Thor, the god of thunder and lightning, possesses a hammer which symbolizes the thunder, as the spear or arrow of some other gods typifies the lightning. The hammer sometimes symbolizes the world-shaping god, the creative divinity, but perhaps not in regard to Thor. His red beard is probably symptomatic of the lightning, like the red limbs of some American thunder-gods. He is the foe of the Jötunn or giants, and he bulked very largely indeed in the myths of the Norsemen. At the same time, like most thunder-gods who bring in their train the fructifying winds and rains, Thor presided over the crops and was thus the friend of peasants. Indeed his wife, Sif, is usually portrayed as a peasant woman of the Scandinavian type. He is the patron of countrymen, slow of speech and wit, if quick to strike with his hammer Mjolnir.
The mythology of the Celts shows an early connexion with that of the Teutons on the one hand and the Græco-Roman races on the other. Perhaps originally all possessed a common mythology, which altered upon their geographical separation. The priestly caste placed many of the old myths upon a definite literary footing, but these again were manufactured into pseudo-history by Geoffrey of Monmouth and kindred writers, so that it is often impossible to discover their original significance except by analogy. Animistic myths, however, survived the establishment of anthropomorphic gods among the Celts. Agricultural and seasonal deities were in the ascendant, as became an agricultural people, but not to the exclusion of totemic influences. Later, culture-gods of music, poetry, and the manual arts sprang up or were developed from existing deities. In the Gaulish pantheon, concerning which we have little information, we find Cæsar equating no less than sixteen local gods with the Roman Mercury, many with Apollo (among chem Borvo, Belenos, and Grannos), while with Mars other writers equate Camulos, Teutates, Albiorix, and Caturix, probably tribal war-gods. With Minerva was compared the horse-goddess Epona, while Berecyntia, a goddess of Autun, is compared by Gregory of Tours with the Italian Bona Dea. Inscriptions make Aeracura the equivalent of Dispater. Turning to Ireland, we possess later and therefore more satisfactory data, based on mythic tales of a far earlier date. These stories speak of immigrant races named the Tuatha de Danann (children of the goddess Danu), the Fomorians, the Firbolgs, and Milesians, of whom the first two classes are divine. Among these warring elements the Fomorians are a race of Titans. Balor, one of their leaders, is a personification of the evil eye; nothing could live beneath his glance. Bres seems to have been a deity of growth--a vegetation-god. Dea Domnann was a species of Celtic Tiawath (Babylonian goddess of the abyss). Tethra was lord of the Underworld. _Nét_ was a war-god. These were all gods of an early aboriginal race, and in later Irish myth are regarded as uncouth giant monsters.