Odin

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Odin

Odin was one of the gods of the Norse, the people of the North, today known as Scandinavians. Odin was the one-eyed Aesir god, the god of wisdom and poetry, and of war and death. He is sometimes called All-father, meaning the father of the gods. The fourth day of the week is named after Odin, Wednesday (Davidson, 168).

Odin was descended from one of the earliest Norse gods, Bor, and goddess Bestla. His brothers were Vili and Ve. Odin's Aesir wife was Frigga, and his sons were Thor, Vali, and possibly Tyr. Nevertheless, Odin had many other wives and children (Daly, 1158).

He was believed to welcome into his hall warriors who died a heroic death on the battlefield. The worshippers of Odin were the kings and princely warriors of the Migration period (third to sixth centuries A.D.) and the Viking Age, and many royal families among the Anglo-Saxons claim to be his descendants. The earliest worship of Odin is believed to go back to the Scandinavian Bronze Age, somewhere around 1600 to 450 B.C. (Davidson, 16).The belief in Norse gods, including Odin, began to wane in the ninth and tenth centuries as young Scandinavian men came under new influences from the lands they were journeying in (Davidson, 16). Likewise, Christian communities were beginning to appear in Scandinavia during this time period, having the effect of gradually wiping out the worship of Odin and other Norse gods.Order custom research paper on odin

Stories of Odin, like other Norse gods and goddesses, were recited by bards and minstrels throughout the centuries, until it was finally written in text in the thirteenth century. There are no written, primary texts, other than runic inscriptions and a book written by the Roman historian Tacitus at the end of the first century A.D., that can tell us anything more about the people who worshipped Odin or about Odin himself. (Daly, 1158). It is important to remember that the stories of Odin have survived through the work of Christian writers, and that much of the original heathen tradition was edited, misunderstood, or forgotten before the myths reached us.

People worshipped Odin through human sacrifice. This was often performed by hanging them on gallows. It was believed that Odin and his ravens would visit the victims and talk to them. As well, Scandinavians would vow to Odin that in return for victory they would sacrifice all that they won in battle. Sacrifices to Odin also took place by strangling, while at the same time the victim was stabbed with a spear (Davidson, 16). The bodies of the men and animals sacrificed were left hanging from trees. The type of sacrifice most typical to worshippers of Odin was that of men killed in battle or put to death by the victors, and the symbol for a warrior's death was the spear (Davidson, 166). Sacrifices to Odin might have included women as well as men. The wives or female slaves of high-born men in the Viking Age are represented as voluntarily giving themselves to death when their men died (Davidson, 164). Cremation was also practiced by followers of Odin (Davidson, 164).

The purpose of Odin as a god was to allow for a degree of assurance when it came to war and battle. Warriors could pray to Odin and feel that they had some control over their fate in battle. As well, Odin gave answers to phenomena like death through his wisdom. Nevertheless, it was believed that Odin would always fail his followers in the end because fate was stronger than Odin (Davidson, 1650).

Bibliography

Daly, Kathleen. Norse Mythology A to Z. New York Facts on File Limited, 11.

Davidson, H.R. Scandinavian Mythology. London Paul Hamlyn, 16.

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