Pre-order the 2nd Ed. of the Poetic Edda translation, much expanded and revised: https://amzn.to/3TjECXD (Amazon says these ship September 14th)
Pre-order a signed copy: https://boulderbookstore.net/book/2000013133908 (these will ship later as I will have to go to Boulder and sign them once they arrive)

If you're interested in joining Intro. to Runic Studies in September-October 2025:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-runic-studies-tickets-1559717279369

If you're interested in joining Original Stories of Norse Mythology to read the Volsung poems in September-October 2025:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/original-stories-of-norse-mythology-the-heroes-sept-oct-2025-tickets-1558058758689

If you're interested in joining the Old Norse Reading Club to finish The Saga of Gísli Súrsson in September-October 2025:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/old-norse-reading-club-gislis-saga-september-october-2025-tickets-1558070162799

From a danish perspective, the folk understanding is that lightning comes from Mjolnir and thunder from the hooves and wheels of his goats pulling his wagon

So less “God of Thunder” and more “God who makes thunder, among a myriad of other stuff he does”

I named my cat after Tyr but extended it to Tyrion bcuz more syllables is more musical & gets his attention. He will likely bite my arm off eventually

Any kind of brief description like God of X is going to flatten the reality of how that god was seen by their historical believers. A god that people make sacrifices to for good harvests might technically be a harvest god but that label doesn't tell you much about the particulars.

I think that the comment on the days of the week is very important because the Roman Gods had very many functions, and we're not sure exactly what function of what Deity was in reference when they were interpreted by the Germanic tribes. For example, Mars is also associated with being an agricultural guardian, great acts of courage, the wolf, and the securing of peace through acts of courage and power. Some of these other associations fit a lot better with what we know of Tyr from the Eddas, and so it seems more likely that they were what was in mind during the process of Interpretatio Germanica. The title Mars-Thingsus also might associate him with Mars's political function.

To add perspective, when Freyja is called a 'goddess of love', how is she supposed to interact with love? Do you pray to her when you've fallen in love and want to know if they love you back? If your relationship is in trouble? If you want to fall in love but don't love anyone at the moment? To keep the love of another away from you because you are disinterested? To have better intimate relations? To get pregnant? To get married? Potentially any of these could pertain to a different deity in some way.

Also, how does Freyja being a love goddess fit into how a Norse person would think the world works, because religion is an all-encompassing thought system. How did she become associated with love? Did she invent love? Is she the first being to fall in love? Did she perform some heroic feat that caused love to come into existence? Does love exist independent of her and is she more akin to a matchmaker? Does she have some form of servant who does the love thing for her? Do people fall in love by her presence, or does it do something else to their relationship.

All of these are necessary questions because the relationship of a god to their 'domain' (and what that culture thinks of that domain) is going to have a heavy impact on how a culture views that god or their place in the world. You can't start from the point of assuming that Norse people would even understand what you mean when you say 'goddess of love'.

The compounding loss of context is a really significant aspect of this. Ancient Germanic peoples probably didn't need an explanation as to why Thunder is a valorous and virile man; the fact that Thunder thunders is fairly obvious, and would probably be relegated to something like a children's tale. By the time Poetic and Prose Edda were written down, Thunder has likely already passed from being understood as literally the pagan thunder god to a broad personification that was the pagan thunder god; same way as the figure of Grim Reaper does not have any direct references to the fact that it is a personification of death.

Calling Thor "the God of Thunder" is an attempt to put this missing "sense" into the system, but it reduces the god to just a descriptor. To those who believed in them, the natures and behaviours of gods were self-evident, they are real and tangible aspects of culture. Those who wrote down those stories already didn't have that context, and it is likely we will never have the answer as to what, exactly, made Thunder a worthy god to pray to.

You have studied, learned, and given so much of your knowledge. Thank you for that. Thank you for doing this channel.

As a dane, having been quite interested in norse mythology, especially when I was younger(went through a phase in my teens when I was practically obsessed with it), I've never thought of any of the norse gods as "God(dess) of ***", instead I've thought of the various gods as being associated with different things.  Like Freya being associated with love, magic, etc.

And I've always been aware that there is a great deal of overlap between the gods in that regard.  By the "god of ***" standard, I would call most of the norse gods 'gods of war' among their other areas of responsibility, since a lot(most, iirc) of them are warriors to some degree.

For some of the more specific examples you bring up, in regards to associations with war, I've often seen Thor and Tyr associated with different aspects or 'kinds' of war, where Tyr represents more ordered military war(with his association with the sword, via the tiwaz rune often being ingraved on swords, and his association with law), while Thor represents a more wild kind of warrior(via the hammer, his temper, etc.), while Odin is more of a 'big picture' kind of guy when it comes to war(he likes to start them, to get more warriors for ragnarok, since he is accutely aware of the prophecy), and occasionally he can step in and decide on a winning side of a given conflict.

I've been trying to train myself out of the habit of using the phrase "God of [var]", in favor of saying things like "His domains include [var]". But even then, that's describing occupation, not personality.

Rifts is mentioned; my nerdy soul feels vindicated!  🤓

Regarding the actual topic:  this echoes something I've said for a long time.  In a recent discussion about Apollo, I told a friend that it's better to refer to him as "a god who heals," rather than "the god of healing" = since he was also noted for music and dance, prophesy and, of course, the whole sun thing.
To label anything is to think we understand it, and when we think we understand something, we stop asking questions.  This we do at our peril - or at least at our ignorance.

I've wondered if it was part of the Roman practise of equating other people's gods with their own pantheon. This might have been perpetuated by medieval writers. Just a thought.

Thor, god of hammers. If you've been inside a smithy, you can probably guess the association with thunder.

The Canaanite god Ba'al was famous for using twin maces for slaying a chaos sea serpent. He's also associated with lightning and was the most popular god of the people, though not the head of the pantheon.

I was surprised to sea that Ba'als maces were short and looked quite like mjolnir. On a hunch, I looked up depictions of Zeus and found his Lightning Bolt, looked more like Mjolnir and Ba'als maces than the modern depiction of a lightning bolt. I brought this up with a friend who mentioned a Hindu god with similar weapons and myths. Just a cool find to share.

I feel like they were less like gods and more like imaginary celebrities

The thunderer who pulverizes the foe with his lightning hammer, the powder-maker—Mealner.

If it’s any consolation I associate Colorado with hiking and not weed. For what it is worth.

My Texan mother, a 4th generation American Methodist of Quaker-Puritan descent (trust me, I'm getting there) always said "Tor's fighting the giants..." I can't remember her ever referring to the Norse gods as "gods of" anything, unlike the Greek gods that all had their neat  corners of creation. But her maiden name WAS Hankerson, so maybe she knew more than the average momma bear.

Monotheism hindsights polytheism into many-monotheisms, with ' jobs of' swapped into the creator job. They had responsibilities, like every person has, often aligned with their inclinations.