Týr: The Origins and History of the Norse God of Law, War, and Justice

By: Charles River Editors, Andrew Scott

Narrated by: Colin Fluxman

"Yet remains that one of the Æsir who is called Týr: he is most daring, and best in stoutness of heart, and he has much authority over victory in battle; it is good for men of valour to invoke him. It is a proverb, that he is Týr-valiant, who surpasses other men and does not waver. He is wise, so that it is also said, that he that is wisest is Týr-prudent. This is one token of his daring: when the Æsir enticed Fenris-Wolf to take upon him the fetter Gleipnir, the wolf did not believe them, that they would loose him, until they laid Týr's hand into his mouth as a pledge. But when the Æsir would not loose him, then he bit off the hand at the place now called 'the wolf's joint;' and Týr is one-handed, and is not called a reconciler of men.”

Much of what is known of the Norse myths comes from the 10th century onwards. Until this time and, indeed, for centuries afterwards, Norse culture (particularly that of Iceland, where the myths were eventually transcribed) was an oral culture. In fact, in all Scandinavian countries well into the thirteenth century laws were memorized by officials known as “Lawspeakers” who recited them at the “Thing.”

The Thing was the legislative assembly in Scandinavia “held for judicial purposes”. One of the most famous of these lawspeakers was the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, a masterful writer who wrote the Prose Edda in the 13th century. There are other sources for the Norse myths, namely the later Poetic Edda, a collection of poems and prose work, and other sagas but the Snorri’s Prose Edda is the most complete work whose attribution is known to modern scholars.

©2018 Charles River Editors (P)2018 Charles River Editors

More in detail than I had anticipated!

Very useful information on the history of languages and cultures of Europe and how they do and don’t tie in. It also explains the pronunciations of Tyr, which would have been more helpful at the beginning of the book than sitting here wondering through 75% of the book. Overall very useful. I wish they had one on every Norse god like this one.

Very short

This is a very short survey of the instances where Tyr appears in myths. I would have liked to hear of any runestones where he was invoked and anything more about him even while I understand there is little to be known. I do believe also that Tyr’s name is pronounced tear as in teardrop rather than tire.

save the money or credit

Pretty sure this is narrated by a robot or someone who is paid by the job cuz he just sped through it. there's no punctuation or inflection, it's basically monotone.

The majority of the book is just filler, talking about Ragnarok, the other gods, and things that have nothing to do with Tyr.

The small part that did specifically refer to Tyr were things that anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Norse mythology would already know. If you're coming into this with zero knowledge of Norse mythology, then there are some things to be gleaned from it but nothing that you couldn't find on YouTube for free.

Hardly about Tyr

Although it has some stories about Tyr, they are nothing you haven't heard before if you are an avid Norse Mythology reader. Some of the statements are quite contradictory to other, more well documented texts. Wrongful information was also given at times as well as mispronunciation and understandings of words. The reader did a fine job, however. I will give it that. All in all, my sole opinion, not a good resource for information