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Description
Týr is a pretty obscure god in the corpus of Norse mythology, which in some ways is a little strange. This is because his name descends from the Proto-Indo-European root "*Dyḗus ph₂tḗr" ("sky father"), making Týr a direct cognate with the Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter. Some have taken this to mean that Týr must've had a much grander place in the Germanic pantheon at some point in the distant past before focus shifted to Odin as the chief god. I should note, though, that there is no archaeological evidence to back this up. There's nothing to say he wasn't the chief god at some point, we just simply have no idea based on material finds. Indeed, our earliest Roman source on Germanic culture, the 1st century writer Tacitus, mentions Odin (or "Mercury" as he calls him) as being the chief of all the Germanic gods. He does briefly mention Týr as being important to the tribes also, but he really is a footnote. Tacitus identifies Týr with the Roman god Mars on the basis that he is a "war god" which… if you know anything about the Vikings, doesn't exactly narrow things down whatsoever. It's also important to note that not all cultures place the Sky Father motif so high in their cosmology. Other cognates derived from *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr, like the Rigvedic deity Dyauspitar, are reduced to obscurity much like Týr, so we should not automatically assume that being cognate with Zeus puts one on the same pedestal.

What do we know about Týr internally then? Well… still not much. According to the Eddic poem Hymiskviða, Týr is the son of the jötunn Hymir. In this poem, Týr travels with Thor to Jotunheim to recover a magic cauldron from Hymir so that the gods can have a merry feast at the abode of Ægir. Týr kinda weirdly drops out of the entire story halfway through, however, so his relationship with his father is anyone's guess. He does later appear in Lokasenna, where Loki boldly insults each of the gods in the hall of Ægir. When it's Týr's turn on the chopping block, Loki says that he "could never carry good among two," which is an… odd sentence to translate. On the one hand (ha), this could be read as Týr could never maintain goodwill between men. Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda, certainly seems to take it this way when he says that Týr is "never called a peace-maker among men". This could just be him trying to emphasize Týr's identification as a god of war, though, as Snorri likes to insert this very Greco-Roman notion that gods are supposed to be these very elemental "god of X" characters when most cultures just don't see their divinities that way. Alternatively, Loki's insult can be read as Týr could never carry well with two hands, ya know cause he only has the one. It's certainly a less inspired insult, but then again the canonical highest form of comedy in all the Norse cosmos is Loki tying his balls to a goat and giving it an encouraging slap on the ass. It's not the creativity of the insult, it's the impact.

Why is Týr missing a hand then? That's actually an incredibly sad story. Snorri regails us with the tale of how Loki fathered three monstrous children with the jötunn woman Angrboða. While the gods were appalled by these kids and cast two of them into far away realms, the wolf Fenrir was allowed to stay in Asgard. Odin knew of the prophecy that foretold his demise in the jaws of the wolf, though, and grew increasingly paranoid as Fenrir grew bigger and bigger. He couldn't outright kill the pup, though, as spilling blood was forbidden in the realm of the gods. Instead, he devised a trick wherein he would tell Fenrir that he'd bind him in chains to test his strength. The wolf was unphased by this, as indeed he broke every single bind the gods tried to ensnare him in. A magical chain was thus commissioned from the dwarves, made of things which did not exist such as a woman's beard and a cat's footsteps. When the gods presented this fetter to Fenrir, though, he was suspicious about how eager they've been to tie him up. He agreed to be bound in this final chain, but only if Týr would place his hand in the wolf's jaws as assurance they weren't tricking him, as Týr was the only one of the gods who actually formed a friendship with the growing pup. The gods bound Fenrir, and since the wolf was unable to escape, he bit down and severed Týr's hand at the wrist, betrayed by his one and only friend. It seems Týr was not altogether happy with this arrangement himself. In Lokasenna, when Loki insults him over this very story, Týr's only response is a somber and tart "I am lacking a hand, and you Hróðrsvitnis (another name for Fenrir). Suffering is the longing of both of us." Whether or not Týr willingly played along knowing that he'd lose his hand, or if the other gods played him just as much as they played Fenrir, is anyone's guess. Either way, his fate will ultimately be the same as the other gods, being devoured by Hel's hound Garmr at Ragnarök.

Design notes, there doesn't seem to be a lot of contemporary Viking depictions of Týr in the archaeological record, at least not in any obvious capacity. There's a bronze button found in Hornsherred, Denmark, and a bracteate from Trollhättan, Sweden, both depicting Týr getting his hand chomped off. They aren't particularly detailed, though, so instead I turned to more modern depictions, with a few details thrown in from a couple of 18th century Icelandic manuscripts, specifically those produced by Jakob Sigurðsson. For most of his secondary details, I referenced 1911's "Tyr and Fenrir" by John Bauer and 1882's "Tyr the Sword-God" by Carl Emil Doepler. While his beard is taken from the Jakob Sigurðsson manuscripts, I modeled his hair off of a 1895 piece by Lorenz Frølich. I find most modern depictions tend to lean one of two ways with obscure gods from Norse myth like Týr: lumberjack or Conan. Personally, I'm not fond of either of these. They have their pros and cons, but I'm kind of averse to all things hyper masculine, shocking I know. Instead, I wanted his headshot to call attention to his heritage as a cognate with Zeus. He's not identical, but you can see it in his cheekbones and the way his hair curls up like that. This is very much Zeus if Zeus had any semblance of human decency and a sense of regret, and I think it came out quite regal.

Description
Týr is a pretty obscure god in the corpus of Norse mythology, which in some ways is a little strange. This is because his name descends from the Proto-Indo-European root "*Dyḗus ph₂tḗr" ("sky father"), making Týr a direct cognate with the Greek Zeus and Roman Jupiter. Some have taken this to mean that Týr must've had a much grander place in the Germanic pantheon at some point in the distant past before focus shifted to Odin as the chief god. I should note, though, that there is no archaeological evidence to back this up. There's nothing to say he wasn't the chief god at some point, we just simply have no idea based on material finds. Indeed, our earliest Roman source on Germanic culture, the 1st century writer Tacitus, mentions Odin (or "Mercury" as he calls him) as being the chief of all the Germanic gods. He does briefly mention Týr as being important to the tribes also, but he really is a footnote. Tacitus identifies Týr with the Roman god Mars on the basis that he is a "war god" which… if you know anything about the Vikings, doesn't exactly narrow things down whatsoever. It's also important to note that not all cultures place the Sky Father motif so high in their cosmology. Other cognates derived from *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr, like the Rigvedic deity Dyauspitar, are reduced to obscurity much like Týr, so we should not automatically assume that being cognate with Zeus puts one on the same pedestal.

What do we know about Týr internally then? Well… still not much. According to the Eddic poem Hymiskviða, Týr is the son of the jötunn Hymir. In this poem, Týr travels with Thor to Jotunheim to recover a magic cauldron from Hymir so that the gods can have a merry feast at the abode of Ægir. Týr kinda weirdly drops out of the entire story halfway through, however, so his relationship with his father is anyone's guess. He does later appear in Lokasenna, where Loki boldly insults each of the gods in the hall of Ægir. When it's Týr's turn on the chopping block, Loki says that he "could never carry good among two," which is an… odd sentence to translate. On the one hand (ha), this could be read as Týr could never maintain goodwill between men. Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda, certainly seems to take it this way when he says that Týr is "never called a peace-maker among men". This could just be him trying to emphasize Týr's identification as a god of war, though, as Snorri likes to insert this very Greco-Roman notion that gods are supposed to be these very elemental "god of X" characters when most cultures just don't see their divinities that way. Alternatively, Loki's insult can be read as Týr could never carry well with two hands, ya know cause he only has the one. It's certainly a less inspired insult, but then again the canonical highest form of comedy in all the Norse cosmos is Loki tying his balls to a goat and giving it an encouraging slap on the ass. It's not the creativity of the insult, it's the impact.

Why is Týr missing a hand then? That's actually an incredibly sad story. Snorri regails us with the tale of how Loki fathered three monstrous children with the jötunn woman Angrboða. While the gods were appalled by these kids and cast two of them into far away realms, the wolf Fenrir was allowed to stay in Asgard. Odin knew of the prophecy that foretold his demise in the jaws of the wolf, though, and grew increasingly paranoid as Fenrir grew bigger and bigger. He couldn't outright kill the pup, though, as spilling blood was forbidden in the realm of the gods. Instead, he devised a trick wherein he would tell Fenrir that he'd bind him in chains to test his strength. The wolf was unphased by this, as indeed he broke every single bind the gods tried to ensnare him in. A magical chain was thus commissioned from the dwarves, made of things which did not exist such as a woman's beard and a cat's footsteps. When the gods presented this fetter to Fenrir, though, he was suspicious about how eager they've been to tie him up. He agreed to be bound in this final chain, but only if Týr would place his hand in the wolf's jaws as assurance they weren't tricking him, as Týr was the only one of the gods who actually formed a friendship with the growing pup. The gods bound Fenrir, and since the wolf was unable to escape, he bit down and severed Týr's hand at the wrist, betrayed by his one and only friend. It seems Týr was not altogether happy with this arrangement himself. In Lokasenna, when Loki insults him over this very story, Týr's only response is a somber and tart "I am lacking a hand, and you Hróðrsvitnis (another name for Fenrir). Suffering is the longing of both of us." Whether or not Týr willingly played along knowing that he'd lose his hand, or if the other gods played him just as much as they played Fenrir, is anyone's guess. Either way, his fate will ultimately be the same as the other gods, being devoured by Hel's hound Garmr at Ragnarök.

Design notes, there doesn't seem to be a lot of contemporary Viking depictions of Týr in the archaeological record, at least not in any obvious capacity. There's a bronze button found in Hornsherred, Denmark, and a bracteate from Trollhättan, Sweden, both depicting Týr getting his hand chomped off. They aren't particularly detailed, though, so instead I turned to more modern depictions, with a few details thrown in from a couple of 18th century Icelandic manuscripts, specifically those produced by Jakob Sigurðsson. For most of his secondary details, I referenced 1911's "Tyr and Fenrir" by John Bauer and 1882's "Tyr the Sword-God" by Carl Emil Doepler. While his beard is taken from the Jakob Sigurðsson manuscripts, I modeled his hair off of a 1895 piece by Lorenz Frølich. I find most modern depictions tend to lean one of two ways with obscure gods from Norse myth like Týr: lumberjack or Conan. Personally, I'm not fond of either of these. They have their pros and cons, but I'm kind of averse to all things hyper masculine, shocking I know. Instead, I wanted his headshot to call attention to his heritage as a cognate with Zeus. He's not identical, but you can see it in his cheekbones and the way his hair curls up like that. This is very much Zeus if Zeus had any semblance of human decency and a sense of regret, and I think it came out quite regal.