Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Rune Hammer

Archeologists unearthed a small hammer pendant made roughly a thousand years ago. This of course is Thor's hammer and was worn for protection, decoration, or for whatever personal reason the wearer had to wear it.

This one is unique however, for it has rune carved upon it. The runes were difficult to transcribe but it seems to say "This is a hammer",  more accurately "hammer is" which the linguists translated into "this is a hammer". New Horizons.

Not sure I buy that, that seems pretty obvious, the hammer that is. Of course its a hammer. Perhaps it was important to state this, to gain the luck it promised. Or maybe it just means the wearer is the hammer. Or maybe he just ran out of room while carving the runes and regretted putting the decorations on the other side.

2 comments:

Paul said...

I dont know where they found this but a thousand years ago sweden shifted from paganism to christianity. The Hammer of Thor bear a likeness of the christian cross and if memory serve me right the pendant could be used as either dependant on the sittuation. Inskribing it with This is a hammer could then be a statement that the bearer worshipped the norse goods and would have nothing to do with the new god.

Troll Lord said...

Very good point! They placed it at 1100 years old I think, in Denmark, which is right into the conversion period.

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