“Blood and Thunder” is a minced oath used as a curse or expression of surprise, with origins in avoiding using God’s name as a dirty word. It appears in literary works and has been used as a title in popular culture. The phrase may have originated from a pre-Christian oath to the God of Thunder.
“Blood and Thunder” is an oath and a sentence. It is used as a curse and as an expression of surprise. While not necessarily religious in origin, it was used to avoid pronouncing God’s name as a dirty word. This type of circumvention is called a “minced oath.” The saying led to a spoon in America called “thud and blunder,” an article title about blunders.
The phrase appears in a number of literary works including poems, novels and plays. Lord Byron’s poem “Don Juan” has a line that reads: ‘Oh blood and thunder! And oh blood and wounds! These are but vulgar oaths.’ Tobias Smollet’s 1751 book The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle also contains the phrase. Such was its use during the 19th century that it spawned a string of bloody, gory pennies, or a dime-a-dozen novels.
Chopped oaths are a kind of understatement. One or more words are removed and replaced with less repugnant alternatives. These alternatives are often related in form or sound to the original. In this way, “God damn” becomes “Gordon Bennett”. Such phrases are non-literal idioms and are widely understood within their language or culture, but are difficult for new language learners to navigate.
The blood of “blood and thunder” can be traced back to an older swear word: “bloody.” Still used in Britain as a means of exaggerating an adjective, its origin is disputed. Some believe it is a contraction of “from our lady,” meaning the Virgin Mary. Others believe it comes from the reign of Queen Mary of England, who was known as “Bloody Mary” due to her anti-Protestant purges.
In 1914, George Bernard Shaw included the word in his play “Pygmalion.” In it, a character exclaims ‘Walk! Not bloody likely!’ The exclamation caused a sensation in those more sober times. That’s because “bloody” started out as a harmless term but acquired a cruder meaning in the late 1700s.
“Blood and thunder” might be a modern minced oath, but it could be about an old pre-Christian oath. Thunder is represented as an elemental deity in a number of religions. This includes Anglo-Nordic paganism. The word thunder itself comes from Thunor, the English version of Thor. With blood oaths and blood sacrifices, “blood and thunder” may have originated from a blood oath to the God of Thunder.
In addition to appearing as a line or phrase in a number of literary works, “blood and thunder” has also been used as a title for other forms of popular culture. In the 1990s, Norwegian musician Mortiis released a two-track EP of the same name. The phrase was also featured in the title of a song on the 2004 concept album “Leviathan” by the band Mastodon. It was also used as the title of a short-lived comic book series published by Games Workshop and was set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
