Mjolnir Hand Forged Stainless Steel Viking Hammer | 17.71 Inch Overall and 11.24 lb Weight | Thor Norse Mythology Collector and Display Gift | RK-625

This is the largest hammer in the range and it is not subtle. The Mjolnir stands 17.71 inches overall with a stainless head measuring 8.66 by 5.51 by 5.51 inches, and the finished piece weighs 11.24 pounds. That is a little over five kilograms of hammer. It is built as a display and collector object, the sort of thing that sits on a mantel, a bar top or a plinth in a study, and it has the presence to hold a room on its own. What the hammer meant to the people who wore it is covered in the meaning of Thor’s hammer.

The proportions are the interesting part, because they are historically wrong in exactly the way the myth says they should be. Norse hammer pendants are famously stubby, with a short handle and a heavy squared head, and for a long time people assumed that was a limitation of casting small jewellery. Snorri gives a better answer in Skaldskaparmal. When the dwarfs Brokkr and Eitri forged Mjolnir for Thor, Loki turned himself into a fly and bit Brokkr on the eyelid so that he stopped pumping the bellows for a moment. The heat dropped, and the hammer came out of the fire with a handle that was slightly too short. Every surviving pendant repeats that same short handled shape. Whether the story explains the object or the object generated the story, the two match.

Each Mjolnir is dressed, assembled, polished and finished in a Czech Republic workshop, then packed for shipping with the head protected. Shipping inside the United States is free, processing takes one to two weeks, and returns are accepted within seven days.

Specifications

Thrymskvida, and how Thor got the hammer back

If you want one Norse poem to understand why this object mattered, take Thrymskvida from the Poetic Edda. Thor wakes to find Mjolnir gone. The giant Thrym has buried it eight leagues deep in the earth and will only return it in exchange for Freyja as a bride. Freyja refuses so violently that the necklace Brisingamen breaks off her neck, and the gods settle on a different plan. Thor is dressed in the bridal linen himself, veiled, with Loki as the maid, and carried into Thrym hall.

The comedy of the poem, a bearded thunder god eating an entire ox and drinking three casks of mead behind a veil while Loki explains that the bride has simply not slept for eight nights, is not the point. The point is the ending. Thrym calls for the hammer to be brought out and laid in the bride lap to hallow the marriage, and the moment it touches him Thor takes it up and kills everyone in the hall. Mjolnir was used to sanctify a wedding. It appears in the poem as a ritual object first and a hammer second, and that is the clearest single statement in the whole corpus about what the hammer was for.

The other properties are worth knowing. Mjolnir always struck what it was aimed at, never failed to return to Thor hand, and could be shrunk small enough to carry inside his shirt. Thor needed iron gauntlets to hold it and a belt of strength to lift it, which is a detail this eleven pound piece will make you sympathise with.

Why stainless steel makes sense on this one

Most of what we carry is plain carbon steel or pattern welded Damascus, and on a working blade that is the right answer. This piece is the honest exception. Stainless is used here and it is the correct material for the job, for one straightforward reason. A display object is handled by every person who walks past it and then left standing for months at a time. Fingerprints on carbon steel etch in as rust within days in a humid room. Stainless simply does not do that.

The chromium content in stainless forms a passive oxide layer that reforms itself whenever it is scratched, which is what gives it its corrosion resistance. The cost of that chromium is that stainless is harder to forge cleanly, more difficult to bring to a fine edge, and less tough in heavy section than a simple carbon steel. On a knife those costs are real and we would not accept them. On a hammer that will never be sharpened and never be struck, they cost you nothing at all, and you keep the bright finish with no oiling routine whatsoever. The comparison in full is in Damascus versus stainless.

Material, construction and finish

The head is cast in stainless rather than drawn out under a hammer, which is the only sane way to produce a mass of this size and shape in this material with the detail intact. Casting is what gives you the crisp squared cheeks, the defined collar and the raised decoration on the faces. What casting does not give you is a finished object. Every head that comes out of the mould is dressed by hand here, the gates and flash are cut back, the faces are trued, the surfaces are worked through abrasives and the piece is polished to its final finish before it is assembled to the shaft.

That hand finishing stage is where the variation comes from, and it is also why two of these placed side by side will differ slightly in the depth of the polish and the exact sharpness of the edges on the cheeks. At 11.24 pounds it needs a stable base. Set it on a mantel with the head fully supported rather than overhanging, and if you wall mount it, mount into a stud or a proper anchor rather than plasterboard alone.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. That last point matters most on this piece, because the head already carries raised decoration, and a chosen engraving is cut in place of it rather than crowded in next to it. The flat faces and the shaft both take a rune line cleanly. Options are set out on the engraving page.

Care and upkeep

There is almost nothing to do. Wipe the stainless with a dry or barely damp cloth when it gathers dust, and use a soft cloth rather than a scouring pad so you do not dull the polish. Fingerprints come off with a little glass cleaner or a microfibre cloth. It does not need oiling and it will not rust in a normal room. If you want the general steel maintenance reference for the rest of the range, it is in steel care.

This hammer has no cutting edge and there is nothing on it to sharpen. If you own blades from the range as well, the whetstone technique for those is written up in sharpening with a whetstone. For the hammer, the only real risk is dropping it, so lift it with both hands and keep it away from tiled floors.

Made in the Czech Republic

The work behind this piece happens in a Czech Republic workshop that has kept to the old methods. Steel is forged and heat treated by hand, the grind is taken down by eye rather than by machine, and the handle, fittings and sheath are cut and finished one at a time. Because of that, every piece carries small marks of the hand that made it.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import direct, check each piece when it reaches us, and ship from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Engraving is added here in the United States after arrival, so the piece you receive is finished to your order.

A note on handmade variation

This piece is finished by hand rather than machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The depth of the polish, the exact tone of the surface, the crispness of the decoration and small differences in the dressing of the cheeks all vary from one to the next because each is worked by hand. The dimensions, the weight, the steel and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

How heavy is this in practice?

It is 11.24 pounds, a little over five kilograms. That is heavy enough that most people lift it with two hands and that it needs a stable, fully supported surface rather than a narrow shelf.

Is there an edge on it?

No. It is a hammer. There is no cutting edge on any face and nothing on it needs sharpening at any point in its life.

Will it rust if I keep it in a garage or a damp room?

Stainless is very forgiving about damp, which is a large part of why it was chosen here. A wipe now and then is all it asks for, and it does not need the oiling routine that a carbon steel piece would.

Can it be wall mounted?

It can, but treat the weight seriously. Fix into a stud or use a rated heavy duty anchor. Plasterboard plugs alone are not enough for eleven pounds of steel.

The head already has a design on it. What happens if I order engraving?

Your chosen engraving replaces the existing design in that area rather than sitting beside it. Tell us at checkout which face you want it on and we will lay it out before cutting.

How is something this heavy shipped?

It is boxed with the head protected and packed for the weight, and shipping inside the United States is free. Processing runs one to two weeks before it goes out.

What is in the box

• One Mjolnir stainless steel Viking hammer, 17.71 inches overall
• Protective packaging
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

Related collections: Viking Hammers, Viking Shields, Viking Helmet and Damascus Steel Jewelry. The Norse background sits in the guides.