Odin – the one-eyed All-Father |
The Swedish History Museum (2024)
Odin has many names and is the god of both war and death. Half of the warriors who die in battle are taken to his hall of Valhalla. He is the one-eyed All-Father, who sacrificed his eye in order to see everything that happens in the world.
He has two sons, Balder by his first wife Frigg and Thor by Jord. Odin also has several animals. His two ravens Hugin and Munin (thought and memory) fly around the world and report back what they see. Sleipnir the eight-legged horse can run through all the worlds. Geri and Freki are Odin’s wolves.
He learned the magical art of prophecy from Freyja. Odin has a gold ring called Draupnir that is important to the gods.
Sitting on his throne, Hlidskjalf, with Frigg in the hall of Valhalla, Odin looked out across the whole world. But he wanted to know everything and gain wisdom and knowledge of things hidden from him. This was a desire that drove him to sacrifice himself.
He sacrificed his eye in Mimir’s well and he threw himself on his spear Gungnir in a kind of symbolic, ritual suicide. He then hanged himself in Yggdrasil, the tree of life, for nine days and nine nights in order to gain knowledge of other worlds and be able to understand the runes.
During his sacrificial actions, he saw visions and received secret wisdom. The magical knowledge he gained made him able to cure the sick, calm storms, turn weapons against his attackers, make women fall in love and render dangerous troll women harmless – often just with a look.
Odin was also a shapeshifter, meaning that he could change shape. He could fall into an ecstatic trance and send out his soul, allowing him to adopt the form of another person or an animal. While his body lay in a trance, he could travel as a bird or a four-legged animal, a fish or a snake, through all the worlds and to far-off places.
Odin is often portrayed as a charming man who enjoys drinking mead and wine. But he was accused of “unmanly behaviour” when he “beat the drum and practised prophecy”, something that was associated with women. The fact that he was a seer and a man provoked disgust in some quarters.
Odin’s two ravens Hugin and Munin (thought and memory) fly around the world and report back what they see.
Odin has many names and is the god of both war and death. Half of the warriors who die in battle are taken to his hall of Valhalla
Valhalla
Valhall is an anglicized form of Old Norse Valhǫll, an afterlife "hall of the slain" in Norse mythology, which is more commonly anglicized as Valhalla.
. He is the one-eyed All-Father, who sacrificed his eye in order to see everything that happens in the world. He has two sons, Balder by his first wife Frigg and Thor by Jord.
Odin was married to Frigg, with whom he fathered Baldur, Hermod, and Hod. With Jord, he fathered Thor but was not necessarily married to her (she was a giant). Odin also fathered many other sons with other women (sometimes described as wives), but the only woman explicitly described as his wife was Frigg.
Odin sacrificed an eye, but gained a more sacred, divine level of wisdom in return. This happens multiple times in Norse mythology, as Odin sacrifices his physical body to gain a cosmic understanding of reality. So the depictions of a one-eyed Odin represent the sacrifice of the earthly in exchange for the divine.
Answer and Explanation: Odin hung himself to prove he was worthy of the secret knowledge of the runes. The runes are like an ancient Germanic and Norse alphabet and are also symbols for the most powerful beings in the cosmos. In Germanic languages, rune means letter and secret/ mystery.
He has two sons, Balder by his first wife Frigg and Thor by Jord. Odin also has several animals. His two ravens Hugin and Munin (thought and memory) fly around the world and report back what they see.
Given that Odin's eye was sacrificed in order to obtain an enhanced perception, it seems highly likely that his pledge of an eye symbolizes trading one mode of perception for another.
So while Zeus' best feat is defeating a mountain-sized monster, Odin's best feat is defeating a monster as big as nine worlds. Odin outclasses Zeus in intelligence, versatility, strength, and weapons. Zeus simply can't compete. The winner is Odin, All-Father of the Æsir.
In modern literature (such as Marvel Comics) it has become popular to portray Loki as the adopted son of Odin. This however has no basis in Norse mythology, where Loki is portrayed as the blood brother of Odin.
Answer and Explanation: Since Odin was a wanderer and traveled the cosmos, he could have fathered many children. However, in Norse mythology, his sons are the gods Thor, Baldr, Hoor, Vioarr and Vali (but there are variations of this in the Norse texts).
Odin (or Oðinn), essentially, is the more “renowned” form of Woden/Wuotan, a much older, legendary “hermit” type god across Europe.Jesus is a god of mercy and healing. Waging large scale war is more of a Thor and Tyr thing, so it would be more correct to call Odin a god of competition/dueling.
Answer and Explanation: Norse mythology does not predate Christianity. It's structure and beliefs did not take shape until the 8th or 9th century CE. However, the Germanic mythology that it extends from does predate Christianity significantly, perhaps by as much as two thousand years.
Odin was a pan-Germanic god known as Wuotan, Wōden and Óðinn across northern Europe before the conversion to Christianity (although belief in the Norse gods probably continued in remote areas for some time). Odin, the king of the gods, was associated with war and the dead.
Thor and Odin are still going strong 1000 years after the Viking Age. Many think that the old Nordic religion - the belief in the Norse gods – disappeared with the introduction of Christianity. However, it did not, but was instead practised secretly or under a Christian cloak.
There is no evidence of any actual godlike supernatural entities, or in fact any supernatural entities at all. But the nature of the myths suggests that there may once have been an historical Odin, whose achievements are preserved in hugely exaggerated form in the Norse myths.
Odin was married to Frigg, with whom he fathered Baldur, Hermod, and Hod. With Jord, he fathered Thor but was not necessarily married to her (she was a giant). Odin also fathered many other sons with other women (sometimes described as wives), but the only woman explicitly described as his wife was Frigg.
Frigg and Freyja are very like each other, and their functions are sometimes mixed up. As the Queen of the goddesses, Frigg has a group of women around her. Frigg's attendant Fulla, with a gold band in her hair, looks after Frigg's special ash box and all her shoes and knows all of Frigg's secrets.
Thor was married twice: first to Iarnsaxa and second to Sif. He had 3 sons and 1 daughter from these 2 marriages. He did not kill any of his family. In this respect he is nothing like Herakles who was promiscuous and uncaring towards his wives.
Freya was a lover of fine material possessions, more specifically jewelry. Gold was said to be the tears of Freya which fell all over the earth while she searched for her lost husband. Her husband was Odin, but he went under the name Od during his travels throughout the mortal world.
Introduction: My name is Kelle Weber, I am a magnificent, enchanting, fair, joyous, light, determined, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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