Who is Thor? Guide to the Norse God of Thunder

Thor is the Norse god of thunder, and the tradition’s most straightforward hero. Where his father Odin schemes and disguises himself and trades body parts for wisdom, Thor picks up his hammer and hits things. This is not a limitation. Half of what Asgard has, it has because Thor stands between it and the giants who would break it. His work is defense, and he does it well.

Key Takeaways

Thor is the Norse god of thunder, son of Odin and the giantess Jord (Earth), and the principal defender of Asgard against the giants.
His hammer Mjolnir was forged by dwarves, returns to his hand when thrown, and is the single most important weapon in Norse mythology.
He is red-bearded, immensely strong, quick-tempered, and generally direct. Complications tend to be someone else’s problem, usually Loki’s.
He travels in a chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr, whom he can kill for food and revive by touching their bones with Mjolnir.
His wife is the golden-haired goddess Sif, and his children include the daughter Thrud and the sons Modi and Magni.
Thor’s central mythic role is killing giants and containing the world serpent Jormungandr, his archenemy and the child of Loki.
At Ragnarok, Thor and Jormungandr kill each other. Thor walks nine steps after the blow before he falls.

Who is Thor?

Thor is the god of thunder in Norse mythology, son of Odin and the giantess Jord (Earth). He is the most physical of the Aesir gods, the strongest, and by a wide margin the one giants and monsters actually fear. His domain is protection: of Asgard, of the human world of Midgard, of the boundaries the giants keep trying to breach.

Definition - Thor

The Norse god of thunder, son of Odin, and the principal defender of Asgard against the giants. Thor wields the hammer Mjolnir, travels in a chariot pulled by two goats, and is the Aesir god most consistently on humanity’s side. His name derives from Proto-Germanic *Þunraz, meaning thunder itself.

His name is the word for thunder. The English word “thunder,” the German Donner, the Icelandic þór, the Anglo-Saxon Thunor, all descend from the same root as Thor’s name. Where his father Odin is worshipped in Norse-tradition literature as the god of kings and poets and the strange arts, Thor is the god ordinary Norse farmers appear to have prayed to most often, the one whose thunder they heard overhead when the giants gathered.

Mjolnir: the hammer that made a god a defender

Mjolnir is the single most important weapon in Norse mythology. It was forged by the dwarven brothers Sindri and Brokkr as part of a bet Loki lost, a competition between two teams of dwarves that also produced Odin’s spear Gungnir, Freyr’s ship Skidbladnir, Odin’s ring Draupnir, Freyr’s boar Gullinbursti, and Sif’s golden hair. Loki had bet his head. He kept his head only by arguing that his neck had not been included in the wager. His lips were sewn shut instead.

The hammer has three properties that made Thor’s role possible. It never misses what he throws it at. It returns to his hand. And its handle is short, a defect the dwarves blamed on Loki, who had interrupted the forging in the form of a fly, which forces Thor to catch it with iron gauntlets and swing it two-handed. That short handle is one of the ways to recognise Mjolnir in Norse-era carvings and pendants.

Mjolnir is Thor’s defining possession. Without it he is dangerous. With it he is why Asgard still stands. Read the story of the forging of Mjolnir.

Thor’s family and household

Thor’s mother is Jord, a personification of the earth, giving him a giant-blood inheritance that is common among the Aesir but especially concentrated in him. His father Odin is one of a small number of gods who does not particularly resemble his most important son.

His wife is Sif, the golden-haired goddess whose hair Loki once cut off as a prank, which led to the entire dwarven crafting competition that gave the gods Mjolnir. Their children include the daughter Thrud, whose name means “strength,” and Thor’s sons include Modi and Magni, both destined to survive Ragnarok and inherit the hammer.

Thor travels in a chariot pulled by two goats, Tanngrisnir (tooth-gnasher) and Tanngnjostr (tooth-grinder). He can kill and eat them when he needs to, and the next morning revive them by laying their bones back on their hides and hallowing them with Mjolnir. The goats appear in several stories, most memorably when a farmer’s son cracks one of their bones for the marrow and Thor’s morning revival goes wrong.

Thor and the giants

Most of Thor’s stories are about killing giants. This is not incidental. The Norse cosmos is under permanent threat from the frost-giants of Jotunheim and the fire-giants of Muspelheim, and Thor is the reason those threats are contained.

Some giants he kills for insult. Hrungnir, the strongest of the frost-giants, insulted the gods after a chariot race with Odin and had to be duelled and killed. Thor won by throwing Mjolnir into Hrungnir’s forehead, though a fragment of the giant’s whetstone lodged in Thor’s own skull, where it stayed. Read Thor’s duel with Hrungnir.

Some giants he kills for prophecy. Thrym, king of the frost-giants, stole Mjolnir and demanded Freyja as a bride in exchange. Loki devised a plan in which Thor dressed as Freyja for the wedding, kept his temper long enough to reach the hammer at the ceremony, and then killed every giant in the hall. Read the story of the theft of Thor’s hammer.

Some he sets out to kill and cannot. Thor’s journey to the giant Utgarda-Loki is one of the great humbling stories in Norse mythology, in which the giant deceives him through illusion into competing at things that were never what they appeared: drinking from a horn whose other end was the sea, wrestling an old woman who was old age herself, lifting a cat that was the world serpent. Thor was defeated in every contest and only afterwards learned what he had actually been fighting. Read Thor’s journey to Utgard.

The Utgard episode is the tradition’s admission that even Thor has limits. What matters is that he keeps swinging.

Thor and Jormungandr: the world serpent

The single most consequential feud in Thor’s life is with Jormungandr, the world serpent, Loki’s monstrous son, cast into the ocean by Odin so young that he grew to encircle the entire world of Midgard, biting his own tail.

Thor tries to kill Jormungandr more than once. In the most famous of these attempts, he goes fishing with the giant Hymir, using an ox’s head as bait, and hooks the serpent. Thor pulls Jormungandr up out of the sea. The two of them are locked in a stare, hammer raised, serpent hissing, when Hymir, terrified, cuts the line. Jormungandr falls back into the depths. Read Thor’s fishing trip for Jormungandr.

The final meeting waits for Ragnarok.

Thor and Loki: the useful, exhausting partnership

Loki and Thor spend a great deal of the tradition traveling together, and Thor spends most of that travel exasperated. Loki gets them into trouble; Loki gets them out. Sometimes it is Loki’s fault they had to solve the problem in the first place. Sometimes it is Loki’s plan that solves it.

The tradition seems to have understood the pairing as necessary. Thor is direct force; Loki is cunning. What they can do together, neither could do alone. This is not friendship. Thor threatens to kill Loki several times, and does so in the flyting at Aegir’s hall. But it is a functional partnership, until the day it isn’t.

After Baldur’s death, when the gods bind Loki beneath the earth, Thor is present at the binding. There is no more traveling after that.

Thor at Ragnarok

Thor knows how he dies. The tradition preserves a prophecy in which Thor and Jormungandr will finally meet at Ragnarok. Thor will kill the serpent by crushing its head with Mjolnir. Then Thor will take nine steps, weakened by the serpent’s venom, and fall.

Nine steps is not many. But Thor takes them. The Norse tradition is precise about this detail because the number matters: nine is a sacred count throughout Norse cosmology, and Thor’s nine steps read as an act of will against the fate that has just poisoned him.

His sons Modi and Magni survive Ragnarok and inherit Mjolnir. The hammer, at least, continues into the world that comes after. Read the story of the final battle of Ragnarok.

Thor compared to other storm gods

Storm gods are a common feature of Indo-European mythology, and Thor sits in a family of them that share a striking amount of iconography.

Tradition	Storm god	Weapon	Fate
Norse	Thor	Mjolnir (hammer)	Kills Jormungandr and dies at Ragnarok
Greek	Zeus	Thunderbolt	Rules eternally
Vedic Hindu	Indra	Vajra (thunderbolt)	Displaced over time; still worshipped
Slavic	Perun	Axe or hammer	Central figure of pre-Christian pantheon
Baltic	Perkūnas	Axe or hammer	Central figure of pre-Christian pantheon

The parallel with Indra is especially close. Both are the strongest of the gods, both wield a thunder-weapon, both kill a great serpent (Thor kills Jormungandr; Indra kills Vritra), both are worshipped by warriors and farmers as the reliable defender-in-chief.

Read the stories

Thor’s stories dominate the Norse tradition. If you want to see him in action:

Thor is the god the Norse would have wanted at their door in a bad winter. He is not subtle. He does not scheme. He does not need to. The tradition trusts him, and the tradition is right to trust him, and when Ragnarok comes he does exactly what everyone knew he would do: he kills the world serpent, and it kills him back. Nine steps, and down. That is the kind of ending the Norse admired.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Thor’s hammer called?

Mjolnir. It was forged by the dwarven brothers Sindri and Brokkr as part of a crafting competition Loki instigated and lost. It returns to Thor’s hand when thrown, never misses its target, and has a handle short enough that Thor must catch it with iron gauntlets. Mjolnir amulets have been found across Scandinavia and were worn by pagans well into the Christianization period as symbolic counterweights to the cross.

Why does Thor have a red beard?

The Icelandic sources describe him this way, and the colour is deliberate. Red hair in the Norse world was associated with fire, thunder, and the kind of hot-tempered directness Thor embodies. It also visually distinguishes him from his father Odin, who is a wanderer’s grey. Thor’s redness is one of the details the tradition uses to signal his difference from the more scheming Aesir.

Who is Thor’s wife?

The golden-haired goddess Sif. Their marriage produces the daughter Thrud, whose name means “strength.” Thor also has two sons, Modi (courage) and Magni (mighty), though the sources are not consistent about who their mothers are. Both sons survive Ragnarok and inherit Mjolnir.

What is Thor’s relationship with Loki?

Complicated, functional, and eventually severed. Thor and Loki travel together often. Loki causes crises; Loki also solves them. Thor supplies force where Loki supplies cunning. After Baldur’s death, when Loki’s schemes cross from mischief into murder, the partnership ends, and Thor is present when the gods bind Loki beneath the earth.

Does Thor die at Ragnarok?

Yes, though he takes his enemy with him. At Ragnarok, Thor and the world serpent Jormungandr, Loki’s monstrous son, finally meet in single combat. Thor kills the serpent with Mjolnir. Then, poisoned by the serpent’s venom, he walks nine steps and falls. His sons Modi and Magni inherit the hammer.

Is the modern Marvel Thor accurate to Norse mythology?

Broadly speaking, no, though the character is loosely inspired by the Norse figure. The Marvel Thor is blond; the Norse Thor is red-bearded. The Marvel Thor is Loki’s brother; the Norse Loki is not related to Odin’s family by blood at all, though Odin swore brotherhood with him. The Marvel Thor is a superhero in an ongoing series; the Norse Thor is a defender whose defence eventually fails. The two characters share a hammer and a name, and not much else.