107 - Norse Myths 07 - The Sword of Tyr Podcasts | These Fantastic Worlds

In this, the seventh Norse Myth of ten, the mighty sword of the Viking God Tyr grants victory and death in equal measure across great empires...

Tyr’s Sword Carves Destiny and Victory. Tyr, Tiu, or Ziu was the son of Odin, and, according to different storytellers, his mother was Frigga, queen of the gods, or a beautiful giantess whose name is unknown, but who was a personification of the raging sea. He is the god of martial honour, and one of the twelve principal deities of Asgard. Although he appears to have had no special dwelling there, he was always welcome to Vingolf or Valhalla, and occupied one of the twelve thrones in the great council hall of Glads-heim.
Tyr, whose name was synonymous with bravery and wisdom, was also considered by the ancient Northern folk to have the white-armed Valkyrs, Odin’s attendants, at his command, and they thought that he it was who designated the warriors whom they should be transferred to Valhalla to aid the gods on the last day, the end of the world, Ragnarök.
***
As the God of courage and of war, Tyr was frequently invoked by the various nations of the North, who cried to him, as well as to Odin, to obtain victory. That he ranked next to Odin and Thor is proved by his name, Tiu, having been given to one of the days of the week, Tiu’s day, which in modern English has become Tuesday. Under the name of Ziu, Tyr was the principal divinity of the Suabians in the first century region of the Upper Rhine and Danube, who originally called their capital, the modern Augsburg in Bavaria, Ziusburg. These people, venerating the god as they did, worshipped him under the emblem of a sword, his distinctive attribute, and in his honour held great sword dances, where various figures were performed. Sometimes the participants forming two long lines, crossed their swords, point upward, and challenged the boldest among their number to take a flying leap over them. At other times the warriors joined their sword points closely together in the shape of a rose or wheel, and when this figure was complete invited their chief to stand on the navel thus formed of flat, shining steel blades, and then they bore him upon it through the camp in triumph. The sword point was further considered so sacred that it became customary to register oaths upon it.
A distinctive feature of the worship of this god among the Franks and some other Northern nations was that the priests called Druids or Godi offered up human sacrifices upon his altars, these sacrifices were made upon rude stone altars called dolmens, which can still be seen in Northern Europe and parts of the British Isle. As Tyr was considered the patron god of the sword, it was deemed indispensable to engrave the sign or rune representing him upon the blade of every sword—an observance of which was said to be essential to those who were destined to be victorious.
Tyr was identical with the Saxon god Saxnot (from sax, a sword), and with Er, Heru, or Cheru, the chief divinity of the Cheruski one of the early Germanic tribes, who also considered him to be a god of the sun, and deemed his shining sword blade an emblem of its rays.
According to an ancient legend, Cheru’s sword, which had been fashioned by the same dwarfs, sons of Ivald, who had also made Odin’s spear, was held sacred by his people, to whose care he had entrusted it, declaring that those who possessed it were sure to have the victory over their foes. But although carefully guarded in the temple, where it was hung so that it reflected the first beams of the morning sun, it suddenly and mysteriously disappeared one night. A Vala, druidess, or prophetess, consulted by the priests, revealed that the Norns had decreed that whoever wielded it would conquer the world and come to his death by it; but in spite of all entreaties she refused to tell who had taken it or where it might be found. Some time after this, a tall and dignified stranger came to Cologne, where Vitellius, the Roman pref