Wodanaz
Encyclopedia
or is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic language
Proto-Germanic , or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Germanic languages, such as modern English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish.The Proto-Germanic language is...

 name of a god of Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...

, known as in Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

, in Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

, or in Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...

 and in Lombardic
Lombardic language
Lombardic or Langobardic is the extinct language of the Lombards , the Germanic speaking people who settled in Italy in the 6th century. The language declined rapidly already in the 7th century as the invaders quickly adopted the Latin vernacular spoken by the local Roman population. E.g...

. The name may be written with an asterisk in front, to indicate that the form is not directly attested; see also historical linguistics
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

, comparative method
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...

.

He is in all likelihood identical with the Germanic god identified by Roman writers as Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...

  and possibly with Tacitus' . Wodanaz may have risen to prominence during the Roman Iron Age
Roman Iron Age
The Roman Iron Age is the name that Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius gave to a part of the Iron Age in Scandinavia, Northern Germany and the Netherlands....

, perhaps gradually displacing a hypothetical Tîwaz (later Tyr) as a major deity in West
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...

 and North
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...

 Germanic cultures.

Testimonies of the god are scattered over a wide range, both temporally and geographically. More than a millennium separates the earliest Roman accounts and archaeological evidence from the beginning of the Common Era
Common Era
Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...

 from the Odin of the Edda
Edda
The term Edda applies to the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, both of which were written down in Iceland during the 13th century in Icelandic, although they contain material from earlier traditional sources, reaching into the Viking Age...

 and later medieval folklore.

Wōdanaz is associated with poetic or mantic qualities, his name being connected with the concept of , "" (poetic fury), and is thus the god of poets and seers. He is a shapechanger and healer, and thus a god of magicians and leeches
Leeching
*In pre-scientific medicine, leeching was an alternative form of bloodletting in which "bad" blood would be removed via leeches instead of by bleeding...

. He is associated with the Wild Hunt
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...

 of dead, and thus a death deity. He is also a god of war and bringer of victory.

The time periods distinguished in this article are
  • Proto-Germanic period, ca. 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD: and "Germanic Mercury";
  • Migration Period
    Migration Period
    The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...

    , ca. 3rd to 7th centuries: and Proto-Norse
    Proto-Norse language
    Proto-Norse was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic over the first centuries AD...

     ; the earliest records of the name Wodan date to the 6th century Hiberno-Scottish mission
    Hiberno-Scottish mission
    The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a mission led by Irish and Scottish monks which spread Christianity and established monasteries in Great Britain and continental Europe during the Middle Ages...

    ;
  • Viking Age
    Viking Age
    Viking Age is the term for the period in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, spanning the late 8th to 11th centuries. Scandinavian Vikings explored Europe by its oceans and rivers through trade and warfare. The Vikings also reached Iceland, Greenland,...

    , ca. 8th to 12th centuries: Scandinavian ;
  • Medieval
    Middle Ages
    The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

     to Early Modern periods, ca. 13th to 18th centuries: Germanic folklore
    Germanic folklore
    Germanic folklore is recorded folklore of the Germanic speaking peoples. It is often used as a starting point for the reconstruction of a Common Germanic mythology:*Dutch folklore*English folklore*German folklore*Scandinavian folklore...

     (Wild Hunt
    Wild Hunt
    The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...

    );
  • Modern period, ca. 1800 to present: Romanticist
    Romanticism
    Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

     Viking revival
    Viking revival
    Early modern publications dealing with Old Norse culture appeared in the 16th century, e.g. Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus and the first edition of the13th century Gesta Danorum , in 1514...

    , Neopagan reconstructions
    Polytheistic reconstructionism
    Polytheistic reconstructionism is an approach to Neopaganism first emerging in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and gathering momentum in the 1990s to 2000s...

     and references in popular culture.

Etymology

The attested forms of the theonym are traditionally derived from Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic language
Proto-Germanic , or Common Germanic, as it is sometimes known, is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Germanic languages, such as modern English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Luxembourgish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Swedish.The Proto-Germanic language is...

  (in Old Norse word-initial was dropped before rounded vowels and so the name became ). Adam von Bremen etymologizes the god worshipped by the 11th-century Scandinavian pagans as "Wodan " ("Wodan, which means 'fury'"). An obsolete alternative etymology, which has been adhered to by many early writers including Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist.-Life:Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486...

 in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, is to give it the same root as the word god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

itself, from its Proto-Germanic form }. This is not tenable today according to most modern academics, except for the Lombardic name , which may go back to (see also goði, gaut, god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

).

It should be noted at this point that Old Norse had two different words spelled , one an adjective and the other a noun. The adjective means "mad, frantic, furious, violent", and is cognate with Old English . The noun means "mind, wit, soul, sense" and "song, poetry", and is cognate with Old English . In compounds, means "fiercely energetic" (e.g. "speaking violently, excited").

Both Old Norse words are from Proto-Germanic , continuing Pre-Germanic . Two extra-Germanic cognates are the Proto-Celtic
Proto-Celtic language
The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the reconstructed ancestor language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics...

  "mantic poetry" (continued in Irish "poet" and Welsh
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

  "praise-poetry") and the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

  "prophet, seer" (a possible loan from Proto-Celtic , Gaulish
Gaulish language
The Gaulish language is an extinct Celtic language that was spoken by the Gauls, a people who inhabited the region known as Gaul from the Iron Age through the Roman period...

 ). A possible, but uncertain, cognate is Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

  "to excite, awaken" (RV
Rigveda
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...

 1.128.2). The Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

 meaning of the root is therefore reconstructed as relating to spiritual excitation. The Old Norse semantic split is reflected in Adam von Bremen's testimony of the synchronic understanding of the name as "fury", rather than "poetry" or similar.

Meid suggested Proto-Germanic as a suffix expressing lordship (""), in view of words such as Odin's name Herjann "lord of armies", drótinn
Drott
*Druhtinaz is a Common Germanic term meaning a military leader or warlord and is derived from *druhti "war band" and the "ruler suffix" -īna- *Druhtinaz (Old English: dryhten, Old Norse: dróttinn, Old English-Middle English: drihten, Middle English: driȝten) is a Common Germanic term meaning a...

"lord of men", and þjóðann "lord of the nation", which would result in a direct translation of "lord of spiritual energy", "lord of poetry" or similar. It is sufficient, however, and more common, to assume a more general meaning of pertinence or possession for the suffix, inherited from PIE
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

 , to arrive at roughly the same meaning. (If it originally started out in a laryngeal consonant, the suffix could be the thematic variant of the famous "" or more succinctly "", named after its discoverer Karl Hoffmann, and nowadays commonly reconstructed as , i. e., , also found in Latin and , theonyms likely derived from "moist substance" and "port" respectively.)

Rübekeil (2003:29) draws attention to the suffix variants (in Óðinn) vs. (in Woden, Wotan). This variation, if considered at all, was dismissed as "suffix ablaut" by earlier scholars. There are, however, indications from outside Old Norse of a suffix : English Wednesday (rather than *Wodnesday) via umlaut
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...

 goes back to . Rübekeil concludes that the original Proto-Germanic form of the name was , yielding Old Norse Óðinn and unattested Anglo-Saxon *Wēden, and that the attested West Germanic forms are early medieval "clerical" folk etymologies, formed under the impression of synchronic association with terms for "fury".

The pre-Proto-Germanic form of the name would then be . Rübekeil suggests that this is a loan from Proto-Celtic into pre-Proto-Germanic, referring to the god of the , the Celtic priests of mantic prophecy, so that the original meaning of the name would be "he [the god/lord] of the Vates" (p. 33), which he tentatively identifies with Lugus
Lugus
Lugus was a deity of the Celtic pantheon. His name is rarely directly attested in inscriptions, but his importance can be inferred from placenames and ethnonyms, and his nature and attributes are deduced from the distinctive iconography of Gallo-Roman inscriptions to Mercury, who is widely believed...

 (p. 40).

Schaffner, however, has drawn attention to a third suffix variant in Old Danish *Óðon (< *Óðunn), attested in Old English as Ōdon. He argues that this is the original form of the name: , derived from the above-mentioned noun with the above-mentioned ("lordship"?) suffix . The other suffix variants and would then both be secondary reformations. The pre-Proto-Germanic form would then be or perhaps < , should the Hoffmann suffix be involved. (In any case, the original accent could not have been on the first syllable, as the appears voiced to due to Verner's law
Verner's law
Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively the fricatives *b, *d, *z,...

).

W. S. W. Anson's 1880 Asgard and the Gods surmises that "Wuotan" was originally a fully abstract cosmic force, whose name meant not "fury" originally but etymologically, quite literally, meant "what was pervasive" with the second element, "-an", issuing a meaning that renders it to be construed as signifying a single pervasive
Pervasive
Pervasive may refer to:*Pervasive Computing, human computer interaction paradigm*Pervasive Software, software company in the United States...

 principle.
According to Anson, wuot- meant " …to force one's way through anything, to conquer all opposition…" and Wuotan solidifying such as "…the all-penetrating, all-conquering Spirit of Nature…". The name Wuotan being related to, in their interpretation "(t)he modern German water, and the English wade".
Anson considered those two words to be more "restricted in meaning" than was wuot itself. The less restricted implications so grew as the attribute inherent in the meaning of the name for the god. The suffix "-an" personifying, but not then anthropomorphizing
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

, the prefix element as the absolute definitive instance, and font-head, of anything thus resembling the meaning that such said prefix element 'wuot-' would have had in nature, toward one unique divine origination of that as a general qualification.

Odin and Mercury

Less is known about the role of Odin as receiver of the dead among the more southern Germanic tribes. The Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 historian Tacitus probably refers to Odin when he talks of Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...

. The reason is that, like Mercury, Odin was regarded as Psychopomp
Psychopomp
Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage...

os, "the leader of souls".

Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 states in De Bello Gallico 6.17.1 that for the Gauls the worship of Mercury was the most important, or perhaps most widespread, out of all the gods.

Paulus Diaconus (or Paul the Deacon
Paul the Deacon
Paul the Deacon , also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred, Barnefridus and Cassinensis, , was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.-Life:...

), writing in the late 8th century, tells that Odin (Guodan) was the chief god of the Lombards
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...

 and, like earlier southern sources, he identifies Odin with Mercury (History of the Lombards, I:9). Because of this identification, Paulus adds that the god Guodan, "although held to exist [by Germanic peoples], it was not around this time, but long ago, and not in Germania, but in Greece" where the god originated. Wace
Wace
Wace was a Norman poet, who was born in Jersey and brought up in mainland Normandy , ending his career as Canon of Bayeux.-Life:...

 also identifies Wotan with Mercury. Viktor Rydberg
Viktor Rydberg
Abraham Viktor Rydberg was a Swedish writer and a member of the Swedish Academy, 1877-1895...

, in his work on Teutonic Mythology, draws a number of other parallels between Odin and Mercury, such as the fact that they were both responsible for bringing poetry to mortals.

Similarly, Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...

 most likely references Odin and Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

 in his history of the later Roman Empire as Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...

 and Mars, respectively, though a direct association is not made. This, however, underlines a particular problem concerning ancient Greek and Roman sources. Historians from both cultures, during all periods, believed the deities of foreign cultures to merely be their own gods under different names (see interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca is a Latin term for the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to equate foreign divinities to members of their own pantheon. Herodotus, for example, refers to the ancient Egyptian gods Amon, Osiris and Ptah as "Zeus", "Dionysus" and "Hephaestus", respectively.-Roman...

). Such an example may be found in Herodotus' association of an Egyptian Ram-headed god (most probably Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...

) with Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

. Later, Medieval historians followed the older tradition and likewise made such associations. However, there is no historical evidence to suggest that these are valid connections and as such they should not be taken as historical fact.

Celtic parallels

Parallels between Odin and Lugus
Lugus
Lugus was a deity of the Celtic pantheon. His name is rarely directly attested in inscriptions, but his importance can be inferred from placenames and ethnonyms, and his nature and attributes are deduced from the distinctive iconography of Gallo-Roman inscriptions to Mercury, who is widely believed...

 have often been pointed out: both are intellectual gods, commanding magic and poetry and both have ravens and a spear as their attributes. Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

 (de bello Gallico, 6.17.1) mentions Mercury as the chief god of Celtic religion
Celtic religion
Celtic religion may refer to:*Ancient Celtic polytheism**Druidism*Celtic Christianity**Celtic Rite**Celtic Orthodox Church**Celtic Catholic Church*Celtic Neopaganism**Neodruidism**Celtic Wicca**Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism...

. However, most of our sources concerning Celtic Lugus are Insular Celtic, while sources discussing Gaulish Lugus are rare, although his importance is manifest from the numerous toponyms containing the name (Lugdunum
Lugdunum
Colonia Copia Claudia Augusta Lugdunum was an important Roman city in Gaul. The city was founded in 43 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus. It served as the capital of the Roman province Gallia Lugdunensis. To 300 years after its foundation Lugdunum was the most important city to the west part of Roman...

etc.). Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...

 mentions three Celtic gods: Teutates, Esus
Esus
Esus or Hesus was a Gaulish god known from two monumental statues and a line in Lucan's Bellum civile.-Imagery:The two statues on which his name appears are the Pillar of the Boatmen from among the Parisii and a pillar from Trier among the Treveri. In both of these, Esus is portrayed cutting...

, and Taranis
Taranis
In Celtic mythology Taranis was the god of thunder worshipped essentially in Gaul, the British Isles, but also in the Rhineland and Danube regions amongst others, and mentioned, along with Esus and Toutatis as part of a sacred triad, by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia as a Celtic...

. Teutates is identified with Mars or Mercury, and he receives as human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...

s drowned captives and fallen warriors. Esus is also identified with Mercury but also with Mars, and he accepts as human sacrifices prisoners who are hanged on trees and then dismembered. Taranis is identified with Jupiter, as a warlord and a sky god. Human sacrifices to Taranis are made by burning prisoners in wooden casks. Lugus is not mentioned by Lucanus at all. The suggestion of Rübekeil (2003:38), in view of his hypothesis of a Celtic origin of the Germanic god discussed above, is that Lugus refers to the trinity Teutates-Esus-Taranis considered as a single god.

An etymological reflex of Celtic Lugus is possibly found in Loki
Loki
In Norse mythology, Loki or Loke is a god or jötunn . Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Nari or Narfi...

(a Germanic god described as a "hypostasis of Odin" by Folke Ström). A likely context of the diffusion of elements of Celtic ritual into Germanic culture are tribes such as the Chatti
Chatti
The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser. They settled in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of the Weser River and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder, Fulda and Weser River regions, a district approximately...

, who lived at the Celtic-Germanic boundary in Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...

 during the final centuries BC. (The Chatti are traditionally considered a Germanic tribe, but many of their leaders and their settlements had Celtic names.)

Shamanic traits

The goddess Freyja is described as an adept of the mysteries of seid
Seiðr
Seid or seiðr is an Old Norse term for a type of sorcery or witchcraft which was practiced by the pre-Christian Norse. Sometimes anglicized as "seidhr," "seidh," "seidr," "seithr," or "seith," the term is also used to refer to modern Neopagan reconstructions or emulations of the...

 (shamanism
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...

), a völva
Völva
A vǫlva or völva is a shamanic seeress in Norse paganism, and a recurring motif in Norse mythology....

, and it is said that it was she who initiated Odin into its mysteries. In Lokasenna
Lokasenna
Lokasenna is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki....

, Loki
Loki
In Norse mythology, Loki or Loke is a god or jötunn . Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Nari or Narfi...

 verbally abuses Odin for practising seid, condemning it as an unmanly art. A justification for this may be found in the Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga is a legendary saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It was first translated into English and published in 1844....

where Snorri opines that in following the practice of seid, the practitioner was rendered unmanly
Ergi
Ergi and argr are two Old Norse terms of insult, denoting effeminacy or other unmanly behavior. Argr is "unmanly" and ergi is "unmanliness"; the terms have cognates in other Germanic languages such as earh, earg, arag, arug, and so on.-Ergi in the Viking Age:To accuse another man of being argr...

. Another explanation is that its manipulative aspects ran counter to the male ideal of forthright, open behaviour.

Odin was a compulsive seeker of wisdom, consumed by his passion for knowledge, to the extent that he sacrificed one of his eyes (which one this was is unclear) to Mímir
Mímir
Mímir or Mim is a figure in Norse mythology renowned for his knowledge and wisdom who is beheaded during the Æsir-Vanir War...

, in exchange for a drink from the waters of wisdom in Mímir's well.

Some German sacred formulae, known as the "Merseburger Zaubersprüche" ("Merseburg Charms") were written down in c AD 800 and survived to the present time. One (this is the second of the two) describes Wodan in the role of a healer:
Original:
Phol ende UUodan vuorun zi holza.
du uuart demo Balderes volon sin vuoz birenkit
thu biguel en Sinhtgunt, Sunna era suister;
thu biguol en Friia, Volla era suister
thu biguol en Uuodan, so he uuola conda
sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki
sose lidirenki: ben zi bena
bluot zi bluoda, lid zi geliden
sôse gelîmida sin!
English translation:
Phol (Balder) and Wodan were riding in the forest
Balder
Balder
Baldr is a god in Norse mythology.In the 12th century, Danish accounts by Saxo Grammaticus and other Danish Latin chroniclers recorded a euhemerized account of his story...

's foal dislocated its foot
Sinhtgunt, sister of Sunna (Sol
Sowilo
Sól or Sunna is the Sun personified in Germanic mythology. One of the two Old High German Merseburg Incantations, written in the 9th or 10th century CE, attests that Sunna is the sister of Sinthgunt...

), tried to cure it by magic
Frige
Frige
*Frijjō is the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothesized Common Germanic love goddess giving rise to both Frigg and Freyja....

, sister of Fulla
Fulla
In Germanic mythology, Fulla or Volla is a goddess. In Norse mythology, Fulla is described as wearing a golden snood and as tending to the ashen box and the footwear owned by the goddess Frigg, and, in addition, Frigg confides in Fulla her secrets...

, tried to cure it by magic
it was charmed by Wodan, like he well could:
be it bonesprain, be it bloodsprain
be it limbsprain, bone to bones
blood to blood, limb to limbs
like they are glued!


Further, the creation of the runes is attributed to Odin and is described in the Rúnatal, a section of the Hávamál
Hávamál
Hávamál is presented as a single poem in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking age. The poem, itself a combination of different poems, is largely gnomic, presenting advice for living, proper conduct and wisdom....

. He hanged himself from the tree called Yggdrasill whilst pierced by his own spear in order to acquire knowledge. He remained thus for nine days and nights, a significant number in Norse magical practice (there were, for example, nine realms of existence), thereby learning nine (later eighteen) magical songs and eighteen magical runes. The purpose of this strange ritual, a god sacrificing himself to himself because there was nothing higher to sacrifice to, was ostensibly to obtain mystical insight through mortification of the flesh.

Some scholars see this scene as influenced by the story of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

's crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

; and others note the similarity to the story of Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

's enlightenment. It is in any case also influenced by shamanism, where the symbolic climbing of a "world tree" by the shaman in search of mystic knowledge is a common religious pattern. We know that sacrifices, human or otherwise, to the gods were commonly hung in or from trees, often transfixed by spears. (See also: Peijainen
Peijainen
In Finland, Peijainen is the ritual burial of a bear that has been communally brought down and has died. A bear was never "hunted"; it was merely brought down. A single man could claim to have hunted and killed a bear, but in a community effort, the bear simply died...

) Additionally, one of Odin's names is Ygg, and the Norse name for the World Ash —Yggdrasill—therefore means "Ygg's (Odin's) horse". Another of Odin's names is Hangatýr, the god of the hanged.

Odin's desire for wisdom can also be seen in his work as a farmhand for a summer, for Baugi
Baugi
- Myth :Baugi is a son of Gilling and his wife, who were killed by two dwarves, Fjalar and Galar. His brother is Suttungr, and his niece is Gunnlöð. Suttungr had hidden the mead of poetry after obtaining it from Fjalar and Galar....

, in order to obtain the mead of poetry. See Fjalar and Galar
Fjalar and Galar
In Norse mythology, Fjalar and his brother Galar, were dwarves who killed Kvasir and turned his blood into the mead of poetry, which inspired poets. They appear in Skáldskaparmál.- Myth :...

 for more details.

Worship

Details of the Migration period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...

 of Germanic religion are sketchy, reconstructed from artifacts, sparse contemporary sources, and the later testimonies of medieval legends and placenames. It was common, particularly amongst the Cimbri
Cimbri
The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the Roman Republic in the late 2nd century BC. The Cimbri were probably Germanic, though some believe them to be of Celtic origin...

, to sacrifice a prisoner to Odin prior to or after a battle.

According to Jonas Bobiensis, the 6th century Irish missionary Saint Columbanus is reputed to have disrupted a Beer sacrifice
Symbel
Symbel and sumbl are Germanic terms for "feast, banquet".Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a pagan ritual which had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people"....

 to Wuodan (Deo suo Vodano nomine) in Bregenz
Bregenz
-Culture:The annual summer music festival Bregenzer Festspiele is a world-famous festival which takes place on and around a stage on Lake Constance, where a different opera is performed every second year.-Sport:* A1 Bregenz HB is a handball team....

, Alemannia. Wuodan was the chief god of the Alamanni
Alamanni
The Alamanni, Allemanni, or Alemanni were originally an alliance of Germanic tribes located around the upper Rhine river . One of the earliest references to them is the cognomen Alamannicus assumed by Roman Emperor Caracalla, who ruled the Roman Empire from 211 to 217 and claimed thereby to be...

, his name appears in the runic inscription on the Nordendorf fibula
Nordendorf fibula
thumb|300px|right|The Nordendorf II fibulaThe Nordendorf fibulae are two mid 6th to early 7th century Alamannic fibulae found in Nordendorf near Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany....

.

Pagan
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...

 worship disappeared with Christianization
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...

, between the 6th and 8th centuries in England and Germany, lingering until the 11th or 12th century in Iceland and Scandinavia. Remnants of worship were continued into modern times as folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 (see Germanic Christianity
Germanic Christianity
The Germanic people underwent gradual Christianization in the course of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. By the 8th century, England and the Frankish Empire were Christian, and by AD 1100 Germanic paganism had also ceased to have political influence in Scandinavia.-History:In the 4th...

).

It has been argued that the killing of a combatant in battle was to give a sacrificial offering to Odin. The fickleness of Odin in battle was well-documented, and in Lokasenna
Lokasenna
Lokasenna is one of the poems of the Poetic Edda. The poem presents flyting between the gods and Loki....

, Loki
Loki
In Norse mythology, Loki or Loke is a god or jötunn . Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Nari or Narfi...

 taunts Odin for his inconsistency.

Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. He is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum .-Background:Little is known of his life other than hints from his own chronicles...

 in the 12th century relates that every ninth year, people assembled from all over Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 to sacrifice at the Temple at Uppsala
Temple at Uppsala
The Temple at Uppsala was a religious center in Norse paganism once located at what is now Gamla Uppsala , Sweden attested in Adam of Bremen's 11th century work Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and in Heimskringla, written by Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century...

. Male slaves, and males of each species were sacrificed and hanged from the branches of the trees. As the Swedes had the right not only to elect a king but also to depose a king, the sagas
Sagàs
Sagàs is a small town and municipality located in Catalonia, in the comarca of Berguedà. It is located in the geographical area of the pre-Pyrenees.-Population:...

 relate that both king Domalde
Domalde
In Norse mythology, Domalde, Dómaldi or Dómaldr was a Swedish king of the House of Ynglings, cursed by his stepmother, according to Snorri Sturluson, with ósgæssa, "ill-luck". He was the son of Visbur....

 and king Olof Trätälja
Olof Trätälja
Olaf Tree Feller was the son of the Swedish king Ingjald Ill-ruler of the House of Yngling according to Ynglingatal.-Heimskringla:...

 were sacrificed to Odin after years of famine. Sometimes sacrifices were made to Odin to bring about changes in circumstance. A notable example is the sacrifice of King Víkar
Víkar
Víkar was a legendary Norwegian king who found himself and his ships becalmed for a long period. To raise a wind, a human blood sacrifice was needed, and the lots fell on King Víkar himself...

 that is detailed in Gautrek's Saga and in Saxo Grammaticus' account of the same event. Sailors in a fleet being blown off course drew lots to sacrifice to Odin that he might abate the winds. The king himself drew the lot and was hanged. Sacrifices were probably also made to Odin at the beginning of summer, since Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga
Ynglinga saga is a legendary saga, originally written in Old Norse by the Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson about 1225. It was first translated into English and published in 1844....

 states one of the great festivals of the calendar is at sumri, þat var sigrblót "in summer, for victory".

Migration period

The Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

 tribes brought their pagan faith to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 around the 5th and 6th centuries and continued in that form of worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...

 until nearly all were converted to Christianity by the 8th century. The Anglo-Saxon kings claimed descent from Woden. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

 and the Historia Britonum
Historia Britonum
The Historia Brittonum, or The History of the Britons, is a historical work that was first composed around 830, and exists in several recensions of varying difference. It purports to relate the history of the Brittonic inhabitants of Britain from earliest times, and this text has been used to write...

, Woden had the sons Wecta
Wecta
Wecta is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Historia Brittonum.He is considered mythological, though he shows up in the genealogies as a Saxon ancestor of Hengest and Horsa and the kings of Kent, as well as of Aella of Deira and his son Edwin of Northumbria.He appears in the Prose Edda...

, Baeldaeg, Casere
Casere
Casere is one of the sons of Woden, according to Historia Britonum. His son, Tætman, was the progenitor of the royal line of East Anglia....

 and Wihtlaeg, who in turn were ancestors of the royal houses of the Heptarchy
Heptarchy
The Heptarchy is a collective name applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east, and central Great Britain during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, conventionally identified as seven: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex...

. Other manifestations of Woden in England are confined to a scattering of place-names
British toponymy
The toponymy of England examines the linguistic origins of place names in England, and trends in naming. Toponymy is distinct from the study of etymology, which is concerned mainly with the origins of the words themselves. English toponymy is rich, complex and diverse...

 and an even smaller number of literary mentions in the Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 poems Maxims I (line 132) and in the so-called Nine Herbs Charm
Nine Herbs Charm
The Nine Herbs Charm is an Old English charm recorded in the 10th century Lacnunga manuscript. The charm is intended for treatment of poison and infection through the preparation of nine herbs. The numbers nine and three are mentioned frequently within the charm and are significant numbers in...

 (line 32).

Lombardic Godan appears in the 7th century Origo Gentis Langobardorum
Origo Gentis Langobardorum
The Origo Gentis Langobardorum is a short 7th century account offering a founding myth of the Lombard people. The first part visions the origin and naming of the Lombards, and the following text more resembles a king-list, up until the rule of Perctarit , which helps date the original writing of...

. According to the legend presented there, Godan's wife, Frea favoured the Lombards, at the time still called Winnili, and tricked Godan into helping them by having the women of the Winnili tie their hair in front of their faces. Godan thought that they were warriors with impressive beards and named them Langobardi ("longbeards").

6th to 7th century depictions of warriors performing a ritual dance show one dancer in a wolf-costume and another wearing a helmet with two birds' heads (in Anglo-Saxon iconography, two dancers with such helmets are attested on the Sutton Hoo helmet, but not the warrior in wolf-costume). Both figures are armed with spears and swords. The scene is mostly associated with the cult of Wodan/Wodin. The horned helmet
Horned helmet
European Bronze Age and Iron Age helmets with horns are known from a few depictions, and even fewer actual finds. Such helmets mounted with animal horns or replicas of them were probably used for religious ceremonial or ritual purposes.-Prehistoric Europe:...

 has precedents in similar ritual dances in depictions dating to the Nordic Bronze Age
Nordic Bronze Age
The Nordic Bronze Age is the name given by Oscar Montelius to a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian pre-history, c. 1700-500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of...

, but the re-interpretation of the "horns" as birds of prey appears to be a development original to the 6th century. The twin dancers may correspond to the twin sons of the sky-god
Divine twins
The Divine twins are a mytheme of Proto-Indo-European mythology.*the Greek Dioscuri*the Vedic Ashvins*the Lithuanian Ašvieniai*the Latvian Dieva dēli*Alcis *Romulus and Remus*Hengest and Horsa...

, known to Tacitus as Alcis. With the rise of the cult Wodan/Wodin in place of Teiwaz in the course of the Migration period, Tyr ultimately became a son of Odin in Eddaic mythology (and both Tyr and Odin remain associated with wolves). The two birds' heads on the dancers' helmets have a parallel in the two ravens of Eddaic Odin, Hugin and Munin
Hugin and Munin
In Norse mythology, Huginn and Muninn are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring the god Odin information...

.

Another recurring scene shows a warrior fighting two wild beasts (wolves or bears, compared to the Eddaic Geri and Freki
Geri and Freki
In Norse mythology, Geri and Freki are two wolves which are said to accompany the god Odin. They are attested in the Poetic Edda, a collection of epic poetry compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and in...

). Thus, Spiedel (2004) connects Geri and Freki with archaeological finds depicting figures wearing wolf-pelts and frequently found wolf-related names among the Germanic peoples
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...

, including Wulfhroc ("Wolf-Frock"), Wolfhetan ("Wolf-Hide"), Isangrim ("Grey-Mask"), Scrutolf ("Garb-Wolf") and Wolfgang ("Wolf-Gait"), Wolfdregil ("Wolf-Runner"), and Vulfolaic ("Wolf-Dancer") and myths regarding wolf warriors from Norse mythology (such as the Úlfhéðnar).
Parallels in the 6th to 7th century iconography of Vendel period Sweden (Öland; Ekhammar), in Alemannia (Gutenstein; Obrigheim) as well as in England (Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo
Sutton Hoo, near to Woodbridge, in the English county of Suffolk, is the site of two 6th and early 7th century cemeteries. One contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance, now held in the British...

; Finglesham, Kent) suggest a persisting "pan-Germanic" unity of a wolf-warrior band cult centered around Wodan/Wodin in Scandinavia, in Anglo-Saxon England and on the Continent right until the eve of Christianization of England and Alemannia in the 7th century.

Viking Age

Scandinavian Óðinn emerged from Proto-Norse *Wōdin during the Migration period
Migration Period
The Migration Period, also called the Barbarian Invasions , was a period of intensified human migration in Europe that occurred from c. 400 to 800 CE. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages...

, Vendel
Vendel
Vendel is a parish in the Swedish province of Uppland.The village overlooks a long inland stretch of water, Vendelsjön, near which the Vendel river has its confluence with the river Fyris. The church was established in 1310...

 artwork (bracteate
Bracteate
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...

s, image stones) depicting the earliest scenes that can be aligned with the High Medieval Norse mythological texts. The context of the new elites emerging in this period aligns with Snorri's tale of the indigenous Vanir
Vanir
In Norse mythology, the Vanir are a group of gods associated with fertility, wisdom and the ability to see the future. The Vanir are one of two groups of gods and are the namesake of the location Vanaheimr . After the Æsir–Vanir War, the Vanir became a subgroup of the Æsir...

 who were eventually replaced by Aesir intruders from the Continent.http://www.algonet.se/~arador/postfestum.html

According to the Prose Edda
Prose Edda
The Prose Edda, also known as the Younger Edda, Snorri's Edda or simply Edda, is an Icelandic collection of four sections interspersed with excerpts from earlier skaldic and Eddic poetry containing tales from Nordic mythology...

, Odin was a son of Bestla
Bestla
In Norse mythology, Bestla is the mother of the gods Odin, Vili and Vé by way of Borr, the sister of an unnamed being who assisted Odin, and the daughter or, depending on source, granddaughter of the jötunn Bölþorn...

 and Borr
Borr
Borr or Burr was the son of Búri and the father of Odin in Norse mythology. He is mentioned in the Gylfaginning, part of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda....

 and brother of
VE
VE, Ve or ve may refer to:* Vili and Vé, gods in Norse mythology* Vé , a shrine in Germanic paganism and modern place name element* Ve , a character from the Cyrillic alphabet* Ve , a character of the Arabic alphabet...

 and Vili and together with these brothers he cast down the frost giant Ymir
Ymir
In Norse mythology, Ymir, also called Aurgelmir among the giants themselves, was the founder of the race of frost giants and was later killed by the Borrs.-Etymology:...

 and created the world from Ymir's body.

Attributes of Odin are Sleipnir
Sleipnir
In Norse mythology, Sleipnir is an eight-legged horse. Sleipnir is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson...

, an eight-legged horse, and the severed head of Mímir
Mímir
Mímir or Mim is a figure in Norse mythology renowned for his knowledge and wisdom who is beheaded during the Æsir-Vanir War...

, which foretold the future. He employed Valkyrjur to gather the souls of warriors fallen in battle (the Einherjar
Einherjar
In Norse mythology, the einherjar are those that have died in battle and are brought to Valhalla by valkyries. In Valhalla, the einherjar eat their fill of the nightly-resurrecting beast Sæhrímnir, and are brought their fill of mead by valkyries...

), as these would be needed to fight for him in the battle of Ragnarök
Ragnarök
In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures , the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water...

. They took the souls of the warriors to Valhalla
Valhalla
In Norse mythology, Valhalla is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin. Chosen by Odin, half of those that die in combat travel to Valhalla upon death, led by valkyries, while the other half go to the goddess Freyja's field Fólkvangr...

 (the hall of the fallen), Odin's residence in Ásgarðr
Asgard
In Norse religion, Asgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is the country or capital city of the Norse Gods surrounded by an incomplete wall attributed to a Hrimthurs riding the stallion Svadilfari, according to Gylfaginning. Valhalla is located within Asgard...

. One of the Valkyries, Brynhildr
Brynhildr
Brynhildr is a shieldmaiden and a valkyrie in Norse mythology, where she appears as a main character in the Völsunga saga and some Eddic poems treating the same events. Under the name Brünnhilde she appears in the Nibelungenlied and therefore also in Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des...

, was expelled from his service but, out of compassion, Odin placed her in a hall surrounded by a ring of fire to ensure that only the bravest man could seek her hand in marriage. She was rescued by Sigurd
Sigurd
Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...

. Höðr
Höðr
Höðr is the brother of Baldr in Norse mythology. Guided by Loki he shot the mistletoe missile which was to slay the otherwise invulnerable Baldr....

, a blind god who had accidentally killed his brother, Baldr, was then killed by another of Odin's children, Váli
Váli (son of Odin)
In Norse mythology, Váli is a son of the god Odin and the giantess Rindr. He was birthed for the sole purpose of killing Höðr as revenge for Höðr's accidental murder of his half-brother, Baldr. He grew to full adulthood within one day of his birth, and slew Höðr...

, whose mother was Rindr
Rindr
Rindr or Rinda is a female character in Old Norse mythology, alternatively described as a giantess, a goddess or a human princess from the east...

, a giantess who bore him fully grown and vowing not to even bathe before he had exacted vengeance on Höðr.

According to the Hávamál
Hávamál
Hávamál is presented as a single poem in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking age. The poem, itself a combination of different poems, is largely gnomic, presenting advice for living, proper conduct and wisdom....

 Edda, Odin was also the creator of the Runic alphabet
Runic alphabet
The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter...

. It is possible that the legends and genealogies mentioning Odin originated in a real, prehistoric Germanic chieftain who was subsequently deified, but this is impossible to prove or disprove.

Medieval reception

As the chief god of the Germanic pantheon, Odin received particular attention from the early missionaries. For example, his day is the only day to have been renamed in the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 from "Woden's day", still extant in English Wednesday (compare Norwegian, Danish and Swedish onsdag, Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 woensdag) to the neutral Mittwoch ("mid-week"), while other gods were not deemed important enough for propaganda (Tuesday "Tiw's day" and Friday "Frige
Frige
*Frijjō is the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothesized Common Germanic love goddess giving rise to both Frigg and Freyja....

's day" remained intact in all Germanic languages, except Icelandic).
"Woden's day" translates the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 Dies Mercurii, "day of Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...

". This interpretatio romana of the god is due to his role as the psychopomp
Psychopomp
Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage...

.

For many Germans, St. Michael
Michael (archangel)
Michael , Micha'el or Mîkhā'ēl; , Mikhaḗl; or Míchaël; , Mīkhā'īl) is an archangel in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings. Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans refer to him as Saint Michael the Archangel and also simply as Saint Michael...

 replaced Wotan, and many mountain chapels dedicated to St. Michael can be found, but Wotan also remained present as a sort of demon leading the Wild hunt
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...

 of the host of the dead, e.g. in Swiss folklore as Wuotis Heer. However, in some regions even this mythology was transformed so that Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

 led the hunt, not Odin.

In Anglo-Saxon England, Woden was more often euhemerised
Euhemerus
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea.-Life:...

 than demonised. In Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...

and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great...

, Woden appears as a perfectly earthly king, only four generations removed from Hengest and Horsa, though up to the Norman conquest
Norman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...

 and after there remained an awareness that he had once been "mistaken" for a god.

Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician. He was twice elected lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing...

's record of the Edda is striking evidence of the climate of religious tolerance in medieval Iceland, but even he feels compelled to give a rational account of the Aesir in his preface. In this scenario, Snorri speculates that Odin and his peers were originally refugees from Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

, etymologizing Aesir as derived from Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. Some scholars believe that Snorri's version of Norse mythology is an attempt to mould a more shamanistic tradition into a Greek mythological cast. In any case, Snorri's writing (particularly in Heimskringla
Heimskringla
Heimskringla is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorri Sturluson ca. 1230...

) tries to maintain an essentially scholastic neutrality. That Snorri was correct was one of the last of Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl
Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed by raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands...

's archeo-anthropological theories (see The search for Odin
Jakten på Odin
The Search for Odin is the project title of Thor Heyerdahl's last series of archaeological excavations, which took place in Azov in Russia.- Theoretical background :...

).

Revivals

With the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 Viking revival
Viking revival
Early modern publications dealing with Old Norse culture appeared in the 16th century, e.g. Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus and the first edition of the13th century Gesta Danorum , in 1514...

 of the early-to-mid 19th century, Odin's popularity increased again. Wotan is a lead character in Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...

, written between 1848 and 1874.

His name provides the root for 19th century conceptions of "Od
Odic force
The Odic force is the name given in the mid-19th century to a hypothetical vital energy or life force by Baron Carl von Reichenbach...

", a hypothetical vital energy that permeates all living things.

Ásatrú
Ásatrú
is a form of Germanic neopaganism which developed in the United States from the 1970s....

 , "faith in the Aesir", is an officially recognised religion in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.

Odin is frequently referred to in popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

. See Odin (disambiguation)
Odin (disambiguation)
Odin is the chief god of the Norse pantheon.Odin may also refer to:-People:Given name*Odin Langen , American politician and U.S. Representative from MinnesotaSurname*Cécile Odin , French cyclist*Jaishree Odin Odin is the chief god of the Norse pantheon.Odin may also refer to:-People:Given name*Odin...

.

Literature

  • Jacob Grimm
    Jacob Grimm
    Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...

    , Teutonic Mythology
    Teutonic Mythology
    Teutonic Mythology may refer to:*Continental Germanic mythology*Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie *Viktor Rydberg's Undersökningar i germanisk mythologi I...

    (ch. 7)
  • Kershaw, Kris. "The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Männerbünde", JIES Monograph No. 36, Washington D.C. (2000), ISBN 0-941694-74-7.
  • Starkey, Kathryn. "Imagining an early Odin. Gold bracteate
    Bracteate
    A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...

    s as visual evidence?", Scandinavian studies, Journal of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study 71-4 (1999), 373–392.
  • Ström, Åke V. (1975). "Germanische Religion" in Schröder, C. M. Die Religionen der Menschheit, Vol. 19,1. Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer. ISBN: 3-17-001157-X.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK