Tyr was the Norse god of war, justice, law and heroic glory — the bravest of the Aesir, a god so courageous and so devoted to the keeping of oaths that he willingly sacrificed his own right hand to bind the monstrous wolf Fenrir and save the gods. Older even than Odin in origin, he is the one-handed god of honour, the deity who embodied the sacred bond of the sworn word.
The God of War and Law
Tyr (Old Norse Týr; the same god the early Germans called Tiwaz, who gives his name to Tuesday) was a god of war, but more deeply a god of justice, law and the formal order of things — the divine guarantor of treaties, oaths and right conduct. In the most ancient layer of Germanic religion he may once have been the chief sky-god, a role later eclipsed by Odin; by the Viking age he was honoured as the most valiant and honourable of the gods, the one invoked for victory in battle and for fairness in the assembly. He was a god of single combat and of the courage to do what must be done.
The Binding of Fenrir
Tyr's defining deed was an act of supreme sacrifice. The gods had raised the wolf Fenrir, the monstrous child of Loki, in their midst, but as he grew to terrifying size and they learned he was fated to destroy them, they resolved to bind him. Twice they tried with mighty chains, and twice the wolf broke free. At last the dwarves forged a magical fetter, Gleipnir — soft as silk but unbreakable. But Fenrir, suspecting a trick, refused to be bound by it unless one of the gods would place a hand in his jaws as a pledge of good faith. The gods hesitated, all of them — for they meant to betray the wolf, and whoever gave the pledge would surely lose the hand. Only Tyr stepped forward and laid his right hand between the great wolf's teeth.
The Price of the Oath
The gods bound Fenrir with Gleipnir, and the wolf strained and could not break free — and realising the betrayal, he bit down and tore off Tyr's hand at the wrist. The wolf was bound, the gods were saved — but Tyr had paid the price, knowingly, with his own flesh. The deed captures everything Tyr stood for: the courage to make a sacrifice no one else would make, and the terrible paradox of his nature as the god of oaths who broke an oath (the pledge to the wolf) for the greater good, and accepted the loss of his hand as the cost. Ever after he was the one-handed god, his maiming the badge of his supreme courage and honour.
The Doom of the Hound
At Ragnarök, Tyr is fated to fight and fall against Garm, the monstrous hound that guards the gates of Hel — the two destroying each other, the god of war meeting his end against a great hound just as Odin meets his against the wolf. Tyr endures as the very embodiment of courage, justice and self-sacrifice — the god who gave his hand for the safety of all, and whose name marks Tuesday still. He stands for the highest Norse virtues: bravery in the face of certain loss, and devotion to honour above the safety of the self.
Every other god drew back from the wolf's jaws — only Tyr laid his hand between the teeth, knowing he would lose it, because the binding of the beast was worth the price.