Tharapita

Taara (variations of the name include Tooru, Tharapita and Tarapitha) is a god in Estonian mythology. It is the local derivative of the Germanic god Thor.

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia mentions Tharapita as the superior god of Oeselians (inhabitants of Saaremaa island), also well known to Vironian tribes in northern Estonia. According to the chronicle, when the crusaders invaded Vironia in 1220, there was a beautiful wooded hill in Vironia, where locals believe Oeselian god Tharapita was born and from which he flew to Saaremaa. The hill is believed to be the Ebavere Hill (Ebavere mägi) in modern Lääne-Viru County.

Livonian place name Thoreyda, Thoreida (English Treiden) attested in the Chronicle of Livonia is interpreted as the garden of Taara – Thor ‘Taara’ + *aida ‘garden’. If this interpretation is true, the theonym Taara was also known in Livonian.

The name Tharapita has been interpreted as "Taara, help!" (Taara, a(v)ita! in Estonian) and "Taara's thunderbolt" (Taara pikne).

Tharapita also inspired an Estonian neopagan movement, known as taaralased or taarausulised. In the middle of the 19th century, Taara became popular in the national movement, as an anti-German and anti-Lutheran symbol, and creators of Estonian pseudomythology made Taara the supreme god of the Estonian pantheon. From that period, Estonia's second-biggest city Tartu was poetically called Taaralinn ("city of Taara").

Taara was known by the Tavastian tribe of Finland. At an old cult place now known as Laurin Lähde (Lauri's Fountain) in the county of Janakkala, Tavastians worshipped Taara there as late as the 18th century and the church had to close the place.

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