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| THE
NORSE PANTHEON: ÓÐINN | |
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NAME |
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| iThe
noun results from adding a nasal suffix to an adjective, *watós,
"raving, possessed." It is attested to in adjectival form in Gothic
woths and Old Norse óðr (which as a noun can mean "poetry"),
in the German noun Wut, "possession, fury," and in the archaic
English wood, "mad." (It is also cognate to the Old Irish faith,
"ecstatic bard.") On the one hand, his name connects him with the furor
of the Germanic warrior cults such as the berserkir
or úlfheðnir ("wolf-pelts"). On the other hand, Óðinn
never displays the warrior's fury but does practice magic, so his "possession"
is that of the shaman's trance. Tacitus equated him with Mercury (in his role
of psychopompos),
indicating his nature as a journeyer to the otherworld. | |
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APPEARANCE |
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| In
the literature, at least, Óðinn is regularly portrayed as a gray-beared
man in a long cloak. He frequently wears the broad-brimmed slouch hat of the traveller.
Both cloak and hat are often described as blá, a term that
can designate colors from blue to black. Óðinn is missing one eye,
as he gave it up for increased knowledge. | |
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FOLLOWERS
AND WORSHIP | | |
| Devotees
of Óðinn tended to be members of the bands following a war leader,
that is, members of the warrior cults such as the berserkir
and the úlfheðnir. Typically of Germanic worship, his sacred
sites were more often lakes or groves than a temple. The majority of human sacrifice
seems to have been to him. | |
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MAGIC |
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| Óðinn
practices shape-changing, which falls under a general magic known as gáldr,
but more significantly he practices the divinatory, shamanistic magic known as
seiðr. This practice leaves him open to accusations of androgyny
and even outright effeminacy, as seiðr was said to be practiced
only by women. (It has been suggested that practitioners actually were males dressed
as women, another example of the ambiguous and paradoxical nature of liminal
phenomena.) One of Óðin's central myths involves his self-sacrifice
on Yggdrasill.
He hangs on the tree for nine nights and wounds himself, an offering of "myself
to myself," as he says. His reward is a draft of mead -- creative insight.
The myth is a functional
"charter" in that it justifies the hanging and stabbing of his sacrificial
victims, and is also an etiology
for his great knowledge. | |
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DEATH |
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| Óðin's
shamanistic journies are often to the land of the dead, a trip he makes on his
eight-legged horse, Sleipnir.
In other instances he is a necromancer. Óðinn is also the leader of
the Wild Hunt, a pack of spirits that careens madly across the night sky, often
marking an ill fate for those who see or hear them. Finally, he is the leader
and host of the einherjar, the "select warriors" marked
for death and brought by the válkyrja
("choosers of the slain") to Válhøllr
("the hall of the slain"). | |
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BATTLE |
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| Óðin's
companions are a pair of wolves, Fréki and Géri ("Ravenous"
and "Greedy"), and two ravens, Huginn and Muninn ("Thought"
and "Memory"). The Anglo-Saxons called these two scavenger animals the
"beasts of battle," the animals that benefit no matter who wins. Also,
Óðinn had the knowledge and power to bind warriors -- cause them to
freeze inconveniently with fatal results. Not only did he control individual deaths;
by casting his spear Gungnir over an army he could doom the entire band. | |
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DECEIT
AND NECESSITY | | |
| Óðin's
unpredictability might be expected of a god of battle, but he is frequently deceitful.
Some of this deceit can be attributed to his generally liminal nature, but sometimes
he is driven by necessity. As he gains knowledge of Ragnarøkr,
the end of the world, he takes increasingly desperate majors in a futile effort
to stave off the inevitable. If he sometimes treats others harshly, neither does
he spare himself. His search for knowledge leads him to traffic with the giants,
those beings who preceded the gods and so have firsthand knowledge of cosmogonic
and eschatological mysteries. In the Vafþrúðnismál
Óðinn risks his neck in a deceitful riddle contest in a desperate bid
for knowledge. As his singleminded drive to avoid, or at least postpone, Ragnarøkr
blinds him to his moral ambiguities, there are elements of both pathos and nobility
in the creator-god's efforts to avoid the destruction of his universe. | |
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