The Right Hand of Tyr

 
  Years ago, when I first started getting in to all of this, I wore a Tiwaz rune, which represented the Norse God Tyr. Nowadays I usually wear a Thor's Hammer, but originally, I was all about Tyr. Thanks to a friend of mine, she knows who she is, I have begun to return my focus back to the Sky God.

   First, a brief background of Tyr for uninitiated:

        In his book "The Rites of Odin", Ed Fitch calls Tyr "the invincible warrior of the Nordic pantheon, and far older than all the others of Asgard." Tyr is the Norse god of war, justice, and courage. In the modern times, what Tyr is probably most famous for is being on-handed. The story goes that Odin could foresee that the Fenris Wolf would kill him during Ragnarok. In an attempt to prevent this, the Aesir tried to trick Fenris in to letting them bind him with a magical rope, Gleipnir, to see if Fenris could break it. Fenris, being a clever wolf, did not trust the Aesir and requested that one them put their hand in his mouth as a sign of good faith. If he could not break the Gleipnir, and the gods refused to unbind him, then he would take the hand of the god who volunteered. 

    Tyr was the god who stepped up. As you may be able to imagine, Fenris was unable to break the rope. At this point, the Aesir made it clear that they had no ntentions of releasing Fenris. Tyr, being the god of justice and courage, kept his right hand in Fenris' jaws as he promised, and Fenris took his right hand as promised.

    Much is spoken of Tyr's honor and bravery for volunteering when he knew from the beginning that the Aesir would not unbind Fenris and he would surely lose his hand. What of his hand, though? It is not necessarily an essential body part, Tyr was able to adapt to having one hand and still hold his own, even killing the hound Garm at Ragnarok. One hand makes up a relatively small percentage of the whole body, and the gods saw fit to give us a spare, so it's easy to forget about the wolf-fodder that is Tyr's right hand.

    Such is the fate of those few brave souls who sacrifice everything for the good of others. Not greatly important in the grand scheme of things, and the general populace is able to get along with their lives without granting them much of a second thought. 

   These are the warriors, the soldiers, the men and women who are willfully thrust in to the jaws of death in the hopes of keeping the darkness at bay, even if for a little while. These are the Right Hand of Tyr. Hail.