Týr


Týr is a god in Germanic mythology and member of the italic=no. In Norse mythology, which provides most of the surviving narratives about gods among the Germanic peoples, Týr sacrifices his right hand to the monstrous wolf italic=no, who bites it off when he realizes the gods have bound him. Týr is foretold of being consumed by the similarly monstrous dog italic=no during the events of Ragnarök.
The interpretatio romana generally renders the god as [Mars (mythology)|Mars], the ancient Roman war god, and it is through that lens that most Latin references to the god occur. For example, the god may be referenced as Mars Thincsus on 3rd century Latin inscription, reflecting a strong association with the Germanic thing, a legislative body among the ancient Germanic peoples. By way of the opposite process of interpretatio germanica, Tuesday is named after Týr, rather than Mars, in English and other Germanic languages.
In Old Norse sources, Týr is alternately described as the son of the jötunn italic=no or of the god Odin. Lokasenna makes reference to an unnamed and otherwise unknown consort, perhaps also reflected in the continental Germanic record.
Due to the etymology of the god's name and the shadowy presence of the god in the extant Germanic corpus, some scholars propose that Týr may have once held a much more central place among the deities of early Germanic mythology.

Name

In wider Germanic mythology, he is known in Old English as Tīw and in Old High German as Ziu, both stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym *Tīwaz, meaning 'God'. Little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources. Týr could be the eponym of the Tiwaz rune, a letter of the runic alphabet corresponding to the Latin letter T.
Various place names in Scandinavia refer to the god, and a variety of objects found in England and Scandinavia seem to depict Týr or invoke him.

Etymology

The Old Norse theonym Týr stems from an earlier Proto-Norse form reconstructed as *Tīwaʀ, which derives – like its Germanic cognates Tīw and *Ziu – from the Proto-Germanic theonym *Tīwaz, meaning 'God'. The name of a Gothic deity named may also be reconstructed based on the associated rune tiwaz. In Old Norse poetry, the plural tívar is used for 'the gods', and the singular týr, meaning ' god', occurs in kennings for Odin and Thor. Modern English writers frequently anglicize the god's name by dropping the proper noun's diacritic, rendering Old Norse's Týr as Tyr.
The Proto-Germanic masculine noun *tīwaz means 'a god, a deity', and probably also served as a title or epithet that came to be associated with a specific deity whose original name is now lost. It stems from Proto-Indo-European *deywós, meaning 'celestial, heavenly one', hence a 'god', itself a derivation from *dyēus, meaning 'diurnal sky', hence 'daylight-sky god'. The Germanic noun *tīwaz is further attested in the Finnic loanword teivas, found as a suffix in the deities and Rukotiivo. The Romano-Germanic deity Alateivia may also be related, although its origin remains unclear.
Due to linguistic evidence and early native comparisons between *Tīwaz and the Roman god Mars, especially under the name Mars Thingsus, a number of scholars have interpreted *Tīwaz as a Proto-Germanic sky-, war- and thing-god. Other scholars reject however his identification as a 'sky-god', since *tīwaz was likely not his original name but rather an epithet that came to be associated with him and eventually replaced it.

Origin of ''Tuesday''

The modern English weekday name Tuesday comes from the Old English tīwesdæg, meaning 'day of Tīw'. It is cognate with Old Norse Týsdagr, Old Frisian Tīesdi, and Old High German Ziostag. All of them stem from Late Proto-Germanic *Tiwasdag, a calque of Latin Martis dies. This attests to an early Germanic identification of italic=no with Mars.
Germanic weekday names for Tuesday that do not transparently extend from the above lineage may also ultimately refer to the deity, including Middle Dutch Dinxendach and Dingsdag, Middle Low German Dingesdach, and Old High German Dingesdag. These forms may refer to the god's association with the thing, a traditional legal assembly common among the ancient Germanic peoples with which the god is associated. This may be either explained by the existence of an epithet, Thincsus or Thingsus, frequently attached to Mars, or simply by the god's strong association with the assembly.

T-rune

The god is the namesake of the rune representing in the runic alphabets, the indigenous alphabets of the ancient Germanic peoples prior to their adaptation of the Latin alphabet. On runic inscriptions, often appears as a magical symbol. The name first occurs in the historical record as tyz, a character in the Gothic alphabet, and it was also known as tī or tir in Old English, and týr in Old Norse. The name of Týr may also occur in runes as on the 8th century Ribe skull fragment.

Toponyms

A variety of place names in Scandinavia refer to the god. For example, Tyrseng, in Viby, Jutland, Denmark was once a stretch of meadow near a stream called Dødeå. Viby also contained another theonym, Onsholt, and religious practices associated with Odin and Týr may have occurred in these places. A spring dedicated to Holy Niels that was likely a Christianization of prior indigenous pagan practice also exists in Viby. Viby may mean 'the settlement by the sacred site'. Archaeologists have found traces of sacrifices going back 2,500 years in Viby.
The forest Tiveden, between Närke and Västergötland, in Sweden, may mean 'Tyr's forest', but its etymology is uncertain, and debated. Ti- may refer to týr meaning 'god' generally, and so the name may derive from Proto-Indo-European *wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/deywós, meaning 'the forest of the gods'. According to Rudolf Simek, the existence of a cult of the deity is also evidenced by place names such as Tislund, which is frequent in Denmark, or Tysnes Municipality and Tysnesøya in Norway, where the cult appears to have been imported from Denmark.

Attestations

Roman era

While Týr's etymological heritage reaches back to the Proto-Indo-European period, very few direct references to the god survive prior to the Old Norse period. Like many other non-Roman deities, Týr receives mention in Latin texts by way of the process of interpretatio romana, in which Latin texts refer to the god by way of a perceived counterpart in Roman mythology. Latin inscriptions and texts frequently refer to Týr as Mars.
The first example of this occurs on record in Roman senator Tacitus's ethnography Germania :
These deities are generally understood by scholars to refer to *Wōđanaz, *Þunraz, and *Tīwaz, respectively. The identity of the "Isis" of the Suebi remains a topic of debate among scholars. Later in Germania, Tacitus also mentions a deity referred to as regnator omnium deus venerated by the Semnones in a grove of fetters, a sacred grove. Some scholars propose that this deity is in fact *Tīwaz.
A votive altar has been discovered during excavations at Housesteads Roman Fort at Hadrian's Wall in England that had been erected at the behest of Frisian legionaries. The altar dates from the 3rd century CE and bears the Latin inscription Deo Marti Thincso Et Duabvs Alaisiagae. In this instance, the epithet Thingsus is a Latin rendering of Proto-Germanic theonym *Þingsaz. This deity is generally interpreted by scholars to refer to Týr. The goddesses referred to as Beda and Fimmilene are otherwise unknown, but their names may refer to Old Frisian legal terms.
In the sixth century, the Roman historian Jordanes writes in his Getica that the Goths, an east Germanic people, saw the same "Mars" as an ancestral figure:

Old English

The Latin deity Mars was occasionally glossed by Old English writers by the name Tīw or Tīg. The genitive tīwes also appears in the name for Tuesday, tīwesdæg.

Viking Age and post-Viking Age

By the Viking Age, *Tīwaz had developed among the North Germanic peoples into Týr. The god receives numerous mentions in North Germanic sources during this period, but far less than other deities, such as Odin, Freyja, or Thor. The majority of these mentions occur in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from traditional source material reaching into the pagan period, and the Prose Edda, composed by Icelandic skald and politician Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century.

''Poetic Edda''

Although Týr receives several mentions in the Poetic Edda, of the three poems in which he is mentioned—Hymiskviða, Sigrdrífumál, and Lokasenna—only the incomplete poem, Hymiskviða, features him in a prominent role. In Hymiskviða, Týr says that his father, italic=no, owns a tremendous cauldron with which he and his fellow gods can brew fathoms of ale. Thor and Týr set out to retrieve it. Týr meets his nine-hundred headed grandmother, and a girl clad in gold helps the two hide from italic=no.
Upon his return from hunting, italic=no's wife tells italic=no that his son has come to visit, that Týr has brought with him Thor, and that the two are behind a pillar. With just one glance, italic=no immediately smashes the pillar and eight nearby kettles. The kettle containing Týr and Thor, particularly strong in its construction, does not break, and out of it the two gods stride.
italic=no sees Thor and his heart jumps. The italic=no orders three headless oxen boiled for his guests, and Thor eats two of the beasts. italic=no tells the two that the following night, "we'll have to hunt for us three to eat". Thor asks for bait so that he might row out into the bay. italic=no says that the god can take one of his oxen for bait; Thor immediately chooses a black ox, and the poem continues without further mention of Týr.
In Sigrdrífumál, the valkyrie italic=no imparts in the hero Sigurd knowledge of various runic charms. One charm invokes the god italic=no:
In Lokasenna, the gods hold a feast. Loki bursts in and engages in flyting, a contest of insults, with the gods. The prose introduction to the poem mentions that "Tyr was in attendance, even though he had only one hand because the wolf Fenrir had recently ripped off the other while the wolf was being bound." Loki exchanges insults with each of the gods. After Loki insults the god italic=no, Týr comes to italic=no's defense. Loki says that "you can't be the right hand of justice among the people" because his right hand was torn off by Fenrir, elsewhere described as Loki's child. Týr says that although he misses his hand, Loki misses italic=no, who is now bound and will remain so until the events of Ragnarök.

''Prose Edda''

The Prose Edda sections Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál reference Týr several times. The god is introduced in part 25 of the Gylfaginning section of the book:
This tale receives further treatment in section 34 of Gylfaginning. Later still in Gylfaginning, High discusses Týr's foreseen death during the events of Ragnarök:
Skáldskaparmál opens with a narrative wherein twelve gods sit upon thrones at a banquet, including Týr. Later in Skáldskaparmál, the skald god italic=no tells italic=no how kennings function. By way of kennings, italic=no explains, one might refer to the god Odin as "Victory-Tyr", "Hanged-Tyr", or "Cargo-Tyr"; and Thor may be referred to as "Chariot-Tyr".
Section nine of Skáldskaparmál provides skalds with a variety of ways in which to refer to Týr, including "the one handed As", "feeder of the wolf", "battle-god", and "son of Odin". The narrative found in Lokasenna occurs in prose later in Skáldskaparmál. Like in Lokasenna, Týr appears here among around a dozen other deities. Similarly, Týr appears among a list of italic=no in section 75.
In addition to the above mentions, Týr's name occurs as a kenning element throughout Skáldskaparmál in reference to the god Odin.

Archaeological record

Scholars propose that a variety of objects from the archaeological record depict Týr. For example, a Migration Period gold bracteate from Trollhättan, Sweden, features a person receiving a bite on the hand from a beast, which may depict Týr and italic=no. Other bracteates with similar motif includes the bracteate with runic inscription DR IK166, from Skrydstrup, Haderslev, Denmark, and another one from Hamburg, Germany.
A Viking Age hogback in Sockburn, County Durham, England may depict Týr and italic=no. In a similar fashion, a silver button was found in Hornsherred, Denmark, during 2019 that is interpreted to portray Týr fighting against the wolf italic=no.

Scholarly reception

Due in part to the etymology of the god's name, scholars propose that Týr once held a far more significant role in Germanic mythology than the scant references to the deity indicate in the Old Norse record. Some scholars propose that the prominent god Odin may have risen to prominence over Týr in prehistory, at times absorbing elements of the deity's domains. For example, according to scholar Hermann Reichert, due to the etymology of the god's name and its transparent meaning of "the god", "Odin... must have dislodged Týr from his pre-eminent position. The fact that Tacitus names two divinities to whom the enemy's army was consecrated... may signify their co-existence around 1 A.D."
The Sigrdrífumál passage above has resulted in some discourse among runologists. For example, regarding the passage, runologists Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees say:

In popular culture

The 15th studio album by the English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, Tyr, released in 1990, is named after Týr.
Týr is the namesake of the folk metal band Týr (band) from Faroe islands.
Týr is featured in several video games.