Thus we have already found three paraphrases which inform us that Thjasse was an ancient artist, one of the great smiths of mythology: (1) _thiaza thingskil_, golden treasures produced as evidence in court owned or made by Thjasse; (2) _hapta snytrir_, he who gave ornaments to the gods; (3) _fadir mörna_, the father of the swords.
Thjasse's claim to become a table-companion of the gods and to eat with them, _af helgu skutli_, points in all probability to an ancient mythological fact of which we find a counterpart in the Iranian records. This fact is that, as a compensation for the services he had rendered the gods, Thjasse was anxious to be elevated to their rank and to receive sacrifices from their worshippers. This demand from the Teutonic star-hero Thjasse is also made by the Iranian star-hero Tistrya, Rigveda's Tishya. Tistrya complains in Avesta that he has not sufficient strength to oppose the foe of growth, Apaosha, since men do not worship him, Tistrya, do not offer sacrifices to him. If they did so, it is said, then he would be strong enough to conquer. Tishya-Tistrya does not appear to have obtained complete rank as a god; but still he is worshipped in Rigveda, though very seldom, and in cases of severe dry weather the Iranians were commanded to offer sacrifices to him.
(17) In Haustlaung Thjasse is called _ving-Rögnir vagna_, "the Rogner of the winged cars," and _fjardarblads leik-Regin_, "the Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf (the wing)." In the mythology Thjasse, like Volund, wears an eagle guise. In an eagle guise Volund flies away from his prison at Mimer-_Nidadr's_. When Thjasse, through Loke's deceit, is robbed of Idun, he hastens in wild despair, with the aid of his eagle guise, after the robber, gets his wings burned in the vaferflames kindled around Asgard, falls pierced by the javelins of the gods, and is slain by Thor. The original meaning of _Regin_ is maker, creator, arranger, worker. The meaning has been preserved through the ages, so that the word _regin_, though applied to all the creative powers (Völsupa), still retained even in Christian times the signification of artist, smith, and reappears in the heroic traditions in the name of the smith _Reginn_. When, therefore, Thjasse is called "the Regin of the motion of the feather-leaf," there is no reason to doubt that the phrase alludes not only to the fact that he possessed a feather guise, but also to the idea that he was its "smith;" the less so as we have already seen him characterised as an ancient artist in the phrases _thiaza thingskil_, _hapta snytrir_, and _fadir mörna_. Thus we here have a fourth proof of the same kind. The phrase "the Rognir of the winged cars" connects him not only with a single vehicle, but with several. "Wing-car" is a paraphrase for a guise furnished with wings, and enabling its owner to fly through the air. The expression "wing-car" may be applied to several of the strange means used by the powers for locomotion through the air and over the sea, as, for instance, the cars of Thor and Frey, Balder's ship Ringhorn, Frey's ship Skidbladner, and the feather garbs of the swan-maids. The mythology which knew from whose hands Skidbladner proceeded certainly also had something to say of the masters who produced Ringhorn and the above-mentioned cars and feather garbs. That they were made by ancient artists and not by the highest gods is an idea of ancient Aryan birth. In Rigveda it was the Ribhus, the counterparts of the Ivalde sons, who smithied the wonderful car-ship of the Asvinians and Indra's horses.