Thor is the God of natural force, the son of Earth.  Two of the episodical poems deal with his contests with the giants. Thrymskvida, the story of how Thor won back his hammer, Mjoellni, from the giant Thrym, is the finest and one of the oldest of the mythological poems; a translation is given in the appendix, as an example of Eddic poetry at its best.  Loki appears as the willing helper of the Gods, and Thor’s companion.  The Thunderer’s journey with Tyr in quest of a cauldron is related with much humour in Hymiskvida:  Hymi’s beautiful wife, who helps her guests to outwit her husband, is a figure familiar in fairy-tales as the Ogre’s wife.

The chief God of the Scandinavians is, it must be confessed, an unsympathetic character.  He is the head of the Valhalla system; he is Val-father (Father of the Slain), and the Valkyries are his “Wishmaidens,” as the Einherjar are his “Wishsons.”  He naturally takes a special interest in mortal heroes, from whom come the chosen hosts of Valhalla.  But, in spite of the splendour of his surroundings, he is wanting in dignity.  The chief of the Gods has neither the might and unthinking valour of Thor, nor the self-sacrificing courage of Tyr.  He is a God who practises magic, and it is as Father of Spells that he is powerful.  He is the wisest of the Gods in the sense that he remembers most about the past and foresees most about the future; yet he is powerless in difficulty without the craft of Loki and the hammer of Thor.  He always wanders in disguise, and the stories told of him are chiefly love-adventures; this is true of all the deeds he mentions in Harbardsljod, and also of the two interpolations in Havamal, though one of the two had an object, the stealing of the mead of inspiration from the giant Suptung, whose daughter Gunnloed guarded it.

Voeluspa makes him one of three creative deities, the other two being Lodur (probably Loki) and Hoeni, of whom nothing else is known except the story that he was given as hostage to the Vanir in exchange for Njoerd.  The same three Gods (Odin, Loki and Hoeni) are connected with the legend of the Nibelung treasure; and it was another adventure of theirs, according to Snorri, which led to the loss of Idunn.

Of the other Gods, Bragi is a later development; his name means simply king or chief, and his attributes, as God of eloquence and poetry, are apparently borrowed from Odin.  Heimdal, the watchman and “far-seeing like the Vanir,” who keeps guard on the rainbow bridge Bifroest, is represented in the curious poem Rigsthula as founder of the different social orders.  He wandered over the world under the name of Rig, and from his first journey sprang the race of thralls, swarthy, crooked and broad-backed, who busied themselves with fencing land and tending goats and swine; from his second, the churls, fine and ruddy, who broke oxen, built houses and ploughed the land; from his third, the earls, yellow-haired, rosy, and