Norse Myths · Part 3 · Thor · A2–B1
Thor’s Lost Hammer
Part 3 of the Norse Myths: the funniest of the Norse poems. Thor wakes up and his hammer has gone. The giant Thrym has stolen it and will only give it back if the goddess Freyja marries him. Freyja refuses, so Thor, the strongest and hairiest of the gods, puts on a wedding dress and goes to the wedding himself. Quantifiers (how much / how many, a lot of, too much, a few), questions and short answers, and the language of weddings and food, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight is a comedy. Thor, the god of thunder, has the most powerful weapon in the world, his hammer Mjölnir, which protects the gods from the giants. One morning he wakes up, and it’s gone.
A giant, Marcos, who wants to marry the most beautiful goddess, Freyja. And the gods’ solution is so ridiculous that Thor, of all people, ends up in a wedding veil, eating and drinking far too much at his own wedding. Tonight we count and measure: how much, how many, too much.
Thor (Þórr) is the god of thunder, the protector of gods and humans, and the most popular god of the Viking Age; thousands of small hammer-shaped pendants have been found by archaeologists. He has red hair and a red beard, a terrible temper, an enormous appetite, and a goat-drawn chariot. His hammer, Mjölnir, always hits its target and comes back to his hand, and it is the gods’ main protection against the giants.
The Song of Thrym (Þrymskviða), a poem in the Poetic Edda, tells how the giant king Thrym steals Mjölnir and hides it eight miles under the earth, and demands the goddess Freyja as his bride. Freyja is so angry that her famous necklace bursts. The god Heimdall suggests that Thor should dress as the bride, and the trickster Loki goes with him as a bridesmaid.
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