Týr

"Tyr" redirects here. For other uses, see Tyr (disambiguation).

"Tiwaz" redirects here. For the Anatolian sun-god, see Istanu.

This article is about the god. For the rune, see Tiwaz rune.

"Týr" by Lorenz Frølich (1895).

Týr ( /ˈtɪər/;^[1] Old Norse: Týr [tyːr]) is the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology, portrayed as a one-handed man. Corresponding names in other Germanic languages are Gothic Teiws, Old English Tīw and Old High German Ziu, all from Proto-Germanic *Tîwaz (*Tē₂waz).

In the late Icelandic Eddas, Tyr is portrayed, alternately, as the son of Odin (Prose Edda) or of Hymir (Poetic Edda), while the origins of his name and his possible relationship to Tuisto (see Tacitus' Germania) suggest he was once considered the father of the gods and head of the pantheon, since his name is ultimately cognate to that of *Dyeus (cf. Dyaus), the reconstructed chief deity in Indo-European religion. It is assumed that Tîwaz was overtaken in popularity and in authority by both Odin and Thor at some point during the Migration Age.

Tiw was equated with Mars in the interpretatio romana. Tuesday is in fact "Tīw's Day" (also in Alemannic Zischtig from zîes tag), translating dies Martis.

Name

Further information: dyeus

Proto-Germanic *Tē₂waz continues Proto-Indo-European, *deywos "celestial being, god" (whence also Latin deus and Sanskrit deva). The oldest records of the word in Germanic are Gothic *teiws (/tiːws/), attested as tyz (as the name of the Gothic letter Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.