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Read a short story back in maybe the seventies or eighties where a time traveler served as inspiration for the legend of Thor. Seems that he shot someone with his gun and since it never left his hand the natives thought that he struck someone at a distance and it returned to him. He had, upon his return, the word "Mjolnir" inscribed on the gun. That is literally the only detail about the story that I remember.

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  • Pretty sure this was a story by Randall Garrett. Let me do a little digging.
    – user888379
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 0:05

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This has been asked and answered here before. The story is called "Frost and Thunder" and was indeed written by Randall Garrett.

I think I know what happened. I remember hearing Hrotokar in the background saying: "His hammer smashed them! Killed them! And then came back to his hand!"

I can see how that illusion could come about. I hold the hammer in my hand and there is a thunderbolt and the foe falls dead—his head smashed in. And then the hammer is back in my hand. Sure.

Those folk had already shortened my name from "Teydor" to "Tey'or"; why not one syllable further?

....

My weapon has a name now, as Sten suggested. I looked up a man who knows Norse runes, and I had another man engrave those runes on my pistol, on the right, just above the trigger.

The engraving says: Mjolnir.

Yah.

The original.

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    If it has been asked and answered, then why have you answered it again? Instead of just marking it as a duplicate, which is the correct way to handle this.
    – JK.
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 2:22
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    @JK: We can't mark it as a duplicate unless it's accepted as an answer or in the comments. It's part of our policy for story-identification. And it's generally considered good form to provide a good and complete answer (which admittedly, this one falls a bit short on) because comments are not searchable.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 4:07
  • @FuzzyBoots Thanks for the improvements to my answer!
    – user888379
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 15:21
  • I did little more than copy bits from the other answer. :) But indeed, it is good form to provide confirmation that it is the right answer, whether it's quotes from the work, quotes from summaries, or your own summary.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 15:48
  • Thank you. Read that in "The Best of Randall Garrett". Still have a copy.
    – Emsley Wyatt
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 18:54

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