Horagalles
Sámi · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Sámi thunder god ('Thor-man'), wielder of hammers who shatters mountains; known from ethnography and noaidi drum-figures. Attested only through secondary record.
Domains
- thunder
Powers
- Smash mountains and storms with twin hammers
- Bends the rainbow as his bow to shoot down trolls and evil spirits
- Governs sky, weather, lakes and seas, and human health and welfare
Epithets
- Horagalles the thunder-god; the name from Old Norse Þórr-karl 'Thor-man/old-man Thor', also called Dierpmis/Bajan-olmai 'the man above'; wielder of the hammer, ruler of thunder and stormLeem, Knud. Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper, Copenhagen, 1767 (primary chronicle); Bäckman & Hultkrantz (eds.). Saami Pre-Christian Religion, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1985 (secondary scholarship)
- Aijeke Grandfather, Great-grandfatherFriis, Lappisk Mythologi; Leem, Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper (secondary)
- Tiermes the Thunder (eastern Sami name of the thunder-god)Friis, Lappisk Mythologi (secondary)
Relations
- syncretism: ThorCanonical Norse-Sámi syncretism: Horagalles < Þórr karl 'old man Thor', hammer-wielding storm god on noaidi drums, fused onto native Tiermes/Bajan-olmai; name and hammer Scandinavian, drum-cult context Sámi.J. Schefferus, Lapponia (1673), on the Sámi 'Thor' and his drum-hammers (primary); H. Rydving, The End of Drum-Time: Religious Change among the Lule Saami, 1670s-1740s (1993) (secondary)
Sources
- existence: K. Leem (1767); J. A. Friis, Lappisk Mythologi (1871); drum-figure surveys (secondary); Name 'Thor-man' (Old Norse Þórr-karl), reflecting Norse contact (secondary)