Tiw's Day

Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of the Vox Chaotica Council! I have made a grave error. When I originally wrote the Moon Day post, I had included the story of Tyr (or Tiw, as in Tiw's Day or Tuesday), but it turns out I edited it out completely. Awkward. But this is a good segue because only the five days of the work week are named for Norse gods. Moon Day for Mani the Moon God; Tiw's Day for Tyr, God of Warriors and Bravery; Woden's Day for Odin, the All-Father; Thor's Day for Thor, God of Strength (and tool-chestiness); Frigg's Day for Frigg, wife to Odin and criminally under-represented Goddess (those lovely Medieval Christians were really the best supporters for women's rights). So Saturday is totally named for Saturn, the Roman God of Agriculture and bunch of other things that don't really matter because he comesfromaninferiorpantheonwhaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAT? [Editor's Note: Cutter absolutely refused to link to the Roman or Greek pantheon. He says—and I quote: "They're dumb. Check out a non-cliché and undertaught mythology, like Egyptian or Japanese or *coughs quite loudly* Norse *enters actual coughing fit until red in the face*."]

You might notice something about Tyr in the picture above. He's missing something quite important... His right hand. Now some of you (I know who I'm looking at, and so does KáLeena) might want to make this into a dirty joke, but that's because your minds are not equipped for pre-Internets thinking. The right hand was the sword hand, and Tyr is the God of war... You see the acutal problem?

First off, before we get into the juicy meat of this story (don't bite the hand that feeds you; we'll get off this tangent soon), Tyr wasn't always one-handed. He was a strapping young god whose glorious acts on the field of battle made him the bravest and most skilled in combat of all the gods in Æsgard. [Tangent over, kiddies! Time for snacks then recess!]

Anyway. Remember how Loki was the father of three monstrous beasts? If not, let's jog your memory. Loki and his giantess wife/mistress (we're never really sure what Loki's relationship status is... Facebook always just says "It's Complicated," and I can't imagine how he would get around if he's strapped to an old stone altar with venom eternally dripping on his face...) had three children: Jörmungandr the World-Snake, Sleipnir the fastest and overall best horse, and Fenrir the Wolf (also called the Fenris Wolf).

Now Fenrir came into this world, and Odin immediately knew this was the wolf destined to slay him on the field during Ragnarök. So he called all the gods together for a moot to decide what they could do to keep the wolf at bay until that final battle. It took a while for them to decide, and no one was brave enough to feed the Fenris wolf except Tyr. All the other gods shrank away and made lame excuses like: "Yeah, umm... I've got that thing to do with Bragi... He's uh... teaching me Skaldic verse (yeah, that's it!)" or "Ooh would you look at my anachronistic watch! It's time for that elective kidney surgery I have scheduled... Gotta help the less kindey-inclined..."

Because this is a myth, time passes in a weird way, so the wolf just basically becomes old and fully grown after the moot ends—a couple days of drinking the finest mead and talking in hushed tones about death and how kinda scary it is for these mortal gods (hint hint you freaking lameface Greek and Roman myths with your boring immortals).

Being the amazing and intelligent gods the Æs were, they decided to take the wolf and bind it with a chain on an island in the middle of a lake in a god-forsaken corner of nowhereland. But they just took a random chain, not remembering that Loki is a god, and the giants are the eternal and worthy enemies of all the gods—Æs, Alfkind, Vanir, and others (technically not all gods, but all very powerful creatures nevertheless)—and it would be very likely that the wolf could just break the chain by looking at it funny.

Which he did immediately.

So the gods were like, "Why not just make a stronger chain?" So they talked to Völundr, the forge-god, and had him smith the finest and most powerful chain he could make. They brought it to the Fenris wolf and asked if he thought he could break it. The wolf took one look at it and freaking karate-chopped that crap into tiny metal fragments that flew out of Asgard and into Midgard, and that, kiddies, is how the Norse explained (they totally didn't) meteorites and shooting stars (I made that up because it's funny). But the wold broke the chain, easy peasy lemon squeezey. Knowing their limitations, the gods went to the elves/dwarves and asked them to build an unbreakable chain (they're basically the same in Norse myths... the dwarves were just the dark elves who lived underground—think the Dwemer of Skyrim).

While the dwarves took their time making the chain and the gods were sitting at home worrying if Odin was going to die a premature death, Tyr kept feeding this crazed wolf.

After the chain was finally completed, they brought the thin, golden binding to the wolf and said, "Surely you, insane-o-bot wolf you, would be alright with us trying to bind you with this little ribbon of gold? Think of how easily you could shred it compared to the huge bulky chains we tried the last few times!" But the Fenris wolf was suspicious. Probably because why would all the gods come to see you bound, and be waiting with fear in their eyes, and be all nice about trying to bind you up for a third time. So he said back to the gods: "Listen. I'm no idiot. If you're so sure I can break it, then I require someone to put their hand in my mouth as a show of good faith."

Odin and friends looked sheepishly at each other, making super awkward eye-contact and trying to be as far away from the wolf as possible. Except Tyr (duh). That kid just walked right up and shove his hand in that wolf's mouth and probably tickled it's trachea or uvula or something while looking deep into the amber wolf-eyes with the "ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY PUNK" face. Being a prideful creature, the wolf let himself be bound, but found his suspicions justified: the more he wriggled and jived and tried to get free of the golden chain, the tighter the wolf found himself bound. He got so mad he gnashed his teeth, cleaving Tyr's sword-hand right off. But he's still bound there, waiting for the day the chain will finally break so he can go get his revenge on the old man who tricked him so many cycles of the moon ago.

tl;dr Tyr is a bona fide stone-hearted champion of war who didn't even wince when his sword-hand was bitten off by the wolf destined to kill his father. Greek and Roman myths don't count for much in Cutter's opinion. Each message sounds like something you'd find on the BREAKING NEWS bar below two immaculate news-anchors who certainly aren't just feeding us what the big media companies want us to know so they can swing everything in their favour. In other news, Cutter is totally not paranoid. [If I stop posting, please someone check out the Videan homestead to make sure I'm still here and alive and doing my thing and have not been kidnapped]