Among the Old Gods of German mythology is Ziu (pr. Ts-ee-ew) the Sky God. He's equated with the Norse Týr, the one-handed god. The Sky God Ziu goes back to primordial time. Ziu was a powerful Sky Father figure in the ancient myth and history of Germania. His elemental equal is Nerthe (Erde), the Earth.
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Like Frau Holle (Hulda), Ziu the sky god comes from a pantheon of Old Gods. He goes back to the foggy myths of Creation. The Earth took form as elementals Nerthe (Nerthus, Erde) the Earth Mother and her cosmic peers worked the land into shape.
Ziu created sky and air spirits and later gave fairies and other primordial elemental nature spirits the power of flight. Up until the 19th century, fairies flew by magic and didn't have wings. Early nature spirits were born with the elements and also had creative powers, cultivating their world as the earth slowly cooled like a bubbling cauldron of lava.
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The ancient Ziu was a sky and weather god on a par with the Greek Zeus. He's a God of storms, thunder, lightning and weather phenomena. His name comes from the Proto-Germanic Tīwaz meaning simply "God". In the Lora Ley Fantasy Fiction series Book 1 he's Ziu the Sky Warrior, a double entity who hosts a never-ending feast in his Hall of Ice.
Pre-Christian mythology of Germany is unfortunately sparse. The culture, history and lore of the Germans was an oral tradition. Through stories and epic poems it flowed and grew, but solid written sources are few. Latin class wasn't popular at barbarian school. Rather, the people learned thousands of years of history through the telling of stories.
The earliest written sources of Germanic mythology come from works by Roman writers. Germania of 98 CE by Tacitus was used extensively to reference German culture and mythology, even though Tacitus himself had never been to Germania.
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The earliest runic inscription is Norse, between 50 - 150 CE. Scandinavia was inhabited for thousands of years before by nomadic hunter/gatherers who moved in after the last Ice Age. By the time the Germanic Norse arrived the existing Sami and other people already had a strong nature culture.
As part of the nature-centric belief system, the more southern Germans did not build temples. Tribes of Germania were nomadic, another discouragement to building places of worship. They communed with nature in places of nature. Groves were sacred to all cultures and the became the closest to a place of worship among the barbarian tribes of Germania.
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Even Norse legend gives little time to Týr. Often equated with Roman Mars, he's a god of warriors and mythological heroes, law, justice and assembly. Mars is an agriculture deity as well as a god of war. His symbol is the T-rune or upward pointing arrow ᛏ, representing a spear. A warrior sign, it carries qualities of strength, vigor, courage and wisdom.
The story of Fenrir ripping off the god's right hand is a familiar myth. The Norse gods bound the wolf Fenrir with a promise to let him go again if he couldn't break the chains. Fenrir didn't believe them, for good reason. Týr put his hand in the wolf's jaws as a symbol of faith. Fenrir was right, the gods didn't release him, and Týr lost his hand to the tearing teeth of the wolf.
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In this story Fenrir remains tied up until Ragnarok. Fenrir is also known for chasing the sun (Norse Sól) through the sky every day until he eats her at Ragnarok. It's unclear how he manages this.
Athough he's one of the original Æsir or Old Gods, Týr assumes a minor part in general. It's said the blue cloak of Frigg represents the sky. Odin takes the role of sky god and is also frequently invoked in times of war.
In the German south, the mythology of Ziu fades into the clouds. Some historians tend to lay the Norse prototype broadly across the German gods of ancient history. The Norse hierarchy of gods and complex structural relationships echo those of the Romans and Greeks, but it was a different story in the rest of Germania to the south.
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Despite nomadic lifestyles, tribal differences and lack of written records there is no doubt the German people had a vital spiritual connection to the real things around them, as well as to the stories of other times and places. Until Christianity there was little concept of an afterlife, but strong belief in a spirit world and the realm of the Undead.
In some meanings, the sky god is the sky itself. The German word Himmel is the same for both sky and heaven. To the Proto-Indo-European Anatolians, Tiwaz is the Sun God. His name is cognate with Greek Zeus, Latin Jupiter, and Norse Týr. From his name we get Tuesday, although the name Ziu's (Ts-ee-ew's) day is one of the closest to the modern English pronunciation.
The earliest written Germanic language was created by Bishop Ulfilas in the 4th Century. He used Latin and Greek language structure to write a version of the Bible in Gothic. The first written mention of Ziu comes from Old High German a couple of centuries later. By that time, religion, battle, trade, roving tales, regional influences and constant change had already created the impetus to leave the Old Gods behind and enter a brave new world.