Odin
"Odin is thought of as an old, tall, one-eyed man with a long beard, broad hat, and an ample blue or parti-colored cloak. On his arm he wears the ring…
From: Unknown To: 1913 C.E.
Location: Scandinavia
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Odin,” from A Handbook of Norse Mythology by Karl Mortensen, 1913.
Worship of Odin
Together with Tyr and Thor as well as the goddess Frija ('the beloved,' Mother Earth), Odin is a common Germanic divinity, and this can be proved also by philology. Tyr's original significance as the ancient god of heaven is, in the North, completely obscured; the sources relate nothing particular about him beyond that which is stated in the foregoing. Odin's name signifies "the one blowing," and the relation here is quite the same as in the case of Thor; a single side of the god of heaven is thought of as a person and an independent divinity. Odin's worship is, as we have already remarked, somewhat young in the Northern lands; but since it permeates all Norse-Icelandic poetry, we must now look a little more closely at Odin's divinity and the myths which are attached to him.
Odin's Appearance and Surroundings
Odin is thought of as an old, tall, one-eyed man with a long beard, broad hat, and an ample blue or parti-colored cloak. On his arm he wears the ring Draupnir, on his shoulders sit the ravens Huginn and Muninn, 'Thought' and 'Memory,' and at his feet lie the two wolves, Geri and Freki, 'Greedy' and 'Eager.' Ordinarily he is armed with the spear Gungnir, and rides upon Sleipnir (he has many other horses, among them the war-horse Blothoghofi), and he often travels as a wanderer around the world with staff in hand.
Odin's Names. If we sum up all of Odin's names in poetry, we have more than two hundred; the most of them signify one or another characteristic of the god: All-father, the Blustering, the Changeable, the Stormer, the Wanderer, the Traveler, the Gray-bearded, the Bushy-browed, the Helmet-bearer, the Great Hat, Valfathir, ‘Father of the Slain,’ Herfathir, 'Father of Armies,' King of Victory, King of Spears, the Terrifier, God of Burdens, Fimbultyr ('Mighty God'), God of the Hanged, and Lord of Spirits (i.e. ghosts). From these examples alone it will appear that Norwegian-Icelandic poetry represents Odin as the world's chief divinity. But the clearest picture of him is that of God of Wisdom and the Art of Poetry, and in theories about Valhalla, as God of War.
Odin, God of Wisdom
First of all Odin acquired his wisdom by personal investigation: he traveled through all countries and had wide experience. But in other ways also he gained information, for the ravens fly every morning out over all the world and bring tidings back with them, and in heaven there is besides his castle Valaskjalf or Valhalla also a place Hlithskjalf, a castle or simply a high seat, from which Odin can look out over the whole world. We have already heard what sacrifice Odin was obliged to make in order to increase his knowledge at the time when he had to pledge one of his eyes to obtain a drink from Mimir's well of wisdom.
Vafthruthnir
In the Eddic Songs about Vafthruthnir, Odin is described as the most prominent God of Wisdom. Odin is speaking with Frigg; he has a desire to visit the wise giant Vafthruthnir, to test his sagacity. Frigg advises him to remain at home, but Odin answers:
I have journeyed much, attempted much, I have tested oft the powers; this I wish to know how Vafthruthnir's household may be.
He departs, accompanied by Frigg's best wishes, and comes to the giant's hall, where, under the name of Wanderer, he challenges the latter to a contest of wisdom. First of all Odin, standing, answers the giant's question about the steeds of day and night, the boundary river Ifing between the countries of gods and giants, and the plain Vigrith. Then quoth Vafthruthnir:
Wise now thou art, oh guest, pass to the giant's bench and let us talk on the seat together! Wager our heads shall we two in the hall, oh guest, upon our wisdom.
After that the song rehearses a number of the main points of the belief in the gods in questions on Odin's part; but the giant never hesitates about an answer, until the god asks him, "What did Odin say in Baldur's ear before he was borne upon the pyre?" Then Vafthruthnir understands with whom he has engaged in contest.
No man knows this. what thou in early days didst say in thy son's ear: With fated lips I uttered ancient lore and of the downfall of the gods.
Grimnir
There was once a king by name Hrauthung, who had two sons, Agnar and Geirroth, of whom the first was ten, the second eight winters old. These two rowed out with a boat to fish, but the wind drove them off over the sea, and in the darkness of the night they were stranded upon a foreign shore. Here a man and woman met them and cared for them during the winter. The peasant (the man) took charge of Geirroth and gave him good counsel, while his wife preferred Agnar. In the spring they went away in a boat, but the peasant whispered something first to his foster-son.
When the boys came to their father's anchoring ground, Geirroth sprang quickly ashore, thrust the boat out again, and called out to his brother, “To the Trolls with thee!” after which the boat again drove out upon the sea, while Geirroth went up to the royal castle and later became an illustrious prince. The foster-parents were, however, not poor people, but Odin and Frigg. Now, as they were sitting one time in Hlithskjalf, Odin taunted his wife on account of Agnar and his fortune, to which she answered that Geirroth was, to be sure, a king, but he was so niggardly about food that he tormented his guests in case too many came.
Odin declared this to be untrue, as indeed it was, wagered upon his opinion, and set out in order to inquire into the matter for himself. But Frigg sent her maid to King Geirroth and warned him against a man versed in magic who was to come to his court and who could be known by this, that dogs did not dare to bite him. Soon afterward a man eame in a blue cloak, and called himself Grimnir, "The Masked"; the dogs shrank back before him, wagging their tails, upon which the king gave orders to seize him and place him between two pyres so as to force him to say who he was.
There he sat eight nights. Then the king's ten-year-old son Agnar had pity on him and brought him a filled horn to drink. Grimnir drained it, while his cloak caught fire, after which he began to speak. Thus it is told in the prose introduction to the Sayings of Grimnir. The poem itself contains a number of disconnected names and myths, of which we shall quote a single one.
Saga
Odin is enumerating the dwellings of the gods. Here he says among other things:
Sokkvabekk the fourth is called, and there do cool waves go rushing over; there Odin and Saga, drink every day, cheerful from golden cups.
This Saga has been understood as a kind of Muse of History, since the name has been associated with the well-known words, "a saga." Philologists, however, have pointed out that this conception cannot be correct. Sokkvabekk should really be rendered 'Sinking Bench,' and Saga is doubtless a name for Frigg, according to which the myth is an allusion to the sunset, a poetic expression for the sun-god's meeting with Frigg, when the sun every day sinks below the horizon westward into the sea,
Frija, Frea in the Norse language, grew into Frigg, one of the few Germanic female divinities that can be pointed out. Originally she was married to the god of heaven Tiwar, but when Odin supplanted him he came into possession of his maid and his wife. Furthermore, in Norse mythology, she is readily confused with Freyja, for which reason it is difficult to determine which myth concerns the one or the other.
It is most likely that Freyja, 'the Ruling One,' was only an epithet of the queen of heaven and was later made into a new divine being. Of the other names of the queen of the gods can be mentioned Jorth, Fjorgyn, Hlothyn. Friday means originally Frigg's day, just as the constellation Orion was first called Frigg's, but later Freyja's, Spinning-wheel.
Gefjon
Probably Gefjon also is originally from one of Frigg's names. In the Eddic Song Lokasenna (the Loki Quarrel), Odin says that Gefjon knows the destiny of the world as well as he himself.
Far better known, however, is Snorri's account of Gefjon and Gylfi. King Gylfi in Sweden gave her as much land as she could plow about in one day with four oxen. She brought her four giant sons and transformed them into plow oxen, but this team plowed so deep that the land was loosened, whereupon the oxen drew it out westward into the sea. It is now called Zealand, and the headlands correspond to the inlets of the sea which remained behind in Sweden, where the land had been.
The Mead of the Scalds
The myth about Odin acquiring the Mead of the Scalds has, briefly, the following content: Scaldship (poetry) is represented as an inspiring drink; he who partakes of it is a Scald. It was kept at the home of the giants, where Gunnloth guarded it. Odin makes his way through all hindrances, gains Gunnloth's affection, and gets permission to enjoy the drink. He then carries it up to the upper world and gives it to men.
In the oldest and purest form the myth appears in the Eddic poem, Havamal: "The man must be gifted in speech who wishes to know much and to attain anything in the world. This I (i.e. Odin) proved at the home of the giants; it was not by keeping silent that I made progress in Suttung's hall. I allowed the auger's mouth to break me a path between the gray stones. The giants were going both over and under, so it was by no means without danger."
Gunnloth gave me on the golden seat a drink of the precious mead; I'll return I later let her have (for her faithful heart) for her troubled mind.
Her well-gained beauty have I much enjoyed, little is lacking to the wise; since Othrerir is now come up to verge of men's abode.
Doubt is in me if I had come again out of the giant's court, if of Gunnloth I had had no joy, that goodly maid who laid her arm about me.
The day thereafter the frost-giants went (to ask of Har's condition) into the hall of Har; for Bolverk they inquired if he to the gods had come or had Suttung him destroyed?
A ring-oath, Odin, I think, has sworn: who shall trust his good faith? to Suttung deceived he forbade the drink and he made Gunnloth weep.
Snorri's account embraces the following essential points:
After the truce between the Aesir and the Vanir, each of them spat into a vessel, and from this fluid they made, as a token of peace, the man Kvasir, who was very wise. Kvasir was slain by two giants, Fjalar and Galar, who caught his blood in the kettle Othrerir and two vessels. The blood they mixed with honey, and from this arose the mead of the Scalds.
The two giants now invited another giant, Gilling, and his wife to come to them. Gilling was drowned while on a sailing party, and when his wife grieved about it they slew her. The son, Suttung, wanted to take vengeance for his parents, but agreed to accept the mead of the Scalds as compensation, and set his daughter, Gunnloth, to guard it within the mountain.
When Odin set out to gain the mead he came first to a field where nine slaves were mowing grass; these were Baugi's, Suttung 's brother's men. Odin offered to whet their scythes, and the whetstone was so excellent that they all wanted to buy it. The god then cast it up into the air, but all were so eager to grasp it that they killed each other in the attempt. After that Odin, who called himself Bolverk, proposed to Baugi that he carry on the work of the slaves with this as reward, that he receive a draught of Suttung's mead. To this Baugi agreed.
When the time for work was at an end Suttung, however, refused to fulfill his brother's promise, but Bolverk thus took advantage of the fraud: he gave Baugi an auger and made him bore into the mountain where the drink was hidden. It was not long before Baugi declared that the hole was through; but when Bolverk blew, he got chips in his face, and the crafty Baugi had to bore again until the chips flew inward. Now Bolverk proceeded into the mountain in the form of a serpent, won Gunnloth's love, and received the promise of a drink of the mead for each of the three nights he was there. He drained then in three draughts both the kettle and the vessels and flew in an eagle's form toward Asgarth.
Suttung discovered this and pursued him, likewise in eagle's form. When they drew near to Asgarth the gods set out their vessel so that Odin might spit out the mead into it, but the giant was close upon him and some of the mead then went the wrong way; this, which the gods did not collect, became the portion of the rhymsters and the poor Scalds.
REMARK. Othrerir was perhaps at first the name for the mead of the Scalds itself.
Runes
The old world "run" signifies mystery, secrecy. It was not long before the runes themselves at first certain of them, later all of them were interpreted as magic signs, and faith in the mighty runes has long been maintained in popular belief and in poetry. No wonder, then, that the discovery of runes was ascribed to Odin himself. This is distinctly told in several Eddic songs, but the real meaning is difficult to discover.
Odin is then also the god of all sorcery, wherefore he is called galdrs fathur, 'Father of Magic Song,' and by the later Christian church in the North was regarded as the worst of the evil beings whom the heathen worshiped.
In the “Heimskringla” an account is given of how Odin, as an old one-eyed man, with his broad hat, came to King Olaf Tryggvason when the latter was at a feast at court. He talked long and shrewdly with the king and was surprisingly well acquainted with old traditions, with which he entertained the king even after the latter had gone to bed. At his departure he gave the steward fat horse-shoulders to roast for the king. In due time, however, the old man's deception was discovered.
Odin as God of Battle
As god of war and battle Odin enters into the life of men. War is his work; he arouses it. He incites kings and earls against each other. The warriors are driven by a higher spirit. This he fosters by teaching his favorites new means of conquering, and he himself mingles in the battle to help them or bring them to himself (Harald Hildetann). All those who die in arms belong to him. He gathers only nobles about him, so that there can still be heroes when the last great battle is at hand."
Of Valhalla, the Valkyrs and Einherjar an account has already been given.
Mortensen, Karl. A Handbook of Norse Mythology. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1913.
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