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Thjálfi & Röskva

Legends & Myths Thjálfi and Röskva, Thor's human servants

Among all the gods, giants and dwarves there are two who are different: Thjálfi and Röskva, a pair of farmer's children – the only humans who travel permanently in the retinue of a god. How they came to be there is told in one of the loveliest little stories about Thor.

The Goats That Rise Again

Thor rides in a wagon drawn by two goats – Tanngnjóstr („tooth-gnasher“) and Tanngrisnir („tooth-barer“). Their wonder: Thor can slaughter and eat them – if he then lays the hides and bones back together unbroken and hallows them with Mjöllnir, the goats rise alive again the next morning.

On a journey Thor stops at a poor farming family and shares his goats as a meal. But the son Thjálfi secretly splits a leg-bone to get at the marrow. In the morning one of the goats rises up lame. Thor's wrath is tremendous – the family fear for their lives. In atonement they give him their two children, Thjálfi and Röskva, as servants. Ever since, the siblings accompany the god of thunder.

Source. The story is found in Snorri's Gylfaginning (Prose Edda, c. 1220), as the prelude to the journey to Utgard. Thjálfi also appears in the Hárbarðsljóð and in the giant-duel against Hrungnir. Standard reference: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology.

Thjálfi – the Fastest Runner

Thjálfi is no mere farmhand. He is reckoned the fastest runner of all and races in Utgard (against „Hugi“, thought). At Thor's duel with the giant Hrungnir, Thjálfi slays the giant's helper, the clay giant Mökkurkálfi. The farmer's son thus stands for humankind at the side of the gods – capable, brave, indispensable.

Myth & interpretation. Of Röskva herself almost nothing is told – her name perhaps means „the ripe one, the capable one“. Some scholars read the sibling pair as an old fertility or harvest symbol (grain that is cut and returns), fitting to Thor's role as a god whose thunderstorms water the fields. The goats that rise anew belong to the same imagery of death and return. What is certain: here, for once, the common folk move to the centre of the myth.

Laser-engraved slate plaque with Thor's hammer by Glanz & Gravur
Thor's hammer, which hallows the goats – with us as a laser-engraved slate plaque. View in the shop →
From Aachen, for the North. Thor and his tales we carry into slate, wood and glass. Motif plaques among the slate plaques, Thor's hammer as natural jewellery. To the shop.

Read more with us

Thor (Donar) · Thor at Utgard-Loki · The Midgard Serpent · The Giants.

Sources & literature

Poetic Edda: Hárbarðsljóð. Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda (Gylfaginning: the goats, Thjálfi & Röskva; Skáldskaparmál: Hrungnir, Mökkurkálfi), c. 1220. German public-domain translation: Karl Simrock, Die Edda (1851). Scholarship: Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology; John Lindow, Norse Mythology (2001).

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