creature
Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr
Tanngrisnir ok Tanngnjóstr
The two he-goats that pull Thor's chariot. He can kill and eat them and raise them again with his hammer, if their bones are left whole.
Thor drives a chariot pulled by two he-goats, and because of it Snorri calls him Öku-Thor, "Driving Thor" Gylfaginning 21. The goats' names appear only in Snorri, as Brodeur's Tooth-Gnasher and Tooth-Gritter; the poems never name them.
They are also food. In the story of Þjálfi and Röskva, Thor kills, skins and cooks the goats for supper, has the bones laid on the hides, and next morning raises them alive with Mjölnir. One limps because a bone had been split for the marrow Gylfaginning 44. Hymiskviða tells the same incident in two lines and blames Loki instead Hymiskviða 38.
In the poems the goats bring the storm with them. When Thor sets out for Þrymr's hall, "the mountains burst, earth burned with fire" Þrymskviða 21, and a skaldic poem quoted by Snorri has the earth beaten with hail as the goats draw him to fight Hrungnir Skáldskaparmál 17. Many readers see thunder in the noise of the chariot; the texts imply it rather than say it.
In the sources
Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.
Thor has two he-goats, that are called Tooth-Gnasher and Tooth-Gritter, and a chariot wherein he drives
took the hammer Mjöllnir, swung it up, and hallowed the goat-hides; straightway the he-goats rose up, and then one of them was lame in a hind leg
Then home the goats to the hall were driven, They wrenched at the halters, swift were they to run; The mountains burst, earth burned with fire
