Týr (Anglo-Saxon Tīw, whence Tuesday) was the original sky-and-war god of the Germanic peoples — his name is etymologically the same as Greek Zeus and Latin Jupiter, both descended from the Indo-European *Dyeus, the Sky-Father — but in the Eddic tradition he had been displaced from supremacy by Odin, and survived as a more specialized god of single combat, of legal proceedings, and of the binding of oaths. His most famous deed was the binding of the wolf Fenrir. The wolf, son of Loki, had been growing dangerously large among the gods, and they resolved to bind him; they made three chains in succession (the first two of which Fenrir broke), and at last had the dwarves forge a magical chain Gleipnir, made from impossible things (the noise of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, the spittle of a bird). Fenrir, suspicious, would only consent to be tested with the chain if one of the gods would put a hand in his mouth as pledge of good faith. Týr alone consented. The chain held; the gods laughed; and Fenrir bit off Týr's hand. Týr thereafter was one-handed, the god of those who had given a hand for the binding of dangerous things — by extension, the god of those who keep faith at cost.

He had little extended mythology beyond this episode; the older Indo-European Sky-Father whose place he had once held was largely transferred to Odin. At Ragnarök, Týr will fight the great hellhound Garmr, and the two will kill each other.