By the Hammer of Thor!

[Bob_Probst]

Where would this phrase have originated? (the one in the title, not the one I just typed)

For those of you who have the great fortune of watching '30 Rock', you've probably noticed the liberal use of it as an exclamation of surprise and now I can't stop saying it (or at least thinking it).

I can't help but think it has a pop culture origin either in Comics or Fantasy Fiction.

My googling has only revealed that Thor's hammer is named Mjolnir and that the phrase is used on 30 Rock a lot (and was also used by Will Ferrell in the Anchorman alternate takes)

Can anyone help a brother out here?

 

[Fyrestryke]

Here's a snippet from the text of an online Children's book.

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=yonge&book=duke&story=chapxii

I'd say that the saying originates from Norse Mythology much like "By Odin's one eye!". I think they may just be from comic books, but I have no proof of that.

Well, it predates comics. Here's some stuff originally published in 1902...

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hall/viking/viking-IV.html

Maybe someone with some more time will be more fruitful. I wouldn't be surprised if the vikings of old didn't use phrases like that (and the one I mentioned) in everyday life.

 

[Bob_Probst]

Great finds! I had a feeling that the phrase had historic beginnings but I can't help but think that there was some character from more recent times that used this phrase a lot.

BTW, read Olaf's Farm (2nd link). It's a great little story:

"Early next morning we shook hands with our host and boarded the 'Waverunner' and sailed off.

"'Where shall we go?' my men asked.

"'Let the gods decide,' I said, and tossed up my spear.

"When it fell on the deck it pointed up-shore, so I steered in that direction. That is the best way to decide, for the spear will always point somewhere, and one thing is as good as another.

I actually poked around a bit more and that story is a retelling of Icelandic Saga so the phrase must be quite true to Viking culture:

After that many men in Iceland spent their winters in writing books. They wrote on sheepskin; vellum, we call it. Many of these old vellum books have been saved for hundreds of years, and are now in museums in Norway. Some leaves are lost, some are torn, all are yellow and crumpled. But they are precious. They tell us all that we know about that olden time. There are the very words that the men of Iceland wrote so long ago–stories of kings and of battles and of ship-sailing. Some of those old stories I have told in this book.

Here's the rest of the stories: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hall/viking/viking.html

 

[Grimhelm]

I am not certain, on quickly glancing, whether these references are actually original source writings, however. If you have the time, look at the Poems of the Elder Edda. Also Hrafnkel's Saga and The Nibelungenlied might help out to confirm whether this saying was actually used in original Norse stories.

 

[chachi]

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published a book of poetry in 1863 called Tales From a Wayside Inn. It's told in various episodes as people swap stories in a well, Wayside Inn. Think Canterbury Tales. Anyway, one of the poems is The Musician's Tale; The Saga of King Olaf. In it, the following stanzas appear.

He was the churliest of the churls;
Little he cared for king or earls;
Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foaming passions.

Hodden-gray was the garb he wore,
And by the Hammer of Thor he swore;
He hated the narrow town, and all its fashions.

The full poem is available here Longellow: The Musician's Tale and more authoritatively here The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I hope that helps.