On thunder

Last night we had a special visitor, and he was frightfully angry. Back when he was a superstar he was known as Þórr. In contemporary Norway he is known as Tor. You might know him as Thor. Thor was out throwing his hammer, Mjöllnir, in fury over something. He yelled, and he cursed, and he tried to bring down the mountains, but fortunately he only managed to cut our power for a few hours. Thor was the god of thunder in Norse mythology. The noisy storm last night certainly lent credibility to the old belief that a savage with anger management disorder was the cause of heavy weather.


Usually before a thunder storm, you can feel it hours ahead. We have a word for this in Norwegian – lummert – which is the hot, humid, heavy weather that precedes thunder. You can feel the pressure building up until the only outcome must be a thunder storm. Frequently I get pre-thunder headaches. My dictionary claims that the English translation of the word lummert is muggy, sticky or sultry. I beg to differ. They are close, but to me all of these lack the essential component of lummert – the inevitable thunder.

Yesterday, however, it wasn’t lummert at all. The thunder storm came as – well, as a bolt from the blue.

Thor was here for well over an hour. He was louder than I have heard him for years. The lightning flashed so frequently that even though he visited during the night, it was as light as day. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to watch the "fireworks". Most of the action took place up in the sky, but there were certain lightning bolts finding their target at ground too. The rain washed away almost our entire street, and the wind howled around our house for hours afterwards.

I don’t know what upset Thor so much. Perhaps he was rooting for the Netherlands in the World Cup? Even though I enjoy his shows from time to time, I am glad he seems to have cooled down again now.