Thor and the Norse Masculine Mystique
Essay by Anna Jollymore
When I connect with Thor, I connect with the ethos of The Ultimate Older Brother, the one we all wish we had growing up.
When I connect with Thor, instead of feeling the mental and physical weight of my near-40 year tenure here on Earth, my body travels back in time to the late 80’s.
I am a spunky 6 year old, running barefoot through the sprinkler and sucking fruit punch through a straw. My awareness is softer around the edges, and also wilder, more free. I am aware that my small body is a spark of life wrapped up in soft peach fuzz. The world is big, and I am small. But this vulnerability is ok, because I am protected. My older brother, Thor, is big and tall and strong. He’s been on many adventures away from home, he knows lots of things, and he calls me a series of alternating nicknames that are as endearing as they are empowering, things like Slugger, or Tiger, or Ace. He seems to get into an awful lot of trouble, but he also seems to know just how to get back out. He is my hero.
I see his immense frame backlit by the squared-off glow of our open garage. It’s late summer, and the cicada songs are drowned out by pounding drums and yowling electric guitar. He’s wearing a Metallica t-shirt with the sleeves cut off (of course) and his well-muscled arms are tensed for battle as he shreds his guitar with abandon. His glorious Swayze mullet whips up and down in a heavy metal trance and beads of sweat rain in all directions. His “electric hammer,” as he calls it, is a stunning cherry-red Fender with the name Mjolnir scrawled across the body in gleaming chrome. (His most prized possession, hard-won through thousands of pizza deliveries.)
It’s Thursday night - he’s practicing with his band for an upcoming gig, and to my innocent child eyes they are nothing short of Rock Gods. They slay posers and sellouts, and while I don’t really understand what that means yet, I do know that it’s awesome.
I wish so badly that I could be awesome too, but I’m still hopelessly awkward and lots of things scare me. Skinned knees, dark closets, loud thunder, and cruel words all have the power to send me running for the safety of Thor's mighty lap. And there I will sit, panting and trembling, waiting for the branches of my young nervous system to settle while I explain through choked tears how So-and-So was mean to me today. Thor listens patiently, but a storm is brewing between his eyebrows and he asks me afterwards with a stern growl “Where does this kid live? Do you want me to kick his ass?”
Odin is Father ethos, he gives shape to my world and guides my thinking within it to this day. But he is moody and distant, and often away on business. No one really knows what happens behind the closed doors of his office.
Freyr is Father too, but a different kind altogether. He is My Friend’s Dad. A few years from now I will feel strangely flushed after he glimpses me in stocking-feet and pjs, and suddenly find myself more interested in the irresistibly deep timbre of his voice than in the dolls and crayons I was just playing with (and he becomes My Friend’s Hot Dad). But for now, I simply marvel at how present he is in her life. He coaches her soccer team, he shows up for every piano recital, he calls her Princess and he smiles with every part of his face.
Tyr is my Wise Uncle. He fought in Vietnam, and he didn’t come back quite right, or rather, quite whole. A piece of him is still in the jungle. He talks half as much as most, and yet I sense that he understands this world better than anyone. He has good days and bad, and on the good ones he will let me (carefully) play with his “collection” - an impressive array of blades that he keeps polished and lovingly displayed.
Heimdall I haven’t met just yet, but later on I’ll come to know him as that one Cool Teacher - the one who runs the A.P. courses and teaches “real shit” like Econ, Civics, and Psyche 101. The kids in his good graces call him Mr. H and everybody looks up to him because he talks to you like you’re a grownup. He’s written more college recommendation letters than he can count.
Loki is none of these energies. He’s the Bad Boy Loner, the counterculture punk who ditches class and smokes blunts behind school. He talks about art and sex and politics, and he is the Slater to Thor’s Swayze, diametrically opposed. While Thor is head-banging to Guns’n’Roses, Loki is spinning wax philosophers like Lou Reed and David Byrne. They hurl insults back and forth like “pretty-boy meat head” and “townie-trash burnout,” but I notice that Thor still invites Loki to every party. Maybe it’s because, if nothing else, they can both agree to “Damn the Man!” (By the way, one time I snuck into one of these parties to spy, and it was Loki alone who caught me. He shot me a covert wink, his black-lacquered fingers rising to his mouth in a pantomimed “Ssshhhh…” I still keep this moment to myself - half badge of honor, half shame-tingly secret.)
Njord… Njord is an ethos I only catch glimpses of in the 80’s - fleeting sense-memories of sound, smell, and color. Njord is perhaps all of the energies above. Like the ocean, he touches a bit of each shore. He is strong and gentle, generous and tempestuous, warm and sun-dappled along some coasts and ice-deadly along others. Njord I call Husband, and I have only recently felt mature enough to connect with his energy. I suspect I may have a Goddess’s journey ahead of me before I fully meet Njord. I am still learning his tidal rhythms.
But Thor, Thor is my Older Brother.
“I’m serious, Champ, I will beat that kid’s ass from here to Valhalla,” he repeats, as he reaches into our rusty old Frigidaire and plucks out the lone Ecto Cooler for me amidst a sea of pink aluminum Tab and snub-nosed Coors Banquet.
Perched on his weight bench, I swing my feet back and forth and give this offer due consideration. But in the end, I wipe my tears on my sleeve and mumble “No… I’m ok.”
Just knowing he would is enough to make me feel better.
