The hammer of the Norse god Thor. About 1,000 small hammer pendants of the Viking Age, in silver and bronze, have been found across the Nordic lands. Some neo-Nazi groups have taken the hammer up, so we check every design.
Record, Folk and Modern are kept apart, and each one carries its source.
About 1,000 hammer-shaped pendants from the Viking Age have been found across the Nordic lands. They were made in silver and in bronze, small enough to wear at the neck.
To verify: Find sites and a museum number for one pendant, from the sources Wikipedia cites
Why did people wear them? The scholar Davidson, cited on Wikipedia, read the hammer pendants as a defence against evil and violence. That is a modern scholar’s reading of Viking-Age belief, and we pass it on as one.
To verify: Davidson’s own words, and the book they come from
The Anti-Defamation League notes that neo-Nazis have taken up Norse signs, the hammer among them. We keep to the Viking-Age outline, never pair it with the valknut or other co-opted signs, and check every design against the ADL’s hate-symbol database before we make it.
To verify: A link to the ADL’s own entry on Thor’s hammer
