Note 305.43 — PART VII. Names from the Slavonic. (continued 2)

In Northern mythology Tyr is another son of Odin, and god of strength and victory. When, in the great fight with the powers of evil, the terrible Fenris, the wolf of the abyss, was to be bound with a fetter, slender, but which no power could break, he was only induced to stand still by Tyr’s volunteering to put his right hand into the monster’s mouth, as a pledge of the good faith of Asgard. Finding himself chained, the wolf at once closed his jaws, and bit off Tyr’s hand; nevertheless, the Runic letter Λ (thorn, the sound of dh), 306which was left-handed, like the god, and therefore his sign, was esteemed the mark of truth and treaties.