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Thor-Also known as Donner or Thunder, Thor is a god far more associated with the common man than his more aristocratic father Wöden. He lives in the hall of Bilskirnir in Thrudheim, and often fights giants; he is a warrior, like most Norse gods, but is not that intelligent. Thor was the son of Wöden and Jord. His wife was called Sif, and little is known of her except that she had golden hair, which was made for her by the dwarves after Loki had cut off her hair. With Jarnsaxa, Thor had the son Magni and with Sif he had Thrud and Modi. He also had a stepson called Ullr who was a son of Sif's.
Thor travelled in a magic Chariot drawn by the goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr with his herald Thjelvar. The earth is scorched and the mountains crack as the goats ran across them, and when Thor is hungry, he roasts the goats for a meal. When he wants to continue his travels, Thor only needs to touch the remains of the goats and they are instantly restored to full health to resume their duties, assuming that the bones have not been broken.
Thor owns a short-handled war hammer, Mjollnir, which, when thrown at a target, returns magically to the owner. He uses Mjollnir to kill giants. To wield this formidable weapon, even a deity like Thor needs special iron gloves and a belt that doubled the wearer's strength. The strike of the hammer causes thunderclaps, and indeed, the name of this deity has produced the word for thunder in most Germanic languages.
Loki was flying as a hawk one day and was captured by Geirrod. Geirrod, who hated Thor, demanded that Loki bring his enemy (who did not yet have his magic belt and hammer) to Geirrod's castle. Loki agreed to lead Thor to the trap. Jotun was a giantess at whose home they stopped on the way to Geirrod's. She waited until Loki left the room then told Thor what was happening and gave him her iron gloves and magical belt and staff. Thor killed Geirrod and all other frost giants he could find (including Geirrod's daughters, Gjalp and Greip).
Thor's daughter, Thrud, was promised to Alvis, a dwarf, and in exchange Alvis made weapons for the gods. Thor devised a plan to stop Alvis from marrying his daughter. He told Alvis that, because of his small height, he had to prove his wisdom. Alvis agreed and Thor made the tests last until after the sun had risen--all dwarves turned to stone when exposed to sunlight, so Alvis was petrified and Thrud remained unmarried.
Thor was once outwitted by a giant king, Útgarða-Loki. The king, using his magic, tricked Thor. The king used his spells to make one of his giants faster than Thor's fast servant, Þjálfi. He called Thor weak when he only lifted the paw of a cat, the cat being the illusion of the Midgard Serpent. Thor was challenged to a drinking contest, where instead of mead, Thor drank sea water, and could not empty a drinking horn. And here, Thor wrestled an old woman, who was Old Age, something no one could beat. It was only later that Thor was told that he had in fact performed impressively doing as well as he did with those challenges.
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Trolls-also Ogres. Trolls are fearsome Vættir, who dwell in rocks and mountains, and thus are of variable size. There exist sea trolls as well as land trolls. Land trolls are ugly, fat, immensely strong creatures, often with a long covering of lichen. Trolls react far worse than dwarves to sunlight, and are petrified to stone (or water, in the case of sea trolls) immediately they are struck by a single beam of sunlight. They are fundamentally violent, and stupid, although they have been know to show great empathy.
The most common forms of land-trolls are the haugtrold (mound-troll) or bergtroll (mountain-troll). Trolls are shape-shifters, taking shapes of objects like fallen logs or animals like cats and dogs. A fairly frequent notion is that the trolls liked to appear as rolling balls of yarn. They may take a human-like appearance. Sometimes they had a tail hidden in their clothing, but even that is not a definite. Many of these trolls have a single lock of hair that no human could comb, whereas the rest is generally messy. A frequent way of telling a human-looking troll is to look at what it is wearing: Troll women in particular are often too elegantly dressed to be human women moving around in the forest. They can attract human males to do their bidding, or simply as mates or pets. Later these may be found wandering, decades later, with no memory of what had happened to them in a troll woman's care.
More often than not, though, the trolls keep themselves invisible, and then they can travel on the winds, such as the wind-troll Ysätters-Kajsa, or sneak into human homes. Sometimes you can only hear them speak, shout and make noise, or the sound of their cattle. Similarly, if you are out in the forest and smell food cooking, you know you are near a troll dwelling.
Whereas the large, ogrish trolls often appear as a solitary being, the "small" trolls are thought to be social beings who live together, much like humans except out in the forest. They keep animals, cook and bake, are excellent at crafts and hold great feasts. Like many other species, they are said to reside in underground complexes, accessible from underneath large boulders in the forests or in the mountains. These boulders could be raised upon pillars of gold. In their living quarters, they hoard gold and treasures. Opinion varies as to whether or not the trolls are thoroughly bad or not, but often they treat people as they are treated. Trolls could cause great harm if vindictive or playful, though, and regardless of other things they are always heathen. Trolls are also great thieves, and like to steal from the food that farmers store. They can enter the homes invisibly during feasts and eat from the plates so that there isn't enough food, or spoil the making of beer and bread so that it fails or does not end up plentiful enough.
The trolls sometimes abduct people to live as slaves or at least prisoners among them. These poor souls are known in Scandinavia as bergtagna ("those taken to/by the mountain"), which also is the word for having been spirited away. To be bergtagen does not only refer to the disappearance of the person, but also that upon returning, he or she has been struck with insanity or apathy caused by the trolls. Anyone could be taken by the trolls, even cattle, but at the greatest risk are women who have given birth but whose babies have not yet been named or blessed.
Occasionally, the trolls will even steal a new-born baby, leaving their own offspring – a (bort)byting ("changeling") – in return.
Trolls may be warded off with iron, as with other Vættir.
In Skáldskaparmál, the poet Bragi Boddason encounters a troll-woman who hails him with this verse (in Old Norse):
They call me Troll;
Gnawer of the Moon,
Giant of the Gale-blasts,
Curse of the rain-hall,
Companion of the Sibyl,
Nightroaming hag,
Swallower of the loaf of heaven.
What is a Troll but that?
