS," Part Two

This is the second part of the personal notes I prepared for my appearance on the Ancient Aliens episode about “The Viking Gods” on H2, the second History Channel station. Click here for Part One.

THOR

Thor is a complicated character who can be seen as both a war god and a fertility god, as both subject to and superior to Odin – depending where and when your source comes from. Despite what modern artistic interpretations show us, he’s never physically described in any detail in the ancient poems, and it’s not even clear if he’s human-sized or giant-sized. All of this underscores that he is a spiritual and symbolic figure. The idea of Thor as a blustery, red-bearded, human-sized character really comes from the Icelandic sagas in the 1200s and 1300s, long after the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in the year 1000. In these late sources, he seems to be shrunken down to underscore the victory of the new Christian faith.

http://www.norsemyth.org/2013/04/notes-for-viking-gods-part-two.html