2. ÞUNOR, in Old-norse ÞORR, in Old-german DONAR.—The recognition of Ðunor in England was probably not very general at first: the settlement of Danes and Norwegians in the ninth and following centuries may have extended it in the northern districts. But though his name is not found in the genealogies of the kings, there was an antecedent probability that some traces of his worship would be found among the Saxons. Thunar is one of the gods whom the Saxons of the continent were called upon to renounce, and a total abnegation of his authority was not to be looked for even among a race who considered Wóden as the supreme god. That the fifth day of the week was called by his name is well known: Thursday is Ðunres dæg, _dies Jovis_; and he is the proper representative of Jupiter, inasmuch as he must be considered in the light of the thundering god, an elemental deity, powerful over the storms, as well as the fertilizing rains[643]. His peculiar weapon, the mace or hammer, seems to denote the violent, crushing thunderbolt, and the Norse myth represents it as continually used against the giants or elemental gods of the primal world. In a composition whose antiquity it is impossible to ascertain, we may still discover an allusion to this point: in the Christian Ragna Ravk, or _Twilight of the Gods_, it was believed that a personal conflict would take place between the divinity and a devil, the emissary and child of Satan: in the course of this conflict, it is said: “se Ðunor hit þyrsceð mid ðǽre fýrenan æxe,” the thunder will thresh it with the fiery axe[644]; and I am inclined to see a similar allusion in the Exeter Book, where the lightning is called _rynegiestes wæpn_, the weapon of Avkv Ðórr, the _car-borne god_, Thunder[645]. ----- Footnote 643: See the quotation from Adam of Bremen, p. 337. Footnote 644: Salomon and Saturn, pp. 148, 177. Footnote 645: Cod. Exon. p. 386. l. 8. -----