Before Thunder

· by · in Alliterative verse. ·

Thor before the bolt: a baby grown from the earth
from soil in sudden of light; his strength from rock
to the fostered the fury: forceful as God, as a man
and yet as a youngster; not yardlong, little and raw
a gem to be glossed; still gowned in a dress
he widened and grew to wear in swagger, his pride
but hammerless still, a sapling fed on the milk
from mother that were more of a man than her son
until forged out of fire his fist grasped the hammer
that Thor with a thud turned into thunder and rain.

Thor’s Fight with the Giants (Tors strid med jättarna) by Mårten Eskil Winge (1872).

Today Lilian hosts dVerse poetics where she asks us to write a prequel to someone/something. My choice fell on Thor (the saga God, not the Marvel character). I tried to write it in the Norse style using alliterative verse, which turned out to be a bit of struggle… but still he once was a toddler (and I wonder how much he really grew up).

January 23, 2024

53 responses to “Before Thunder”

  1. You had me with the first line…..and then this one
    “little and raw
    a gem to be glossed;”
    He was a feisty toddler for sure! Love it!

  2. Loved the staccato pace of this, Björn, like Thor’s hammer, sounding the traits that made him what he was. Especially liked, “not yardlong, little and raw/a gem to be glossed” — a rare tenderness in the expression of his vulnerability as a child.

  3. Thor is a great choice and I love that you used alliterative verse, Björn. I imagine him as a chunky little toddler, into everything. I love that he was ‘a baby grown from the earth / from soil in sudden of light’ – I wrote something similar for Pandora. I also love that he was ‘little and raw /a gem to be glossed’ – and those final lines rang out loud, like a hammer on an anvil.

  5. This is absolutely stunning, Bjorn! I especially admire this part; “forceful as God, as a man and yet as a youngster; not yardlong, little and raw a gem to be glossed.” 💖💖

  9. I love the ponderment that you present; and I like the flow of the poem, because it makes the poem feel ageless; could be read to a child or between the old.

    • I am glad you felt it… the norse poems where very rhytmic, many of them were written up from the lyric stories told by travelling storytellers before anyone wrote them up…(or if they did it was probably carved on pieces of wood that is now gone)

  14. I like the form you chose, it fits the subject perfectly. Like most gods whose claim to fame was being able to belt people harder than anyone else, I don’t suppose it mattered that his intellectual prowess never progressed from the little boy stage 🙂

      • The god with brawn and no brain is common to a lot of mythologies. Some of them like Thor and Hercules just grew and grew. The one I find most interesting (and detestable) is Theseus, who had small man syndrome, and spent his youth trying to turn himself into a mountain of muscle.

  15. This is great. I love the Nordic mythology.
    Lovely story of junior Thor before Thunder.
    And I like the god Thor in particular.
    It is also a recurring question even in comic adaptations, what would Thor be without his hammer. 😀

  18. Love the rhythm, the beat in your poem … a fan of mythology since my high school days, two years of Latin. Thor a favorite, in spite of his ‘shortcomings.’

  20. Björn, I very much enjoyed how you vividly portrayed Thor’s growth and transformation, capturing the essence of his journey from a baby grown from the earth to the mighty god wielding the thunder and rain.

    ~David

  21. loved that ending.. well actually loved the whole.. And Thor is certainly a fascinating character..

  22. I am learning here, learning of Thor and an explanation of how he obtained the hammer. I should read up on this, I think your version is fiction? At any rate, Good Job!!
    ..

  24. as a mom of boys (who are now 16) and in that place between boy and man, this struck me in the heart.

    I used to say when they were small and people would judge my parenting (don’t be upset …they’re boys, they’re small) and I would say: But I am not raising baby boys, I am raising someone’s best friend, boyfriend, uncle, husband.

    And all that growing requires a firm AND gentle hand.

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