him. People also say that "Gofar is driving," "Gobonden is driving," "The Thunder is driving." Thor drives not only in the air but also on earth. Then they say that "he is earth-driving." A peasant met him once, when he was driving like that. He was sitting "in a small cart drawn by a horse." "Thor has in his hand a bolt of stone, called Thor's bolt, which is often found in the ground. Such a Thor's-bolt or Thor's-bolt stone is good to have in the house as a protection against every kind of sorcery. Thor throws the bolt after the ogres whose worst enemy he is. As soon as the thunder is heard, the ogres hasten to return to their hiding-places. That is why so many gusts of wind precede a thunderstorm.""
Hyltén-Cavallius gives us also some very remarkable examples, showing how long the memory of Thor has been kept up. "Even towards the end of the seventeenth century," he says,[1]—"people in Wärend used to swear by Thor—"Yes, Thore-Gud," "No, Thore-Gud."" The most noticeable trace of our country's older worship of Thor is that "Thor's day" (Thursday) was still in the nineteenth century considered as a sacred day, almost as a Sunday.
In the Christian Middle Ages Thor's old spring at Thorsas was called "Saint Thor's Spring." According to these ideas the god himself became a Roman Catholic saint, a Saint Thor! Thor has thus, like other heathen gods, lived on after the victory of Christianity, not only disguised as a saint under a different name, but also under his own name, which was then considered as that of a saint. In the same way Santa Venere, the holy Venus, is spoken of in more than one part of Italy.
The veneration for Thor was so common amongst our forefathers in heathen times that even the Lapps came to know him. It was not so long ago that they worshipped a god whom they called Thor or some similar name. He slew the ogres. The Lapps figured him therefore with a
- ↑ Op. cit, p. 232.
