Mjölnir - The Hammer of Thor

Thor's hammer is called Mjölnir (Old Norse Mjǫllnir, pronounced roughly MYOL-neer). The name's meaning is uncertain: many scholars connect it to words for grinding or crushing, others to words for lightning. Forged by the dwarf Brokkr and his brother Sindri (Eitri in one manuscript), it never misses its mark, returns to Thor's hand, and its shape became one of the most common amulets of the Viking Age.

Norse mythology. Home to countless Gods, creatures, and artifacts of immense power. Gungnir, Draupnir, Gjallarhorn, Gleipnir, and Skidbladnir are just some incredibly powerful items in Norse culture.

When I think about all of them, one stands out from the crowd. Snorri says its blows once sank three square valleys into a mountain, it belonged to the God of Thunder, and Marvel's movies (Avengers and Thor) and comic books have since made it the most famous artifact in Norse mythology.

Today I am going to tell you everything you would like to know about this great hammer.

As I have already mentioned, this hammer belonged to Thor. Thor was the son of Odin, the protector of Midgard, the God of Thunder and storm, etc. I am sure that all of you know who Thor was. If, by some chance, you are not familiar with this iconic figure of Norse mythology or would like to learn more about him, be sure to check out our article explicitly dedicated to the God of thunder.

Now, back to our main topic. The greatest hammer in the universe that belonged to Thor.

You can check out our replica Thor hammers and Thor Hammer mjolnir jewelry collection.

What Does the Name Mjölnir Mean?

Let me start by telling you that the etymology of the word Mjölnir is uncertain, and honest scholars say so openly. The most common view connects Mjolnir (Old Norse Mjǫllnir) with Old Norse mala, "to grind," which would make it "the crusher" or "the grinder."

Others connect the name to words for lightning in neighboring language families, such as Russian molniya and Welsh mellt. Both readings suit a thunder god's weapon, but the Old Norse sources themselves never explain the name, so "grinder" and "lightning" remain educated guesses rather than settled fact.

As for saying it out loud: in English, Mjölnir is usually pronounced MYOL-neer, with the "Mj" sounding like the "my" in "music," not as a separate M and J.

Old Norse texts also call Thor's hammer simply hamarr, "hammer." The same word can mean a crag or a steep rock face, and it survives in many Scandinavian place names. When you scratch beneath the surface, you will discover that linguists relate hamarr to old Indo-European words for "stone," a hint that the first hammers were stone tools.

There are several variations in the way the word Mjolnir is written:

-Mjǫllnir - Old Norse,

-Mjöllnir - the normalized spelling in most editions of the Eddas,

-Mjölnir - Modern Icelandic,

-Mjølner - Danish and Norwegian,

-Mjölner - Swedish.

Skáldskaparmál - A Story of How Mjölnir Was Created

Sindri and Brokkr Crafting Mjolnir

The story of how the hammer of Thor was crafted survives in only one source, the Prose Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson around 1220. The part of the Prose Edda that tells it is called Skáldskaparmál, and it tells about the creation of several powerful objects in the Norse mythology universe.

It all started with Loki cutting off all the hair of Thor's wife, Sif, out of pure mischief. Thor was ready to break every bone in his body, so Loki swore he would get the black elves, the smiths Snorri elsewhere places in Svartalfheim, to make Sif new hair of gold that would grow like real hair.

Loki went to the dwarves called the sons of Ívaldi. They crafted not only the hair for Thor's wife but also two other artifacts of immense power. The spear that never stops in its thrust, Gungnir, and the ship that gets a fair wind as soon as its sail is raised and can be folded like a cloth to fit into its owner's pouch, Skidbladnir.

However, Loki would not be the God of trickery and mischief if he didn't try to cause chaos. Even though Loki completed his task, he wasn't ready to go to Asgard just yet.

He bet his own head with a dwarf named Brokkr that Brokkr's brother could not forge three treasures as marvelous as the ones the sons of Ívaldi had made. The brother is called Eitri in the Codex Wormianus manuscript of Snorri's Edda; in the Codex Regius the name was left blank and later filled in as Sindri, the name most retellings use. The brothers accepted the wager and began working. To disrupt them, a fly, usually taken to be Loki in disguise, kept biting Brokkr, who was working the bellows.

Sindri started by laying a pig's skin in the forge. The fly bit Brokkr on the hand, but he kept the bellows going, and out came a boar with golden bristles. It could run over sky and sea faster than any horse, and its bristles lit up the darkest night. Its name was Gullinbursti.

Next, Sindri laid gold in the forge. The fly bit Brokkr on the neck, twice as hard, but he kept working, and out came a gold ring that drips eight new rings of equal weight every ninth night. The ring was named Draupnir.

Lastly, the dwarves crafted Mjölnir. Sindri placed iron in the forge and left his brother to tend to it, warning him that the work would be ruined if the bellows stopped. This time the fly settled between Brokkr's eyes and stung his eyelids so hard that blood ran into his eyes and he could not see. Brokkr let go of the bellows for a moment to swat it away, a moment that led to a flaw in Mjölnir's design.

Sindri came back and said that everything in the forge had nearly been spoiled. When he pulled the hammer out, its handle was a little too short. Snorri calls this the hammer's only flaw, and it is why Mjölnir is usually pictured as a short, one-handed weapon.

After completing their final masterpiece, Brokkr took the three treasures and traveled with Loki to Asgard, where Odin, Thor and Freyr would judge the wager.

Loki presented his gifts first: he gave Gungnir to Odin, Skidbladnir to Freyr, and Sif's new hair to Thor. Then Brokkr handed over his brother's work: Draupnir to Odin, Gullinbursti to Freyr, and finally Mjölnir to Thor. He told them that Thor could strike as hard as he wished and the hammer would never fail, that it would never miss when thrown and always return to his hand, and that it could shrink small enough to carry inside his shirt.

The Gods judged the hammer the best of all the treasures and the greatest defence against the frost giants, so Brokkr won the bet. Loki offered to buy back his head, the dwarf refused, and Loki ran off in shoes that carried him over sky and sea, until Thor caught him at Brokkr's request. However, the God of trickery still managed to keep his head by stating that he had wagered his head and not his neck, and the dwarf had no right to the neck.

Brokkr settled for sewing Loki's lips shut. His knife would not pierce them, so he wished for his brother's awl, and it was there the moment he named it. Loki later ripped the thong out of his lips; it was called Vartari.

What Was Mjölnir Made Of?

In the myths, iron. Skáldskaparmál has Sindri lay iron in the forge and leave Brokkr to work the bellows, and that is the only material the Eddas ever give for the hammer. No rare ore, no secret alloy. The fictional metal called uru comes from Marvel, not from any Norse source, so if you have read that Mjölnir was forged from uru, that is a comic-book answer to a mythological question.

The hammers people actually wore are a separate question, and there the archaeology answers instead of the poetry. Of the roughly 1,000 Viking Age hammer amulets recovered so far, most are made of the metals a Norse craftsman had to hand: silver for the finest work, bronze for everyday wear, and plain iron, with a few in gold. Silver was the display metal, which is why the most ornate surviving examples are silver.

Modern pieces follow the same logic, with one addition the Norse never had. Ours are cast in 925 sterling silver, bronze, and stainless steel, the last of which suits daily wear better than anything available in the tenth century. You can compare all three in the Mjölnir pendant collection.

Þrymskviða - A Poem from the Poetic Edda about Mjölnir

Thor possessed a few other valuable things alongside his hammer. His chariot was pulled by two goats, Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir. He also wears a belt of power, Megingjörð, and iron gloves, Járngreipr, which Snorri says he cannot do without when he grips the hammer's shaft. However, many of Thor's adventures focus on his hammer.

One of these adventures is described in Þrymskviða, a poem of the Poetic Edda. The verse tells about how the giant called Þrymr steals Thor's hammer, hides it eight leagues under the earth, and requests Freyja's hand in marriage in exchange.

This is one of the rare myths where Loki used his trickery to do good. He borrowed Freyja's feather cloak to find the thief, and then, on Heimdallr's advice, the Gods dressed Thor as Freyja, and Loki went along disguised as "her" maid-servant, ready to talk them out of trouble whenever Þrymr grew suspicious of his broad-shouldered bride.

To celebrate his union with Freyja, the giant threw a banquet. When the moment came to hallow the bride, Þrymr ordered Mjölnir brought in and laid on "her" lap. You can imagine how this ended, right?!

Thor's heart laughed in his breast when he saw his hammer. He killed Þrymr first, then struck down the giant's whole kin, including the giant's old sister, who had asked the "bride" for a gift of red rings and got hammer blows instead.

Ceremonial Significance of Mjölnir

Mjolnir was undoubtedly among the most powerful weapons Norse Gods had in their possession. But, it was not only a weapon. Thor's hammer was much more. In the myths it hallows as well as kills.

In the stories, the hammer hallows a wedding in Þrymskviða, a funeral when Thor hallows Baldr's pyre with Mjölnir in Gylfaginning, and even a meal, as you will see below. Imagine how cool it would be to have your marriage blessed with Mjölnir?! Whether real Norse weddings used a hammer is another matter: no source describes one.

Scholars have long read the wedding scene in Þrymskviða as a memory of a real custom. Some point to Bronze Age rock carvings, such as the so-called Bridal Couple at Vitlycke in Tanum, Sweden, where a large figure raises an axe beside an embracing pair. Those carvings are well over a thousand years older than the Viking Age, though, and what they show is a matter of interpretation.

Furthermore, many scholars see the hammer in the bride's lap as a blessing for a fruitful marriage. That fits Thor's link with the harvest: around 1075, Adam of Bremen wrote that the Swedes at Uppsala believed Thor ruled the air, thunder and lightning, wind and rain, fair weather and crops.

Snorri's Prose Edda tells a story about how Thor killed and ate his goats, then raised them back to life the next morning by hallowing their hides with Mjölnir. One came back lame, because the farmer's son had split a thigh bone for the marrow.

Here is another interesting fact about Thor's hammer’s role in worship: Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian writing around 1200, says that the Danish prince Magnus Nilsson carried off from a temple on one of the islands some hammers of unusual weight, which people called Jove's hammers (Jove, or Jupiter, was the Latin name Saxo used for Thor). The ancients, Saxo explains, believed that hammers made the crash of thunder, so they had made these huge ones of bronze in imitation. Magnus, a zealous Christian, took them home as trophies, and Saxo adds that the Swedes still called him a sacrilegious robber for it.

Now, let's continue and see how all the abovementioned impacted people during the Viking age.

Mjölnir's Influence Back in the Viking Age

Mjölnir Amulet

During the tenth century, Christian cross pendants were becoming common in Scandinavia, and at the same time people who kept the old faith wore various necklaces with Norse symbols. One of the most common Viking amulets was in the shape of a hammer.

No written source explains why, but many scholars read the hammer pendant, the best-known piece of Viking jewelry, as a pagan answer to the cross amulets worn by Christians. Most hammer pendants date from the later tenth and early eleventh centuries, the same years in which Christianity was spreading through Scandinavia. That reading is an interpretation, not a recorded fact.

Wearers seem to have expected blessings and protection from a Thor's hammer amulet. Runestones in Denmark ask Thor to hallow them (the Glavendrup stone on Funen says "May Thor hallow these runes"), and the eleventh-century Kvinneby amulet from Öland is usually read as asking Thor to protect its owner with his hammer. An interesting fact is that archaeologists found a tenth-century soapstone mould at Trendgården in Jutland, Denmark, cut to cast a hammer and a cross side by side. One smith could serve customers of either faith, a clear sign that both hammer and cross jewelry were worn during the Viking age.

Vikings chose Mjolnir to symbolize their faith in the Norse Gods. They picked Thor's hammer, not Odin's spear or Freyr's ship. This is how important Thor and his hammer were to the ordinary people in the Viking era.

Archaeological Discoveries of Thor's Hammer

Up to today, about 1,000 hammer-shaped amulets from the Viking era have been found in Scandinavia, the British Isles, the Baltic and Russia, according to the Danish archaeologist Else Roesdahl. For a long time, archaeologists assumed that these pendants were modeled on Mjolnir. However, no pendant said so. Until 2014.

In 2014, a metal detectorist found a small bronze hammer amulet at Købelev on the island of Lolland in Denmark, the first and so far only one with a runic inscription. The runes read hmar is, which the runologist Lisbeth Imer of the National Museum of Denmark interpreted as "this is a hammer." So the meaning of these T-shaped pendants is no longer guesswork: at least one of them calls itself a hammer, and in Norse myth the hammer belongs to Thor.

Mjölnir and the Swastika Symbol

The connection between these two symbols comes mainly from later Icelandic folk magic, where a swastika-like sign called Þórshamar, meaning Thor's hammer, was used to find thieves.

However, it is far from certain that this was a real connection in the Viking age. There are a lot of discovered images of swastikas throughout Scandinavia. The earliest are thought to go back to Bronze Age rock carvings.

The use of this symbol continued during the Viking era. Some historians believe that the swastika was related to Viking hammer illustrations. Hilda Ellis Davidson, for one, suggested that both the swastika and hammer symbols were associated with Thor.

In the twentieth century the swastika became the Nazi emblem, and neo-Nazi groups later took up the hammer as well, which is why the hammer sometimes needs explaining today.

Thor's Hammer in Modern Day Use

Let's start with Marvel movies and comic books. The former (Avengers) has made Mjölnir the most popular hammer in the world nowadays, and thanks to it, it is tough to come across someone not familiar with Thor's hammer.

In addition, certain neo-Nazi groups adopted the symbol of Mjölnir, and the Anti-Defamation League lists Thor's hammer in its hate symbols database. The same entry stresses that the hammer is an important symbol for non-racist Norse pagans and should never be assumed to mean racism when it appears by itself; the context decides.

Since 2013, Thor's hammer has been on the United States Department of Veterans Affairs list of emblems of belief for government headstones and markers.

Let's Wrap it Up

Now, when we analyze all the things I have described today, we can say that Mjolnir was an epic and over-powerful Nordic artifact. As if it was not enough that Thor's hammer could kill giants and smash valleys into mountains, it could even bring back the dinner you have just eaten (i.e. Thor's goats), hallow a wedding, and much more.

Yes, I know there are no giants left today, but you will agree that the other perks of Mjolnir would definitely come in handy for any Viking nowadays. Skål!

Mjölnir FAQ

What is Thor's hammer called?

Thor's hammer is called Mjölnir (Old Norse Mjǫllnir; English texts also spell it Mjolnir or Mjollnir). In Snorri's Edda the gods judge it the best of their treasures: it never misses when thrown, it returns to Thor's hand, and it was used to bless and hallow as well as to fight.

How do you pronounce Mjölnir?

In English, say MYOL-neer. The "Mj" is pronounced together, like the "my" in "music," not as a separate M and J. Modern Icelandic sounds closer to MYOEL-nir. There is no single "correct" English version, but MYOL-neer is the standard choice and the one you will hear most often.

What does Mjölnir mean?

Nobody knows for certain. Many scholars connect the name with Old Norse mala, "to grind," which would make it "the grinder" or "the crusher." Others connect it to words for lightning, like Russian molniya. Both fit a thunder god's weapon, and the sources never explain the name.

Who made Mjölnir?

The dwarf Brokkr and his brother, called Sindri in one manuscript of Snorri's Edda and Eitri in another, forged Mjölnir, as told in Skáldskaparmál in the Prose Edda. The brother worked the iron while Brokkr kept the bellows going, and a fly, usually taken to be Loki, bit Brokkr to sabotage the work. That bite is why the handle came out short.

Can anyone lift Mjölnir?

In Norse myth there is no worthiness test; that rule is Marvel's invention. In Þrymskviða the giant Þrymr steals the hammer and hides it eight leagues underground, so others could clearly handle it. Thor is simply the god strong enough to wield it, helped by his iron gloves Járngreipr and the belt Megingjörð.

What does the Mjölnir pendant mean?

The Mjölnir pendant symbolizes protection, strength and faith in the old Norse ways. Worn widely in the Viking Age, it was most likely a sign of Thor's guardianship: one eleventh-century amulet is usually read as asking Thor to protect its owner with his hammer. Explore our own Mjölnir collection of hammer pendants.

Keep exploring: Thor, the god who wields it, the other dwarf-forged Gungnir, and the full guide to Norse symbols, or shop handcrafted Mjölnir jewelry.