Then Gangleri said, ‘The Æsir seem to me to be very powerful, and it is not surprising that there is so much strength in you, since you know so much about the gods and are aware of to whom each kind of prayer should be directed. Are there still more gods?’
High answered: ‘Tyr1 is the name of another of the Æsir. He is the boldest and most courageous, and it is very much up to him who wins in battle. For men of action, he is good to invoke. The expression goes that a man is Tyr courageous if he is the type who advances out in front, never losing his courage. Tyr is so wise that a clever person is said to be Tyr wise. It is a mark of his daring that when the Æsir tried to lure the wolf Fenrir in order to place the fetter Gleipnir on him, the wolf would not trust the gods to free him until finally they placed Tyr’s hand as a pledge in the wolf’s mouth. Then, when the Æsir refused to free him, the wolf bit off the hand at what is now called the wolf joint. Because of this, Tyr is one-handed, and men do not think of him as a peace maker.
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Tyr : Related to Latin deus and Greek Zeus , the name Tyr may derive from postulated Old Germanic tiwaz , meaning ‘god’.In The Lay of Sigurdrifa Tyr is the name of a rune that brings victory. ↩