Odin | The Norse God of Wisdom, Wandering, and War

My name is Jacob, and I am a Norse pagan, and today we're talking about the Norse god Odin. You may recognize the statue behind me. It is the Odin statue of Munich, Germany. I talked about this in detail in a video that I made in June, so if you want to learn more about this statue, where it came from, who built it, all those things, check out the video. I also leave an offering for Odin as well, of course, but we're actually here to continue my series talking about the Norse gods, or god weeks, which is something I started back in March with Thor, and then I also made a video series with Freya and Loki, and I've also done a singular episode on Baldr, so today we're going to be talking about Odin. Now, one thing that is actually different about the Odin week is that we have so much to talk about, and I've actually had to be kind of choosy what information I put in this week. So, of course, today we're going to be what we know historically and from the Eddas about Odin, so this is going to be a very long video, but an informative video, so I'm going to get to that very soon, because we have a lot to talk about, but the second episode this week, which will come out Wednesday, Woden's day, is going to be talking about the many names of Odin and the many different aspects of him as well, and then, of course, Friday we're going to be talking about the modern practice of honoring Odin today, where I bring in my own personal experiences and experiences of others within the community, as well as what we know from the source material on how to honor Odin in our modern age. So, I think the best way to do this video, because I've already done a dry run and I hated it, where I just went through my notes basically line by line and gave you the important information stanza by stanza, and it was awful, and I think it doesn't give you the best image. I think it's incohesive, so I think the best way to do this is just to go through each of the stories Odin has mentioned, give you the summary, and the key points that give us a bigger image of who Odin is and was within Norse mythology. So, I hope you like the format. Again, I've done my research. I've done so much research for this video. I wanted to make sure I did it here at the Odin statue, but I do think this is going to be the best way to have Odin at least featured in one video, in the best way possible. So, to begin, the first story in the Poetic Edda is the Voluspa, and this really is a framework for all of Norse mythos, because you have the beginning and you the end, and most of these points are explored later on down the line within the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, and Odin, of course, is one of the main characters in this story because he is reviving a dead vulva, a dead witch, to tell him the stories of, you know, the future. I mean, of course, she tells the stories of the past, but he really wants to know about Ragnarok, and so you have the creation myth in here. You have a lot of basic information about the worlds and how the worlds are set up, about certain deities. A lot of gods are introduced in this story. You do get some information about Odin, you know, like his eye, where his eye went. You get information about the Valkyries, and then, of course, you have Ragnarok and Odin's death. So, this is almost like a glossary for things you can look deeper into, and certain things we just don't get more information about. And so, basic information about Odin shared within this is where he came from. Basically, he was one of the first beings after Ymir, and, of course, him and his brothers killed Ymir to create Midgard. They then created humankind. Odin gave breath to a piece of driftwood that created humans, the first humans, and then it kind of goes into the setup of Asgard, the setup of the universe and how it works. It covers the first war, the first Aesir-Vanir war, which, sadly, we don't have that much information of after that. The prose edit covers it a little bit more, but we don't have a lot of information, but we do see the Aesir-Vanir conflict here. You learn of Odin's eye, what happened to it, that he gave it to Ymir to gain wisdom. You do get mentionings of Odin's family life. You get mentionings of Frigg being his wife, and we do know of other lovers that are mentioned later on. Of course, Thor came from Yord, you know, the Earth, and so Odin obviously takes on multiple lovers throughout the mythos, and which also creates many children, mostly sons, as we can see. Thor, of course, being one. Baldr is mentioned, of course, and even Baldr's death, and then we also have Hod is mentioned as well, and then, of course, Vidar is mentioned because he avenges Odin. So, you do get this basic image of who Odin is within the Voluspa, but I think the actual narrative of the Voluspa is one of the the key things to take from this, is the fact that Odin is constantly seeking a way to stop Ragnarok. He's constantly seeking wisdom, such as Mimir's eye, you know, giving his eye to Mimir as well, you know, riding down to raise a dead witch. He has magic, the ability to raise the dead to speak with them about these prophecies. So, there's, I mean, the whole narrative is Odin, and again, you can make a whole video about the Voluspa. I recommend you read it. It's an amazing story. It's probably, again, one of the most popular and known stories within Norse mythology. The next major story is the next story in the Poetic Edda, at least in the Jackson Crawford edition, and that is the Havamal. Once again, we can make a whole video on the Havamal. In fact, I've made a whole video on the Havamal, about 15 stanzas. So, again, finding a way to, you know, bring this all together has been difficult, but really, I mean, if you're a Norse pagan, someone interested in Norse paganism, the Havamal is one of the most important things for you to read, because, you know, unlike the mythology, unlike Voluspa, where it's just giving you, like, a cow, I mean, really, the Voluspa doesn't give us this prose, that is a cow licking the rhyme to, you Like, this is all stuff that is nice to know, and it gives you that blueprint in the back of your mind for what Norse mythology is, and what this faith is. But when it comes to the actual faith, the Havamal is one of the most important, because it's Odin. It's called the Words of the High One, the Words of One-Eyed. He is speaking to you, the reader, and giving you knowledge, wisdom, and advice. I mean, that is so cool. Honestly, I don't think this faith would be half of what it is today. I don't think any of us would have much of a practice without the Havamal. It is so important, and it's so important for you to read it. I think it's one of the biggest things I can recommend you to read. I mean, there is just endless amounts of advice. I mean, essentially, you're breaking into four sections. There's the guest narrative, where, again, it's a narrative based story about Odin giving advice, all about all things like hospitality, about gluttony, about alcoholism, about friendships, and how to maintain them. It's about bravery. I mean, there's so many individual lines, and I really do believe every time you read the Havamal, specifically the first part, you're going to get something else out of it. And then there is a problem section a little bit, and this is something we're going to discuss within Harbert's The Old as well, is Odin's love advice is not the best, and it's definitely not aged well. So, there's obviously a lot of the advice is for men on women, but overall, it seems like Odin's had a very hard love life, and he wants to give you advice. Basically, don't trust anybody. Women lie all the time. Men also lie all the time, and you should just never give your heart to anybody. But then it also says, don't blame someone who's fallen in love, because we all do it. So, it's interesting you see this. Again, is this Odin himself, or was this storytellers back in the Bronze Age of Norway, telling them like, well, son, that woman broke my heart, and then giving it through this narrative of Odin. Again, this is real life advice. This is obviously something people have told their children, their grandchildren throughout history, but it's definitely from hundreds of years ago, it hasn't necessarily aged the best. The third section is kind of repetitive of the first. Odin is giving advice to a man named Lotfafnir, and the advice is very similar to the first section of the Havamal. It kind of just builds on it. Again, there's some great lines in here about friendship, about love, about how to, you know, win victories over people. Again, it's just a really good section. And then we get to a really interesting section of the Havamal, which is, again, one of the reasons why I think it's so important, is because there's an entire section, you know, a huge, huge section on magic, and the magic that Odin learned hanging from the World Tree. And of course, Odin hanging from the World Tree for nine days and nine nights, pierced by his own spears, and offering of himself to himself, is one of the most important characteristics of him, and this comes from the Havamal. And what he gained from that is the magic of the runes, and of course, magic as well. Again, this is one of the most important motifs, is Odin hanging from the World Tree, and it's in the Havamal. I actually wanted to run through the list of spells that he mentions within this, because it is kind of interesting. It almost sounds like a D&D game. If you play D&D, if you play fantasy games, like some of these spells are like from that. So you can tell that maybe modern magic and video games and Harry Potter were inspired by the list of spells given within the Havamal. So the first section is how to use the runes, how to use them properly, how to create the runes. Important for people that want to get into more rune work, that is stanzas 144 on how to use the runes. And then it does mention spiritual moderation and how not to burn yourself out. Basically saying that praying too much, giving too much, is actually a bad thing. So that is an important note. And then it rolls into the spells. And so there's a spell to get you out of trouble, a spell to heal, a spell to thwart your enemies, a spell of escape, a spell to specifically change the direction of a spear or weapon, a reflection spell against other magic, a spell of protection against flames, a spell to pacify hatred and arguments, a spell to calm the seas, a spell to confuse magic users, a spell of battle protection, a spell to revive the dead. We see him use this. A spell to protect a newborn from a violent death, a spell to gain knowledge, a spell to gain power, a love spell, a different love spell, and an unknown spell that is based around women that women shouldn't know about. Odin. Okay. Like I said, you can see these influences in our modern fantasies and our modern magic fantasies. Now, of course, do I think that there are actual spells that are equivalent to this? No. I don't think that's how magic works, at least to us humans, maybe to a god. But again, it's really cool. And I think the most important aspect for a practitioner today is the rune section and then how not to spiritually burn yourself out, how not to give too much. So that is the Havamal. Again, I could cover this in an entire video. I already have, and it was a small section. Other people have. The Havamal is crazy. The Havamal is huge and it is so important. But I just wanted to give you an outline of, I mean, you need to read this thing first off if you hadn't, but how much of an important artifact this is to our faith today. I mean, it is a real advice, if not just from Odin, but from the people that lived over a thousand years ago, maybe even 2000 years ago, 10,000 years ago. This advice is an ancestral thing that has been passed down through oral stories that eventually got written down, and that is so important. As we get into this third poem of the Poetic Edda, this is where, of course, I have to apologize. I'm not an old Norse expert, and when I pronounce things, forgive me. So then we have Vafruðnismál, which is a story, and to me it seems like a much younger story because the thing I love about this is you get a very energetic Odin at the very beginning. He wants to go prove his wisdom. He wants to go prove that he's the wisest being in all of the realms. Odin is talking to Frigg, and he's saying, I need to go prove that I am the wisest of all the beings in all the nine realms, and I need to go to this man named Riddleweaver who lives in Jotunheim, who says he is also the wisest, and I need to have a contest of wills against him. And, you know, you see that energy in those first few lines where there's some pep in his step that you don't necessarily see about Odin. Even within the Havamal, he seems a little bit more weary, and of course with the Valispe, he seems to have more weight on his shoulders. Again, I love that energy in the first few sections of Vathusnismal. But again, this is a very mythological heavy section. We don't get a lot about Odin specifically besides the fact that he goes to Jotunheim, talks to Riddleweaver, and he does say that his name, again we're going to have a whole video on Odin's names, and most of the stories he does actually go under a, you know, a disguise name, and this one's no different. He goes under the name of Good Advisor. And so the Riddleweaver actually doesn't know it's Odin, which plays into the story as well. Again, this is a very mythology heavy section, so when they actually get into their wisdom battle where they go at each other and basically say, I know more than you, and so they go back and forth giving wisdom about the nine realms and all that happens, showing how much they know. And I don't have enough time in one video, you know, at least one section of a video to talk about all the wisdom that they give in this. But again, the main narrative is Odin is in a wisdom battle and seems more youthful with Riddleweaver, and of course we see him in disguise as Good Advisor. And at the very end, he wins this competition by saying in his last riddle to Riddleweaver is, what does Odin say in Baldur's ear on his funeral pyre? And then Riddleweaver says, the only person that knows that is you, Odin, and basically turns the tables. I know you're Odin. But he also wins because it's something he doesn't know. So it's kind of cheeky that he wins like, what did I say to my dead son? So it's kind of a cheeky way to win, but Odin does win and Riddleweaver calls him the wisest being in all the realms. And then we have another story about Norse mythos being shared among two people where Odin is the main character. Hopefully you're seeing a theme. Odin is responsible for a lot of the lore building sections of the poetic Edda, where he is the central character either saying the myths or someone else is saying it to him. So grim to small is no different. Again, the setup for this I've mentioned before in a video, I think it was the Throne of Odin video, but Odin and Frigg are sitting on Hlodskjolf, which is the throne of Odin that allows him to see over the realms. And they essentially make a bet over who's going to be the better king between two people. And Odin, of course, wants to prove that he's right. And so he goes down to the king that he chose and ends up getting captured by that king and treated horribly and is set between two fires for several nights, given no food and water. And then when, again, this is interesting because we know Odin knows spells. So it was probably him just trying to prove a point, seeing who would come up and give him food or water to prove that he was right in this argument when he knows these spells that could have easily gotten him out of these binds. But eventually we do see a small boy come up to him, basically giving him a drink and asking how he is, who he is. And we do see Odin again in a disguise where he says his name is Shadow-Faced or the Cloaked One. And he again goes into this long lore tangent. Again, very great for building the lore of the worlds that we know. Again, I can cover this in a whole video. I do actually have a reading of Grim Nismal and I have a reading of the Valhalla spell that I've done, if you want to go into those as well, where I just read to you the Valhalla spell and Grim Nismal. I get very animated in it as well. The most important thing for Odin within Grim Nismal is we get a more detailed look of Valhalla and some more details about who Odin is, such as his wolves, Geri and Freyki, who we know very little about, but we know he has these wolves because of Grim Nismal. We also know the name of his hall. It's not actually Valhalla. The name of Odin's hall is called Valaskioth, where Halaskioth actually is, and then Valhalla is its own separate thing. An interesting bit of information comes from stanzas seven, is in a hall called Sokvabek, Odin and Saga, the goddess, drink mead every day. We're not given much more information besides that, but it is interesting that Odin is hanging around another goddess named Saga every day. I wonder what's happening there. This is also where we're given a more in-depth look and a description of Valhalla, such as how the 640 doors, the Einherjar, what they eat, where they get their mead from, how they're fed, all these things. Then we're also told about Huginn and Muginn and how Odin only drinks alcohol, which is important for when we get to the honoring Odin today, is this is why alcohol is such an important offering to give to Odin, because from what we know, he doesn't actually eat mead. Now, I have given him mead before. I have given him food. It doesn't seem to go poorly, but I think alcohol is such an important thing for Odin specifically. The last section of this is the great reveal, when Odin reveals who he is to the king that imprisoned him and who he put his bet on. I think his name is Geralt or Geralt. His name is Geralt. Again, this is where I get very animated in my reading of Grimnismal, is Odin turns the tables and lists all of his names. He's like, my name is Warbringer, Raven Lord, One-Eyed, Allfather, all these things. He lists 50 different names for Odin, and then he says his name is Odin, as the big reveal to Geralt that he messed up because he imprisoned a god. Then it appears that Odin enchanted Geralt's sword to stab himself, because basically, Geralt trips, his sword falls, and then Geralt dies on his own sword. This is interesting because it doesn't say that Odin omits it, but the child that gave him a drink and listened to his tale was the son of the king that Frigg had bet on, and so Frigg was right. That's another thing I love about this story, is that Odin is this big, powerful, scary deity who kills this king who he put a bet on. By the end of the day, his wife was right. Now we've come to Harbert's The Old, my favorite story in the Poetic Edda, perhaps in Norse mythology in general, just because it is Odin giving his son ----. It's just him yelling at Thor, taunting him, and mocking him. There is quite a bit that Odin mentions about himself here, but it's hard to say if he's actually telling the truth or not, because there are some sections where it just seems like he's trying to antagonize Thor. He's saying that Thor's mother has died, which would be Jorth, is dead, and so that seems definitely like a lie. It's talking about how someone's wanting to sleep with Thor's wife, and that was most likely a lie as well. Well, maybe he was mentioning Loki. But in Stanza 50, which is towards the end, Odin even says, I think I'm telling the truth. Like, you know, Thor is basically saying that he's a liar, and he's like, I think I'm telling the truth. And so it definitely seems like he's pulling Thor's leg, and maybe that's just me trying to rationalize this story. But real quick, for people that don't know, again, read the Poetic Edda, but essentially Thor is coming home from a long trip. He gets to a fjord. There's a ferry. There's a ferryman on the other side, and he says, hey, can you send me over the boat? And the ferryman basically starts mocking him, and he's like, I was only supposed to let over good people. And it's Odin in disguise, and eventually Thor does realize it's Odin in disguise. You kind of see that in the dialogue. But again, I think this is a really great father-son thing. You know, I've had these kind of things with my dad where we kind of, you know, get on each other. I mean, every father and son butt heads eventually in some way, and so I think this is cool. Again, we're seeing this in a story. So I really don't know what to take truthfully here. There's some mentionings of how Odin spent five years waging war on an island, and it's like, did this actually happen? I don't know. Does this help you in the faith today? I don't really think so. There's mentionings of, you know, Odin turning princes against one another, and they never made peace. This is something we see as an aspect of Odin that many people, you know, kind of talk about is the fact that Odin does wage wars between two factions, often playing both sides, either to get their warriors to Valhalla or to, you know, basically see who's the better king. We see a reference in Locust Senate how Odin always chooses the wrong side in conflict, so maybe this is right. Again, I really don't know what to take seriously. Maybe this is just me trying to rationalize the fact that we have to talk about an uncomfortable subject matter, and it's something that we all kind of beat around the bush, and it's the fact that in Harbert's The Old, Odin openly mentions that he, like, forced himself on multiple women and uses this as a way to gloat towards Thor. And even at one point, Thor's like, you know, if I was there, I would have helped you hold down that woman. Ooh! Like, again, this is something with time that hasn't held up well. Maybe it doesn't hold up through translation, or maybe at the end of the day, we just have to accept the fact that gods are gods and they do what they want. I don't know. I really... this is a hard subject to talk about, but it's the reality of Harbert's The Old is we have a section talking about how Odin took advantage of women and how Thor would have helped him. Again, I think this is something with age, with time. Obviously, this is not something that would exist now. This is, again, where I have to bring in, I don't put much weight behind the gods' sexualities. I don't really see them as having sex with people, or in this case, forcing themselves on people. I don't really see that. I see this as something that came from the past, as something that came from the people who told these stories. Humans have put sexuality on the gods, not the gods actually having sexuality. And so, I don't put much weight behind the fact that there's a line saying that Odin forced himself on women. I don't think this actually happened. I think this is from the fact this was written over a thousand years ago. It was told over a thousand years ago. And this was just a part of society back then that we, you know, that luckily today we are starting to take greater stands against, you know, things like this. But it is part of history and we just have to accept that and make our peace with it. Anyways, back to the happy side of Harbert's The Old. I do think that my favorite part at the end is where basically Odin gets the last laugh because he's obviously not going to give the fairy to Thor. And he basically says like, nope, you're gonna have to walk all the way around the fjord, come all the way back, and kind of, you know, gets that nice laugh. And Thor, you know, obviously threatens to kill him. And Odin's just like, I hope you have a terrible journey. And that is so sarcastic, and I love it. So despite the, you know, the negative side of Harbert's The Old and the uncomfortable conversation there, I really like this aspect of Odin, the sarcastic father, I think is a really cool aspect to see in a story like this. So those stories are actually the main Odin stories that we have within the Poetic Edda. There's now mentionings of him throughout several stories. And then we do have Baldur's Drama, which is Odin going down to hell to find out about Baldur's death. Again, this is Odin as the main character, but we don't actually get that much more information about Odin. It's really about, you know, description of Helheim, what little we have. It's talking about Odin, you know, obviously being worried about Baldur's death. And we also see Odin using the spell to raise the dead once again on a witch who appears to be the giantess Angerboda, who is the mother of many of Loki's children. And then we do actually have Odin taking another name, which of course Angerboda doesn't really take seriously, and that is Road Tamer. She knows very quickly it's Odin. This is a really short story. We don't get a lot of information from it. And really, it's just the narrative of Odin going down, Baldur's having nightmares, Odin obviously knows he's gonna die, gets to Helheim, and Angerboda tells him, yeah, he's gonna die. And then we come to Lokasidda, every Loki person's favorite story, because it's about their guy. Of course, I cover this poem in much more detail in the Loki video, but as far as Odin's mentioning, we do get some key information from this. Essentially, you have Loki coming into a party that he's not allowed in, and insults all the gods until Thor shows up and threatens to kill him, and then Loki runs away. As far as Odin, this is where we learn about Odin's blood oath with Loki. We don't know what the blood oath is about necessarily. We do essentially know that it means Odin cannot drink or eat or feast unless Loki is allowed in as well, but we don't know any other arrangements to this blood oath. We're actually alluded to as well that Loki and Odin travel together in a more friendly way in the past, which is brought up in the prose at Amor, but again, it's not given in much detail. And then we do have Loki insulting Odin by saying that he practices woman magic in Sather, and that he lived as a witch in Midgard for some time. Again, this is one of the few lines that we see mentionings of Odin practicing Sather magic, but of course, we see him practicing magic in the Havamal. But then as far as him living as a witch in Midgard, this is not outside of Odin's realm of possibilities, but that's kind of up to you whether how you take that. But it is, of course, Loki insulting Odin. Maybe it could be a complete lie. Who knows? And that's basically it in Lokisenna. I mean, again, we just see Loki coming in insulting people. It's hard to say if those insults are necessarily bold-faced lies, or him telling the truth. Maybe the hard truth that people aren't willing to accept. I don't know where this really fits into a modern framework for Odin, especially with the Sather magic, but it does seem to be commonly accepted. But this is an aspect of Odin is that he practices female magic in Sather. But I know many people in this community, many men who also practice Sather magic now, even though it's considered the woman magic. And we come to the very last story where Odin is mentioned within the Poetic Edda, and that is Voluspa Anskama. This is interesting because this is actually a very positive image for Odin. I would say there's a lot of stories and a lot of people out there that see Odin as a very negative presence. I don't necessarily see him as negative presence, but I see him as a very, you know, a kind of neutral presence that kind of guides you even if it hurts, and sometimes you have good times as well. But this is a very positive section, and this is Freya speaking to a witch, much like how Odin speaks to a witch as well. I, of course, talk about this in my Freya video. But this mentions how Odin gives gifts to heroes. Within stanza three, it says specifically that Odin gives money, victory, eloquence, common sense, waves to the sea, ward skills to poets, and happiness and love to the people who follow him. This is a very positive thing, and so I think this is something to really attach to maybe as a modern practitioner of this faith that Odin does have positive benefits. I think he does come with his own frame of madness. I do think he comes with his own negative side, but that's life in general. Odin kind of is just life, and maybe he can guide you towards those positive things as well. Last thing to note here is it is mentioned that Freya lusted over Odin as an insult by the witch. Again, it's kind of like turned down by Freya, of course, but this isn't the first time that we see that Freya and Odin may have, of course, been together, at least in disguise, because Freya disguises herself. Odin disguises herself. They're very similar beings, and there is a high possibility that they actually were together at some point. Again, I've already mentioned it before. Don't put much weight on the sexuality of gods, but we're seeing that interpersonal relationship between two beings. That is the Poetic Edda. Oh my gosh. As of right now, this is a 30-minute long recording, but of course, that's going to get cut down. I know this is a long video. Thank you for sticking with me. I hope you've been enjoying it so far. I hope you've been enjoying this format. When we move into the Prose Edda, this is actually not going to take as long. There's not as much unique information within the Prose Edda, but I still, of course, need to cover it. Then we have the artifacts as well. Since we're at the midpoint of this video, I do want to have this section here to, of course, thank you for watching this so far. Hope you continue through. Hope it's helpful for you. If you enjoy the content here at the Wisdom of Odin, please think about donating to Patreon. This video took so much work. There's probably about five or six hours of actual research and note-taking. Then, of course, the time it took to come out here and film this. I've been out here for a while now trying to get the words the right way. Then, of course, going back to my house to actually edit this, which will take several hours as well. There's a lot of work behind this. If you appreciate the videos here at the Wisdom of Odin, the work I put into them, the research I do, please think about donating at Patreon. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for just watching these videos in general. Now to the Prose Edda. Plus, you should just donate to Patreon for the fact that I have to read the Prose Edda. It's so hard to read and it's so Christian. Now, the Prose Edda. This is actually, when it came to Thor, when it came to Freya and Loki, the Prose Edda actually did give some information that we wouldn't have otherwise. That's true for Odin as well. This is where it really hurt me to read the Prose Edda. Just because Snorri does so much work to discredit Odin as a deity, even though that he obviously holds him in a high place, he calls him the highest of all gods, but he really wants to Christianize Odin and make it very clear that people reading the Prose Edda should not be heathen and they should be Christian. And again, this is very prevalent in the Odin section. Right away, in the very beginning, you have an entire summary of who Odin actually was. And he was basically a son of a noble from Troy in Turkey, and that he had a vision that he needed to go to the north because his name would be known there. And then him and all of his followers left to go to Germany, and they settled in Saxony for some, modern-day Saxony, for some time. And it was for several years because he ends up having several sons, and then three of his sons become the kings of Germany at that time. And then Odin leaves again and goes up to Denmark and spends some time in Denmark, has a son, leaves a son in charge of Denmark, and then Odin travels up to Sweden where, of course, he stays for some time, he has another son, that son becomes the king of Sweden, and then he ends his journey in Norway. And it sets up the Council of Asgard, which is 12 deities, the 12 Aesir gods, in the same way that they set up the council in Troy. I mean, this would suck if this was true because it'd be like, oh, so we're living a lie. But most scholars and most people discredit Snorri because he clearly was trying to Christianize the faith. And again, as I have explored in a video, which was the History of the Prose and Poetic Edda, Snorri did not have the best of intentions when writing this. I mean, the Prose Edda is a textbook for people that want to write skaldic verse, and Snorri was constantly looking for a way to establish divine right for the king of Norway at the time, who he had a really close relationship with. And so, as a skald himself, and as the king of Norway, who was, of course, a Christian king in the 1300s, he needed to establish a divine right to rule in the Nordic style. Because, of course, Christian kings said that God himself gave them the right to rule. And I can surmise that the Nordic kings also wanted this, but they wanted it from their own gods. So Snorri made it his mission to make a connection between dynasties and Odin, and saying that, oh, all the kings in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany are descendants of Odin, and therefore they have a divine right to rule. So this appeared to be Snorri's mission. So, again, a lot of this information feels very tainted when it comes to Odin because of this perspective, but I have tried my best to find information that may be still relevant to you. But again, this is also interesting because we know that Snorri read the Poetic Edda, or the, you know, Codex Regis, as it was known, before it was lost. So we know a lot of this information came from that. So it's hard to say where the rest of that information came from. The positive mind says that we hope it came from Icelandic storytelling, but also could be complete fabrications by Snorri. And it appears that a lot of the information that Snorri wrote about Odin seems to be from the Poetic Edda, and it just gives us some more, you know, details, really. It gives us more of a facade, gives us more color, maybe a different perspective. And you can maybe see all the notes I took here. I highlighted the sections that actually seem to be important. So there's a lot of information here about Odin, and Odin seems to partake in many stories, but we're not given a lot of information about Odin. So I'm just going to run through it the best I can. Of course, the Prose Edda is not very organized. It's organized into three sections, and then the stories are all kind of lumped in there. So I'm going to do my best here, but it's the Prose Edda. Have mercy on me. So of course, we are given more information about Odin's parenting, that he came from the god Bor and the giantess Besla. And of course, Odin had his three brothers, Sleipnir, and we're given a little bit more detail on the creation myth, on how specifically they made Midgard and formed Midgard from Ymir's flesh. There is an interesting section, which comes from page 13 of my Everyman's Edda, which is the edition I have, where it mentions that the earth was his daughter and his wife, which in technicality, I guess that's true. If Yorth is Midgard, if Yorth is the earth, the giantess of the earth, technically, he did help make that. And then technically, he did create a son Thor with Yorth. Again, sexuality and the gods, not really important to me. And this is kind of why, because do I think Odin humped the ground and created Thor? No. But do I think the relationship between Thor, the wisdom god, the breath god, and then the earth itself created thunderstorms and the thunder god? Yeah, that's probably more likely. But again, that's dealing with more of my personal viewpoints. I'm really trying to give you the information the best I can. But truly, you know, I don't see an incestuous relationship between Odin and the earth. One thing in the prose that I do think is really good is the fact that we get so many names for Odin, because Snorri is trying to create a textbook for Skaldic verse. And so we're given a lot of different names from Odin throughout this, which of course, we're going to explore in Wednesday's video. So names were given such as Allfather of Allfather, the Hanged God, Hapta God, which means the God of Prisoners. And then we're given like Bolvaric later. And then another name in page 86 of mine in the Tale of Hrubnir is the Helmet-Capped Educator, which I actually really love that name. So the names of Odin in the prose that are actually pretty well done and pretty well preserved, it seems. We're also giving a more complete list of Odin's children. So of course, we have Baldr, Hod, Vidar, Ali and Vali, who I know nothing about, Hermann the Bold, and then of course, Vidar as well. And of course, we know Odin's wife is Frigg, which is listed by Snorri as well, even though he also says he's married to the Earth. But we're also known of a lover named Rind or Rind or Rind. And then another lover is mentioned later, which is Gunnlod. One note I made that I found really interesting is I thought Odin was more involved in the Binding of Fenrir story. Maybe this is because I played Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Perhaps it was. But to me, I always thought Odin was more directly involved with the Binding of Fenrir. But he actually isn't directly named in the Binding of Fenrir story. It's really just Tyr. And he is labeled and put together with the Aesir gods. It says the Aesir gods. So we can assume Odin is with them. And that is actually a theme through many of these stories that are quite known from the prose Edda, is Odin isn't actually a direct player. He is just labeled with the other Aesir gods. We picture him in our minds in those stories. And no better example exists than the origins of Sleipnir, which is from the Wall of Asgard story. The story of how a builder built the wall around Asgard. And of course, Loki gets them into a bind and Loki gets out of them and creates Sleipnir, the horse of Odin. And again, Odin is only mentioned in the story as one of the Aesir. And so he's not really a direct participant in the story. So we're not giving more information about Odin. Again, this is just a nice story in Norse mythos you should read. And of course, it's got the interesting story of Loki and the horse. But this does actually create Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse that Odin rides, that we see as a very important part of the artifacts that we have that preserve Odin, which we'll explore, of course, at the very end of this video. And then we have the story of Baldr's death in Ragnarok, where we're not given more information really than we were given in the poetic Edda. Baldr's death, a little bit more so. We have a little bit more information. Important note is something is it mentions that Odin summons four berserkers to haul the funeral boat. And they can't. They eventually have to get a giant to do it. So it's interesting to see the mentioning of Odin's berserkers, maybe just the Einherjar that do this as well. And then we do also have the part where Odin sends his other son, Hermann, who's not mentioned in the poetic Edda, from what I can tell. He sends Hermann the Bold with Draupnir down to Helheim to try to win back Baldr from Hell. And of course, this is what starts the story of them having to go every bean and ask them to cry and whatnot. But again, this isn't Odin himself. He's just part of the framework of that story, because obviously his son died. And then you have Ragnarok, where we're really not given any more detail. We're given a little bit more of a descripted detail of what Odin looks like. Let's see. So I'm actually gonna go ahead and read that to you, because again, it's just a little bit more detail just to show kind of what we're working with. And it seems to be more of a creative addition that Snorri added, rather than maybe a fact. So again, it gives us a little bit more detail. Then Odin will ride to Mimir's Well and consult Mimir on his own and on his people's behalf. Then the Ash Yggdrasil will shake, and nothing will then be unafraid in heaven or on earth. The Aesir will put on their war gear, and so will all the Einherjar and advance to the field. Odin will ride in front with a golden helmet and a fine coat of mail and a spear called Gungnir. And that's basically it. So again, we're given a little bit more detail, and this is a theme throughout a lot of the prose edda. So that's actually it for Gylfaginning, which is the main core group of stories. Again, Odin is actually not mentioned a lot. He's mentioned quite a bit in Skaldskarparmal, which is the kennings and the ways to use the gods and the stories within Skaldicverse. There are actually several stories hidden within Skaldskarparmal, so if you haven't actually dove into that, there's a lot of really good stories hidden in here as well. This is where maybe I can take a little bit more truth out of Odin, out of Snorri's interpretation of him, because there's the story of Thjazi, and this seems to be another early story of Odin, Loki, and Honir, which may also be Odin, Vili, and Vey from some people's theories, and I might believe that as well. And how Loki stirs up the giant Thjazi, who they have to kill because Thjazi steals Idunn, they have to kill him. And then Skadi comes to Asgard to get revenge for her father Thjazi's death, and then eventually gets to marry Njord, who has the best feet. And Odin makes a deal with Skadi as well to put the eyes of Thjazi in the sky as stars. This is one of the few mentionings we have of constellations and stars within the entire Norse mythos as well, so again, an interesting side note for Odin putting the eyes in the sky of Thjazi. And then on pages 63 and 64, we're probably given the most detail, most unique detail about Odin, and that is the Mead of Poetry story, which you can read in Neil Gaiman's Norse mythology book in a modern lens. And it's a really long story. Again, I could probably spend a whole episode dissecting it, but I want to give you the most important information. Essentially, the summary is that Odin wants to go get the Mead of Poetry that a giant had made, and his name was Suttong. And so he disguises himself and wanders, you know, I believe it's Jotunheim, I would surmise. And then he comes up to nine slaves, and he pulls out a whetstone, which will sharpen any blade. He sharpens all the slaves' blades, and then he basically gets them all to argue with one another, and he throws the whetstone into the air, and they all kill each other trying to get it. So these nine slaves die, and he goes to the farmer that owned those nine slaves, and the farmer, his name is Balgi, or Balgi. And he's freaking out because now his nine slaves are dead, and he's not gonna be able to get the summer work done. And so Odin, disguised as Balverk, says, oh, I'll work for you, and I'll do the same work as those nine slaves. So Odin works for this giant for a whole summer to earn his trust, and he does this because Balgi, the giant, is the son of Suttong, the giant who owns the Mead of Poetry, so he hopes that Balgi can get him into the Mead of Poetry. And he can't actually get him in there, but he does agree to help him dig into the mountain to get into the vault where the Mead of Poetry is held. So Odin and Balgi get a drill bit and start drilling into the mountain to try to get in there. And something that is interesting for Balverk as a character is every time they would drill to see if they actually hit the other side, he would blow into the hole and see if anything came back to see if they actually cut through the other side. And so after the second attempt, Balgi actually turns on Odin and tries to kill him, and then Odin turns into a snake and slithers into the hole. So we see a lot of shape changing in this. So we obviously have Odin's disguise, but this is actually one of the few stories we see Odin actually shape change into a different animal. So he turns into a snake, gets into the hole, and this is where he meets the giantess Gunnlod, who is actually guarding the Mead of Poetry. And he spends three nights with her, obviously, you know, doing adult things with her. And this is actually a theory of where Bragi comes from, because she was guarding the Mead of Poetry. But of course, that's a different story. But once she was sleeping, he went and drank from the three vats of the Mead of Poetry and drank it all, and then turns into an eagle and flies away with all the Mead in his stomach. And then the Suttong, the giant, also turns into an eagle and chases after Odin. Odin flies over Asgard, and they have containers there, and he spits all the Mead of Poetry into those containers, and then also, I believe, like, puts, like, farts some, poops some on Thjazi as well, chasing after him. And this is the origin of where poetry comes from. And this is also why poetry is a kenning for the, like, the spit of Odin, or the Mead of the gods, or the Mead of Odin. So this is, of course, in Skarbskampenmal explaining that kenning. But again, a very interesting story. And I do think there's some credibility to it, because I don't think there's, there doesn't seem to be any Christian manipulation in this story. But it's a really fun story that, again, I don't know how much of Odin you're getting from this story as far as, like, modern interpretation, but it's an interesting myth that is a lot of fun to share as well. And all that goodwill story creates with the Mead of Poetry story that makes me feel a little bit more comfortable about believing him is all thrown away immediately afterwards when he discredits Odin again. It's like he, he detected the fact that he's like, oh, people might like this story too much. And so he has to discredit him once again and say that he was just a man that lived in Troy, who was killed by a man named Pyrrhus. And that this man was also called the wolf. So this was the death of Odin. But wait a second, Snorri, didn't you say that Odin traveled from Troy all the way up to Denmark? And now you're saying that he was killed in Troy by a man named Pyrrhus? Snorri, get your story straight. The next tale we have does involve Odin slightly. And this is the tale of Hrugnir, which I cover some in my Thor video and some in my Valknut video as well, because this is the one story that we have that might represent Valknut in the being Hrugnir's heart. But the very start of the story, Odin rides down to Jotunheim, again, very similar to how you did with Riddle Weaver. And he wants to challenge this, this giant Hrugnir who's said to have the fastest horse. And Odin wants to race him with Sleipnir and bets his own head saying, I can beat you in the race. Odin does beat him to the race, gets to Asgard. Hrugnir comes in all mad, all upset, and eventually has to battle Thor and dies. So again, small narrative, but Odin is involved. And we see that, that kind of arrogance to Odin as well, that he wants to prove he's the best. And then we come to the story that I discovered when I did the Loki video. And that is the story of the One Ring and the one of the inspirations for J.R.R. Tolkien's story of Lord of the Rings. And that is, again, it appears to be an early story of Odin, Loki, and Honir traveling down to Midgard to kind of explore the world. So again, it appears very early. And this is another thing that makes it seem like Odin and Vili Vey are Odin, Honir, and maybe Loki. And Loki kills an otter who is actually a shapeshifted form of a magician's son. And then that magician holds them captive and basically says, you have to pay me for my son's death. And they make an oath saying, we will pay you back. And so Odin sends Loki out to go get the gold. And he encounters that dwarf that has a golden ring along with a bunch of other gold. And so he threatens the dwarf, steals all the gold. The dwarf doesn't want to give up the One Ring. Loki makes them. And it's very precious to Loki. And when he brings it to Odin, Odin goes kind of mad for it and wants it. And so he takes it as well and tries to hide it from the magician. But when they're like one gold piece short, Odin has to give it up. And that ring is actually brought up later on again in another story. But again, this is a really cool story I didn't know about until I did my Loki research. Odin, of course, isn't a massive character in this. He is one of the characters there. And maybe this is one of the oaths that, again, a reference to the oath that him and Loki took together. I don't think so. But seeing Odin fall prey to the power of this magical ring. This god who created Midgard fell prey to this magical ring. Very similar to how, of course, Gandalf falls prey to it as well, even in Lord of the Rings. The Prose Edda. Always a mixed bag because there is some good stories. Some fun stories. I love the media to poetry story. I love the One Ring story. But we don't get a lot of information. I would say the Poetic Edda is far more important as far as information about Odin. You really don't need to read the Prose Edda, but I think it's important to know all the facts. But every single time that Snorri makes me feel a How shall Christ be referred to by calling him creator of heaven and earth, of angels and the sun, ruler of the world and the kingdom of heaven, and angels, king of the heavens. So yeah, like basically right after this great section about the One Ring, you're given this story about kiddings for Christ, which sounds like a youth group thing. So yeah, every time Snorri does something right, he does something terribly wrong. And it's hard to take. A lot of people don't even read the Prose Edda for that reason is because there's so much Christianization here. And he does a lot of work to try to discredit Odin. But I do think there's a little bit to take out from especially the media poetry story. And we made it to the very end, the very last section. Oh my gosh, I know this is a long video. But again, that's why I have Odin here in the background to give you a little bit of company as I just share this information with you. Again, I hope this is helpful. The last section, of course, is artifacts. But right before we get there, there is a few mentionings we do have to talk about in other stories. Again, there's going to be some I missed. I have not gotten all the information in the world about Odin. That is impossible in one video. But I've tried to give you the most. So we do know Odin is a very old god. And he was followed and venerated before the Viking times, at least within the, you know, the first and second centuries because the Romans recorded about him. And they referred to Odin or Woden as Mercury. And so we have several references within Tacitus' writing and within Julius Caesar's about the god Mercury and how he was honored by the Germanic peoples. So we do know Odin is quite the old god. And we also see that Odin remained prevalent even after the Christianization of even the Anglo-Saxons and the Germanic people. There is an old English rune poem that actually makes Odin to be more prominent than God. And it was kind of a way to sneak in that Odin still exists even after Christianization. And the way the poem does this is they refer to God as the Oz rune or the Anzus rune, which is actually for Odin. So what they're really saying is Odin is the origin of all language, wisdom's foundation, and wise man's comfort to every hero, blessing, and hope. That is an old English rune poem that sneaks in Odin to be the actual prominent god. Then we also have a reference of Odin in the 10th century in a manuscript that features a Germanic healing spell that invokes Odin. This comes from the second Merseburg incantation. And it goes as follows. Fol and Woden were riding in the woods, and the foot of Baldr's fowl was sprained. So Sigdgod, Suna's sister, conjure it, and Frila, Vola's sister, conjure it, and Woden, conjure it as well as he could. And this is the actual spell. Bone to bone, blood to blood, joints to joints, so may they be mended. So Odin is referenced in a 10th century writing about a healing spell. And again, the reason I'm bringing these up is to show Odin throughout history, to show that he is mentioned in several writings, not just the poetic and prose edda. I mean, Odin is probably the deity we know the most about. And we can say pretty darn well that he was honored for well over 2,000 years, even through to today, even in the Roman era, all the way through even the Christianization. He survived the Christianization. That can't be said about the majority of the deities. Another really important document is in Latin. So I'm not very good at Latin at all. So forgive me, people who care about Latin. The Hammerberg Genesis Ecclesiae Pontificum. Yeah, that was okay. But it was written by Adam of Bremen in the 11th century. I've mentioned this before, but it's essentially the description of a heathen temple at Uppsala, Sweden, and Odin, Freyr, and Thor were the predominant deities worshipped there. And the mentionings of Odin are that Odin rules war and gives people strength against the enemy. He is shown as our people depict Mars, which means he was wearing armor. So again, minor thing, but again, we see that there was a temple built, at least according to Adam of Bremen, who I believe got it through a secondhand source, saying that Uppsala, there was a temple and Odin was worshipped there. Again, I'm just trying to show you that Odin is a very prominent person throughout history, even into today. And then if Snorri hadn't done enough, he also went and wrote Ynglinga Saga, which again was a way to try to establish divine right to rule for the Danish kings, for the Nordic kings. And this story, he has another story about Odin. You know, wait, did he from Troy to Germany all the way up to the North or did he die in Troy? I'm not sure. In this story, he describes Odin as a man who won many battles and would give blessings to his soldiers, basically saying you will not die in this battle. And they believed him. So this is again a war god aspect. He also mentions in Ynglinga Saga more details about the Aesir-Vanir War. Again, it's like, oh great, in this writing, you're going to mention the Aesir-Vanir War. But he does mention that Odin does put a spell on Mimir's head. He gets beheaded by the Vanir and gets sent to Odin, gets sent to the Aesir, and that he uses magic and herbs to bring back Mimir's head to life and still give him advice. So we wouldn't, you know, without the Ynglinga Saga, we wouldn't have that. Maybe that's true, but again, it just seems like Snorri's pulling things out of his ass all the time. The last thing before we get to the artifacts, this is a modern thing that Odin has carried through throughout history, and that is the Wild Hunt legends. So we don't actually have historical documents, something like the Poetic Prose Edda, to say the Wild Hunt was a thing. This is something from history that has been carried all the way as a cultural tradition that is still practiced today in many of the northern countries is the Wild Hunt legend and Odin partaking in that. So Odin has survived the test of time really well. I mean, someone built a statue to him here in Munich in the 1800s. So if there's a deity we know 100% that the ancestors worship and venerated as a god, it's Odin. And finally, the last section. Okay, we're finally here, really at the last section. I hope you're losing your mind slightly like me, but that is Odin after all. So we have artifacts, things that actually feature Odin on, you know, something from history. So we know that Odin was prevalent. We know he was important. So I'm going to run through these really quickly because again, I feel like you've gotten the point from this that Odin is a prevalent deity, but we have artifacts to back that up as well. And I want to make sure I share them with you as well. So most of these come from the fact that there is a figure on a horse with a spear with two, one to two birds right next to him. And so obviously we don't usually have Odin written right next to them, but we can pretty much guess that this means Odin. So you have the gold Brachteata, which appear to be coins, but they're actually amulets that were worn between the migration period, which is the fifth and sixth century in Germany. And there were flat pieces of jewelry that featured a figure that appears to be Odin. Of course, I'm putting up an image for you here because it features a spear and then two birds following them as well. You then also have a helmet plate that were found in a dig site that come from around the sixth to seventh century in Sweden that feature a very similar figure of riding a horse with a spear with two birds. And then you have several rune stones that also feature very similar images. You have the Tiangvida stone and the Andrei stone, the Andrei VIII stone, or the Andrei VIII stone, which comes from a series of stones that both feature very similar images of Odin riding Sleipnir as well. And these come from between the eighth and the 11th century. So this image of a figure riding a horse throughout history, throughout Northern Germanic and Nordic history, Odin exists. He's everywhere. And no matter what Christianity tried to do, they couldn't bury him. And I love that. The final two examples I had here, both were images of someone having a spear fighting a wolf. I think there were the Thorwald cross that comes from the 10th to 12th century. And then, oh, and the Stora Hammerstone also features a spear wielding person in a ritual context. But I think you got the point of this video. Odin exists. Odin is real. He has existed throughout time, existed throughout history. We have so much information to back up that person up there as a real being. And I hope this video has given you the most round image possible. I mean, I am thinking this video is going to be an hour long. If you stuck with it, I hope you learned a lot. This, again, was so much research. So make sure you like and subscribe and all those things. And if you love it so much, go to Patreon because, oh, this was so much work. My voice is so tired. But thank you for joining me for this first episode of the God Week featuring Odin, where we talked about the historical information we have about the One-Eyed Wanderer himself. I hope to see you for the other two videos that come out this week, which are the many names of Odin, and then, of course, honoring Odin today in the modern world. Thank you so much. And until the haul, Skal!