50 Fun Facts About Thor

In Norse myth Thor's mother is not Odin's wife Frigg but which goddess, whose name means 'earth'?

Jörð is simply the Old Norse word for 'earth'; she shared Odin with his wife, which is why a skald could call Frigg 'rival of Jörð'.

In 1963 Marvel's Thor became a founding member of which superhero team?

The Avengers formed when one of Loki's schemes drew Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp together; Captain America only joined in issue 4, after the Hulk had walked out.

Which dwarf brothers forged Mjölnir, according to the Prose Edda?

Eitri and Brokkr made it to win a bet: Loki had staked his head that they couldn't outdo three rival treasures, and the gods judged the hammer best of all. Some manuscripts call Eitri Sindri.

A fly bit the dwarf at the bellows as Mjölnir was forged, leaving the hammer with what flaw?

Its handle was short because the fly, often taken to be Loki, stung the dwarf's eyelid and he let go of the bellows for a moment to wipe away the blood; the gods still judged it the finest treasure.

How was Mjölnir most commonly worn during the Viking Age?

As a pendant: about a thousand small hammer amulets survive from across the Viking world, many from women's graves, and one found in Denmark even carries runes that read 'This is a hammer'.

Who is Thor's golden-haired wife?

Sif lost her hair to Loki's shears, and a furious Thor made him have the dwarfs spin her a new head of it from real gold that would grow like her own.

What are the names of the two goats that pull Thor's chariot?

Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr mean roughly 'teeth-barer' and 'teeth-grinder'; the scholar Rudolf Simek thinks the names were new when Snorri wrote them down and may even be his own invention.

In the Prose Edda, why does one of Thor's goats go lame?

A boy split a bone for the marrow after Thor had cooked both goats for a farmer's family and told them to throw every bone onto the hides; raised to life next morning, one goat limped.

In the poem Þrymskviða, how is Thor disguised when he goes to reclaim his stolen hammer?

As a bride: veiled and hung with Freyja's necklace, Thor nearly gives the game away by eating an ox and eight salmon at the wedding feast, and Loki, playing the maid, has to talk fast.

How deep did the giant Þrymr claim to have hidden Mjölnir?

Eight leagues beneath the earth is how translators usually render the poem's eight rasts, an Old Norse measure of distance; Loki learns it by flying to Jötunheimr in a borrowed feather cloak.

On a fishing trip with the giant Hymir, what does Thor use as bait to hook the world serpent?

The head of an ox, twisted off the biggest beast in Hymir's own herd; in Snorri's telling the serpent took it, and the terrified giant cut the line just as Thor raised his hammer.

What is the name of the giant serpent Thor is fated to fight at Ragnarök?

Jörmungandr was flung into the sea by the gods and grew until it circled the whole world and bit its own tail, which is why it is also called the Midgard Serpent.

What becomes of Thor after he kills the world serpent?

Nine steps, then death: the Völuspá gives him just that many before he falls, and Snorri blames the venom the serpent had blown over him.

Which day of the week is named after Thor?

Thursday began as Old English 'Thunor's day', a loan-translation of the Latin 'day of Jupiter', which is why the same day is jeudi in French and Donnerstag in German.

Later writers matched Thor with Jupiter, but under which other Roman name does Tacitus's Germania seem to mention him?

Hercules is how most scholars read it: Tacitus gives the Germans a Mercury, a Hercules and a Mars, and the club-swinging strongman is taken for the hammer god, probably because the weapons looked alike.

Which 8th-century missionary felled an oak dedicated to Thor (as 'Jove') in Hesse?

Saint Boniface had barely notched the trunk, his biographer claims, when a blast of wind toppled the oak and split it in four; he built a chapel to Saint Peter from the timber.

Adam of Bremen says Swedes at Uppsala sacrificed to Thor on which occasion?

Plague or famine brought offerings to Thor, whose statue sat in the middle as the mightiest of three; Adam says war was Wodan's business and weddings were Fricco's.

In the giant Útgarða-Loki's hall, Thor loses a wrestling match to a nurse who is really what in disguise?

Old age, called Elli in the tale: the harder Thor grappled the firmer she stood, until she forced him down on one knee, and the giant later admitted that nobody has ever beaten her.

In which comic did Marvel's Thor first appear in 1962?

Journey into Mystery #83 was scripted by Stan Lee's brother Larry Lieber, who later admitted he simply made up the hammer's 'uru' metal because the word was short and easy on the letterer.

Marvel's Thor began as the alter ego of which limping doctor with a cane?

Donald Blake struck a gnarled cane on a rock in a Norwegian cave and became Thor; the comics later revealed that the limping doctor was himself a disguise, imposed on Thor as a lesson in humility.

Which alien warrior, introduced in 1983, was the first outsider deemed worthy to lift Mjolnir?

Beta Ray Bill was given a horse-like skull on purpose, so that readers would take him for a villain; his creator says letters duly arrived asking why on earth a monster was picking up the hammer.

Which writer's 2014 series made Jane Foster the new Thor?

Jason Aaron was blunt when Marvel announced the series: the woman now holding the hammer was not She-Thor, not Lady Thor and not Thorita, he said, but simply Thor.

Who directed the first Thor film in 2011?

Kenneth Branagh made his name filming Shakespeare's royal family feuds and saw the same story here: a reckless, headstrong young man who has to deal with a complicated relationship with his father.

Which actor screen-tested to play Thor in the 2011 film but ended up in a different role?

Tom Hiddleston, cast as Loki instead, says he was in the running because he was tall, blond and classically trained, which was the mould for the hero; all four men listed here screen-tested for the part.

In the first film, Thor is banished to Earth and lands in which US state?

New Mexico played itself: the film's desert town was the Wild West movie set near Galisteo where Silverado was shot, made over as a modern main street for the Destroyer to tear up.

Which accent did Chris Hemsworth adopt to play Thor?

British, like almost everyone in Asgard, a castmate said on set; for the fight scenes he looked to boxers such as Mike Tyson, low to the ground with big, brutal shoulder swings.

In the 2011 film, how does the powerless Thor prove himself worthy of the hammer again?

He offers up his life: Thor asks Loki's Destroyer to take him and spare the desert town, and the near-fatal blow that follows is what sends Mjölnir flying back to his hand.

Who plays the Dark Elf Malekith in Thor: The Dark World?

Christopher Eccleston, best known at the time as television's Doctor Who, plays the ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, who storms Asgard to take back the Aether.

Which rare alignment of the Nine Realms drives the plot of The Dark World?

The Convergence opens paths between the worlds, which is how the final battle tumbles in and out of Greenwich, London, grinding Christopher Wren's Royal Naval College to dust along the way.

Who directed Thor: Ragnarok?

Taika Waititi also plays the soft-spoken rock gladiator Korg through motion capture, in a voice one New Zealand critic said sounds uncannily like your cousin from the east coast.

Who plays Hela, Thor's previously unknown older sister, in Thor: Ragnarok?

Cate Blanchett said she studied fans' Hela make-up tutorials on YouTube to build the character, Odin's firstborn, whom he locked away and erased from Asgard's history when he tired of conquest.

On which alien planet is Thor forced to fight as a gladiator in Thor: Ragnarok?

Sakaar comes from the comics storyline Planet Hulk, in which it is the Hulk who lands there and fights in the arena; the film loosely adapts it, so the champion Thor has to face is the Hulk himself.

Which body part does Thor lose fighting Hela in Thor: Ragnarok?

His right eye goes in the final battle; Hemsworth said he had got 'a bit bored' of himself in the role, so the film also cut Thor's hair, broke his hammer and changed his clothes.

In which country was Thor: Ragnarok principally filmed?

Australia: its lead actor had pitched shooting in his own country after years of filming in London and America, and the production took over the studios on Queensland's Gold Coast.

Who plays the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok?

Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster is blue-skinned in the comics; the director kept him flesh-toned because Goldblum had already played a blue alien in Earth Girls Are Easy, and he wanted that face left on show.

Which actor plays Gorr the God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder?

Christian Bale admits he made the mistake of Googling the comics' Gorr, who runs around in a G-string, and decided they had the wrong man; his screen version owes more to Nosferatu.

In Thor: Love and Thunder, Jane Foster wields Mjolnir as the Mighty Thor while being treated for what?

Cancer, at stage four: Jane hopes the broken hammer might heal her, but every transformation into the Mighty Thor leaves her body less able to fight the disease.

What is the name of Gorr the God Butcher's daughter, whom Thor ends up raising?

Love is played by Chris Hemsworth's own daughter India; the girl's death sets her father against the gods, his dying wish brings her back, and the film ends with Thor raising her.

On which soap did Chris Hemsworth get his break, playing Kim Hyde?

Home and Away kept him on screen as Kim Hyde from 2004 to 2007; two years later, when Marvel picked him for Thor, the Hollywood trade press still called him a virtual unknown in the United States.

Chris Hemsworth made his Hollywood film debut in which 2009 film?

Star Trek opens with him as George Kirk, first officer of the doomed USS Kelvin, who stays aboard to ram the enemy ship and dies as his wife gives birth to the future Captain James T. Kirk.

Which Formula One driver did Chris Hemsworth play in the 2013 film Rush?

James Hunt won the 1976 title by a single point after Niki Lauda, back racing weeks after a near-fatal crash, judged the rain-soaked final race in Japan too dangerous and pulled out.

In the 1988 TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns, Thor is no god but what?

A Viking warrior: a young man found his tomb and hammer on an expedition and can summon him at will, so Eric Allan Kramer's Thor is a reluctant servant, not a hero with a secret identity.

Who, as a small child, freed Thor when a slain giant fell on him and no god could?

Magni, Thor's son by the giantess Járnsaxa, lifted the dead giant's foot off his father's neck, then said it was a pity he had come so late: he would have felled the giant with his fist.

Which brother and sister travel with Thor as his human servants in the Norse myths?

Þjálfi and Röskva: in Snorri's telling Þjálfi helps Thor win a duel by warning the stone giant Hrungnir that the god will strike from underground, so the giant stands on his own shield.

Which Led Zeppelin track plays over two big fight scenes in Thor: Ragnarok?

Immigrant Song was already on the reel the director showed Marvel when he pitched for the job; he says the executives liked the cool song, asked him what it was, and left him worried.

In the poem Hárbarðsljóð, Thor trades insults with a rude ferryman usually identified as which god in disguise?

Odin is the accepted reading, because in another Eddic poem he lists Hárbarðr, 'Grey Beard', among his own names; the ferryman refuses Thor a crossing and sends him the long way round.

How does Thor doom Alvíss, the dwarf who wants to marry his daughter?

Keeps him answering questions until sunrise: Thor asks what the sky, moon and ale are called in every world, then admits it was a trick, because daylight turns a dwarf to stone.

Which Sons of Anarchy actor plays Thor in the 2022 video game God of War Ragnarök?

Ryan Hurst's Thor looks nothing like Marvel's chiselled hero: the game's art director gave him a strongman's bulk and a bare belly, and said the character had to be proud of it.

Which artist co-created Marvel's Thor with Stan Lee in 1962?

Jack Kirby imagined a last battle that would wipe out Thor's pantheon and make way for younger gods; the plan never happened at Marvel, so in 1970 he took it to rival DC, where it became the New Gods.

In a 1986 Marvel Comics storyline, Loki transforms Thor into which animal?

A frog: undaunted, he helps a colony of frogs win their war with the rats, and a frog Thor trapped in a jar turns up decades later in the 2021 Loki series.