Maggie had mounted up with her knees in a chair and her elbows on the table, leaning over towards Meredith, and now begged he would tell about Thor.
"Thor was the thunderer."
"What do you mean?"
"The god of thunder and lightning. He was the son of Odin, or Woden. He is represented driving in a car drawn by two goats and with a great hammer in his hand. This hammer was forged by the dwarfs, Kobolds, I suppose, who dwelt in the centre of the earth."
"What did he want a hammer for?"
"To strike withal. And when Thor's hammer came down, that made the thunder, don't you see? and his stroke was the thunderbolt."
"I should think they would have been frightened to death in a thunder-storm."
"Not an expression those old Saxons knew anything about."
"Well, I should think they would have feared Thor."
"There is no doubt but they did. Those poor captives at the stone-houses were slaughtered in honour of Woden and Thor, don't you remember? But he was also the god of fire, and the god of the domestic hearth. Listen to this: 'Among the pagan Norsemen, Thor's hammer was held in as much reverence as Christ's cross among Christians. It was carved on their gravestones; and wrought of wood or iron, it was suspended in their temples.'"