To describe Thunor as concisely as possible, first I have to explain his very long and complicated history. While Thunor, also known in modern English as Thor, seems to be a fairly simple and straight-forward god, often being depicted as a brutish barbarian. He is actually one of the oldest gods on earth, possibly the oldest of any we can find evidence of. We can find many correlations with him to other European deities such as Jupiter, Zeus, and Perun. We can also find evidence of his equivalent in ancient Vedic cultures in the form of Indra. What most people don't realize is that his cult goes far, far beyond even this.
We can find similar deities honored in North America, known as Thunderbirds. This is particularly prevalent among the northern, and western tribes. This is evidence of it actually originating in Siberia, and as the people moved into increasingly different environments their mythology slowly shifted as well. The oldest Native Americans however, believed in a race of Thunderbirds with attributes very similar to the European thunderer. A spirit of the wild storm, an angry and vengeful god of justice and enforcer of divine will upon the earth.
How could these Native Americans have come to know a god so similar to Europeans? Because the history of this god begins at least 130,000 years ago in the Altai Mountains. There is evidence of an eagle religion here in existence tens of thousands of years before humans even came to live in this region. Altai, whose name means golden, was home to Neanderthals as were the eagles they captured.
The eagles must have been revered by the ancient Neanderthals, much as they are today by animistic people. The golden eagle is known to even have taken Neanderthal children in this region, so they must have had a great fear and respect for these enormous raptors and sought to harness it for their own hunts. Modern cultures often revere the eagle as a bringer of order from the heavens. The eagle hunts snakes, biting off their head. This was seen as a microcosm for much greater cosmic battles, between much larger forces of an ordered heaven descending down upon the earth to allow life to exist, by opposing the chaotic and predatory forces of the serpent which worked to destroy it. The eagle was often associated with the thunderer in European lore as well. A symbol for Jupiter, and Perun was himself often portrayed in an eagle form. For tens of thousands of years, people looked into a flame, and eagles. The two primary tools of their survival against the elements meaning to destroy them. One could imagine that the Neanderthals felt that they could speak with the eagles, as this is common among animists.
This combination of eagle, and fire, is reflected all the way into the Rig Veda. The first religious text ever written, and the first example of a religion we have evidence of. The primary gods in the Rig Veda are Indra, the thunderer, and Agni, whose name means fire. These two Vedic gods were brothers and sung about far more than any other gods in the text. We know humans did not reach the Altai Mountains until at least 100,000 years ago. The Rig Vedas being written probably around 3,500 years ago. What happened between all of this time, I can only speculate. I can say that the Neanderthals certainly showed signs of religion, ritually burying their dead. They would not have done this had they not believed in spirits. We also have evidence of them removing the feathers and talons of eagles. This was probably done for similar reasons as modern Native American animists, which are the only people still legally allowed to do this to eagles in the US today due to their religion. The eagles are considered emissaries of heaven to them. Just as the Romans put the eagle on their flag as a symbol of Jupiter. The eagle is always found between man and gods.
Although there is little direct evidence tying Indra, or Thunor, to an ancient eagle cult. We know that the closest gods to them in the Italic, Baltic, and Slavic regions, as well as their direct heirs into Siberia and the Northwestern Americas, did hold this direct association between the eagle and the thunderer. The earliest point geographically and chronologically that we can place such a cult emerging, would have to be in northern Asia very far back. To me, it makes the most sense that the warrior of heaven in an epic battle with an evil water serpent, is best reflected in the physical world in the fight between eagle and snake. This is quite possibly the oldest myth in history, with variants existing from the Americas, India, China, Russia, Nordic, all the way into ancient Mesopotamia with Marduk against Tiamat. From here we can find many interesting parallels with Thunor.
For now I will leave it at this. The first gods we know of that humans recognized came in the form of a thunder eagle, and fire. They were the only respite for an unimaginably harsh world. They warmed bodies and protected men who had been exhausted battling monsters that once freely roamed the earth. Many men must have watched the fire eat away at wood to heat their food, and looked at the feathers of eagles and seen an ancient spirit at least equal to a man. A spirit connected to something larger, and more powerful than man. These eagles that used to hunt both predators such as snakes and wolves, as well as prey, may well have been revered as manifestations of heaven that had been sent to save the Altai Neanderthals for as far back as they could remember by the time humans arrived and interbred with them. To these people, all the deeper mysteries of the skies, from its storms to its stars, could be gleamed from these eagles that flew above them.
