týr

Norse deity

Týr is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, from which most surviving narratives about gods among the Germanic peoples stem, Týr sacrifices his hand to the monstrous wolf Fenrir, who bites off his limb while the gods bind the animal, and he is foretold of being consumed by the similarly monstrous dog Garmr during the events of Ragnarök. In wider Germanic mythology, he is known in Old English as Tīw and in Old High German as Ziu, all stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym *Tīwaz, meaning '(the) God'. Little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources. Due to the etymology of the god's name and the shadowy presence of the god in the extant Germanic corpus, some scholars propose that Týr may have once held a more central place among the deities of early Germanic mythology.

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