Folk Wisdom & Ways

The hammer, controlled and used by the gods’
most famous elite soldier, Þórr, was the most
effective tool of violence in the hands of the gods
in their perpetual fight to maintain a balanced
cosmos. Thanks to the hammer and its owner,
the end of the world was delayed.
Being the foremost treasure of the gods, the
hammer is, not very surprisingly, the most com-
mon Viking Age amuletic pendant. The inscrip-
tion on a runic amulet from Kvinneby on Öland
indicates its protective nature: “…may Þórr guard
him with the hammer…”. (The text is interpreted
differently by runologists, but all seem to agree
on these specific words; Louis-Jensen 2005.) Many
hammer pendants are little simple T-shaped
charms, made of metal or other materials, such as
amber. It has been argued that these hammers
should rather be considered as charms of no fur-
ther significance than other charms modelled in
the shape of implements, such as sticks, strike-a-
lights, etc. (Sonne 2013). This may theoretically
be true for many of the small and simple iron
hammers, often long-handled and suspended to-
gether with other amulets from a ring. However,
it is difficult to perceive the more elaborated and richly decorated hammer pendants made of sil-
ver, amber or even gold as anonymous hammers.
With their stunted and “mutilated” shafts, they
make clear reference to the narrative in Snorri's
Skáldskaparmál
–
En þat var l ý
i á, ar forskeftit var
heldr skammt
(Codex Regius),
En lítit var forskeptit
(Codex Upsaliensis). In the
Gesta Danorum
(book
3, II, 66), Saxo offers another explanation for the
hammer’s short handle. In a fight between gods
and men, the hero Høtherus chopped off the end
of the hammer’s (literally the “club’s”) handle:
…
proinde victoria ad superos concessit, ni Høtherus,
interclinata suorum acie, celerius advolans clavam
præciso manubrio inutilem reddidisset
.
One such short-handled hammer pendant was
found by a detectorist in 2014 at Købelev on the
island of Lolland, south of Zealand (fig. 6). In it-
self, the hammer amulet is rather simple: a silver-
plated iron hammer with only a few decorative
lines in the plating. But, although more lavishly de-
corated hammer pendants of this kind are known,
this one is distinguished by a runic inscription
saying
hamr x is
meaning “this is the hammer”
(Rasmussen et al. 2014).When the hammer received the name Mjǫll-nir it became personalised. The name means “the
pulverizer” or “the smasher”(Markússon 2005,
p. 153 f). In some instances in myth and poetry,
the word “hammer” is used alone, without men-
tioning its name – though it is obvious that
Mjǫllnir is meant (Lindow 1997). For instance,
in the Þórsdrápa
by the 10th century skald Eilífr
Goðrúnarson, Þórr is as usual killing giants with
his dreyrgum hamri
, that is his blood-dripping
hammer. But this is by no means the only example,
so although the runic inscription on the Købelev
hammer does not say “this is Mjǫllnir”, but “this
is the hammer”, we may assume that it is actual-ly Mjǫllnir.
Named and personalised, the imperfection of
the hammer due to Loki’s interference can be
interpreted as a congenital malformation. How-
ever, in spite of its deformation, the hammer was
judged by the divine jury as the foremost treasure
of all the dwarves’ creations. As a weapon it was
perfect. As in the case of Sif's hair, the loss or
damage turned out to be an improvement for the
benefit of not only the gods, but also humankind ~.Pentz, P., 2018. Viking art, Snorri Sturluson and some recent metal detector finds.
Fornvännen
113. Stockholm.

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