The Red Beard of the Aryan Thunder God

The Thunder Gods of the Aryan peoples are usually portrayed as sporting long and often red beards. As Jacob Grimm states in his Teutonic Mythology Volume 1:

"The German thundergod was no doubt represented, like Zeus and Jupiter, with a long beard. A Danish rhyme still calls him 'Thor med sit lange skiag' (F. Magnusen's lex. 957). But the ON. sagas everywhere define him more narrowly as red-bearded, of course in allusion to the fiery phenomenon of lightning: when the god is angry, he blows in his red beard, and thunder peals through the clouds. In the Fornm. sog. 2, 182 and 10, 329 he is a tall, handsome, red-bearded youth: Mikill vexti (in growth), ok ungligr, fridr synum (fair to see), ok raudskeggjadr; in 5, 249 madr raudskeggjadr. Men in distress invoked his red beard: Landsmenn toko that rad (adopted the plan) at heita thetta hit rauda skegg, 2, 183. When in wrath he shakes his beard: Reidr var tha, skeg nam at hrista, scor nam at dyja (wroth was he then, beard he took to bristling, hair to tossing), Saem. 70."

Grimm goes on to state:

"This red beard of the thunderer is still remembered in curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connexion with the Norse ideas: 'diis ruadhiiret donner regiir!' (let red-haired thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Frisians. And when the Icelanders call a fox holtathorr, Thorr of the holt, it is probably in allusion to his red fur."

Walter Keating Kelly in his Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore states:

"Indra's beard was golden; Agni is invoked in the Vedas as the god with the golden beard and golden teeth. Fire and the 'red gold' are associated ideas in all Indo-European languages. Thor's beard was red, and it thundered and lightened when he blew in it. His hair too was red, and that such hair and beards were much admired when he was there to set the fashion, may be inferred not only from general considerations, but more particularly from the extreme aversion which was conceived for them when Christianity came in. Rother-bart, Teufelsart, 'Redbeard, devil-steered,' is a German proverb; and the more to insult the memory of the fallen god, it was fabled that he and the vilest of men, the arch traitor Judas, had hair and beards of the same colour." 

The Thunder Gods of the Balts and Slavs likewise sported red beards. It is for this very reason that beards went out of fashion in the post-conversion period and were (and to a certain extent still are) associated with heathenism. Anti-beard prejudice is still a factor today and most people who are prejudiced against beards do not consciously understand why. It is an unconscious prejudice brought about through centuries of Christian conditioning. As a mark of respect and reverence to Thunor, one of the primary deities who I feel a strong personal attachment to I wear a bead and wear it long. It is not only a statement of our Germanic heathen faith but a rejection of the superficial and anti-traditional mores of the herd. It also has the added psychological factor of invoking a certain degree of fear and respect in one's enemies. Scientific studies will of course tell you that beards are disliked (real beards that is) by women but this is of little consequence as the women of the herd are part of the prostituted and race-less and culture-less masses. They form no part of the nation of Woden. I notice that in recent years other folkish heathens have also started to grow beards and often also grow their hair long in the tradition of our ancestors.