Thor the Thunderer has left us his name in Thursday. According to Scandinavian belief he is red-bearded, and his hammer that he flings is the thunderbolt. A gentleman wrote to me in 1890:—
It was in the autumn of 1857 or 1858 that I had taken some quinine to a lad who lived with his old grandmother. On my next visit the old dame scornfully refused another bottle, and said she ‘knowed on a soight better cure for the ague than yon mucky stuff.’ With that she took me round to the bottom of the bed and showed me three horseshoes nailed there with a hammer placed crosswise upon them. On my expressing incredulity, she waxed wroth, and said: ‘Naay, lad, it’s a chawm. I tak’s t’ mell (hammer) i’ moy left haun and I mashys they shoon throice, and Oi sez, sez Oi:—
Feyther, Son, an’ Holi Ghoast,
Naale the divil to this poast!
Throice I stroikes with holy crook,
Won for God, an’ won for Wod, an’ one for Lok!
Theen, laad, whin the old un comes to shak him he wean’t nivver git past you; you’ull fin’ him saafe as t’ church steeple.’
Could there be confusion worse confounded than this? The Holy Trinity invoked, and in the same breath God, Woden, and Loki—the very spirit of evil; and the Holy Crook and Thor’s hammer treated as one and the same thing.
Yours faithfully,
B. M. Heanley.
Upton Grey Vicarage, Winchfield.
Clearly here God takes the place of Thor; and the Triad—Thor, Woden and Loki—are equal with the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
