Þorri

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Þorri (Icelandic pronunciation:

Icelandic calendar
.

In the

legendary Nordic king, the son of Snær ('Snow') the Old, a descendant of Fornjót. Þorri was father of two sons named Nór
and Gór and a daughter named Gói ('thin snow, track-snow').

The saga

Both the month name and the name of the midwinter sacrifice, Þorrablót, are derived from the personal name Þorri. Orkneyinga saga by contrast states that the Þorrablót was established by Þorri.

The name Þorri has long been identified with that of Thor, the name of the Norse thunder god, or thunder personified.[3] Probably the Þorrablót was in origin a sacrifice dedicated to Þór himself, and the figure of Þorri is a secondary etymology derived from the name of the sacrifice. Nilsson thinks that the personification of Þorri "frost" and Goi "track-snow" was particular to Iceland.[4]

The pagan sacrifice of Þorrablót disappeared with the

Christianisation of Iceland, but in the 19th century, a midwinter festival called Þorrablót was introduced in Romantic nationalism, and is still popular in contemporary Iceland, since the 1960s associated with a selection of traditional food, called Þorramatur. Regardless of actual etymology, it is a popular explanation of the name Þorri to take it as a diminutive of Þór[5] and it remains common practice to toast Þór as part of the modern celebration.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ English translation of "How Norway was settled" by Dasent 1894
  2. ^ Mikko Heikkilä (2012), On the Etymology of Certain Names in Finnic Mythology (also based on Dasent translation of "How Norway was settled"), SKY Journal of Linguistics
  3. ^ Georg Friedrich Creuzer, Franz Joseph Mone, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen, Heyer und Leske, 1822, p. 275.
  4. ^ Martin Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning; A Study in the Origins and First Development of the Art of Counting Time (1920), p. 301.
  5. ^ Árni Björnsson, Icelandic feasts and holidays, 1980, p. 16.
  6. , p. 29.
This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article: Þorri. Articles is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license; additional terms may apply.Privacy Policy