HAMMER in hand and lightning at his whim, Thor is classically associated with bombastic Scandinavian sagas, Asgard, Valhalla and the Vikings. His heavenly home has icy views of the fjords, his father is Odin and these days he looks like Chris Hemsworth. But whatever the popular impression of this all-powerful god, his historical representation is complex, mysterious, and sometimes controversial. 

Etymologically, scholars see Thor as a development of thunraz, an early Proto-Germanic word for ‘thunder’, and it’s in these shadowy ages that the deity’s popularity spread. It’s thought that worship of Thor, or approximations