Mighty Mjollnir

It's been raining here this week, and my children often have a difficult time with thunder... or at least, they used to before they learned who's really making all the noise.

Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder, Thor's mighty goats. And then there's Mjollnir, Thor's might hammer, which also accounts for some of that booming noise.

Sure, I take artistic license in explaining things to my kids. But having seen Next Avengers, they're even more into Thor than they were when I just told them about the Norse Gods. Yeah, I'm brainwashing my kids early. Mythology is just about the coolest thing out there to spur fertile young minds into imagination.

Before cartoons, television, and even books, storytelling traveled via word of mouth. To explain the everyday as well as the unique, people created myths. Imagine a race of gods that looked human and had human foibles. That could explain away any number of things. And knowledge obliterates fear. Much better to believe the sun rose and fell chased by a giant wolf than to wonder where the sunlight went and if it would ever come back again.

Odin and Frigg, Thor and Loki, the Aesir and the Vanir. Who wouldn't think Valkyries are just the coolest chicks ever? Odin's Shieldwomen who flew over the battlefields and selected which heroic dead would feast in Valhalla, a Norseman's heaven? And to think that Bifrost-- a rainbow bridge--connects Asgard to Midgard, or heaven to Earth? Forget the pot of gold at the end. Let's go to heaven early and knock back some mead and roast pork with the gods!

Okay, I'm getting carried away. But my point is that Mjollnir, Thor's might hammer, made sense to my kids. Thunder isn't so scary now. And when it's cloudy or rainy, we look to the sky to see if we can see Thor's chariot, or at least the hoofs of his goats.

Is this interfering with their religious upbringing? I really don't think so. We don't pray to Thor, and my kids aren't in training to pillage and plunder. We won't start that until they reach third grade. :)