We often associate Tyr with honor. We see him as being an honorable deity because he is seen as having done the right thing for the right reasons. He acted for the greater good when he sacrificed his sword hand to contain the (potential) destruction that Fenrir was foreseen to cause. Was it the right thing to do? That question is easier to answer when examined from our distanced perspective. Though we are not likely to get a huge consensus on whether it was right or wrong to bind Fenrir, or if that act was the catalyst that set Loki’s son against the other deities. We can debate that one for days…(that is an invite to start that discussion in case you missed the hint).
Honor is doing what you say you will do when you say you will do it. It is caring about doing the right things. But there must be more to honor than just believing that our behaviors are right. The idea of right and wrong is too subjective at a moral level. This is where I would suggest that honor has few categories (?). Maybe categories is not the correct word, but I’m going to run with that for now. If I figure out a better word you won’t have read any of this because I will have deleted it.
There is morally honorable – Staying true to your personal morals, doing the right thing based on an internal moral code. That isn’t the subject of this post – maybe we can discuss that later.
The honor we are discussing when directed at Tyr (or any other person beside ourselves) is a form of social honor. It really isn’t a label we can give ourselves but one given to us based on the judgements of others on how we adhere to the social norms, the rules – ethics – of our community. The collective values of the society/community we function in. Some of these values/ethics are written and some are just expected to be known. Most only have a social consequence – that is not following those social rules gets you judged as less than honorable. For example, the now famous shopping cart being either taken back inside the store or placed in the corral. Do you see someone who leaves their cart in the park stall as honorable?
Hail Tyr
Hail the ancestors
Hail Awaken the North
#Tyr #HD #greatergood #wisdom
No responses yet