Odin- Norse GodDeity"Allfather"

Origins and Creation

Odin was born at the dawn of time. His father was Borr, son of Búri, who had been licked from the primordial ice by the cow Auðumbla; his mother was Bestla, a giantess and daughter of the giant Bölþorn. With his brothers Vili and Vé, Odin accomplished the primal act of creation: the slaying of the giant Ymir and the making of the world from his body.

From Ymir's flesh, the brothers made the earth; from his blood, the sea; from his bones, the mountains; from his skull, the sky, held up at four corners by four dwarves. They set the sun and moon in the heavens, established the seasons, and created Midgard, the world of humans. On the shore they found two logs, an ash and an elm, and from these created the first humans, Ask and Embla, to whom Odin gave breath and life.

The Sacrifice of the Eye

Odin's single eye is his most recognizable feature, the mark of the god who traded half his sight for wisdom. He journeyed to Mímir's Well, which lies beneath one of the roots of Yggdrasil. The well contains the knowledge of all things, and Mímir, its guardian, demanded a price for a single drink.

Odin plucked out one of his own eyes and cast it into the well, where it remains. In exchange, he drank of the waters and gained wisdom beyond that of any other being. The eye in the well sees all that happens; Odin, one-eyed, sees more deeply than those with two.

The Ordeal on Yggdrasil

Even more harrowing was Odin's self-sacrifice on the World Tree. The ordeal is recounted in his own voice in the Hávamál: "I know that I hung on a wind-swept tree for nine full nights, wounded with a spear and given to Odin, myself to myself, on that tree of which none knows from what roots it rises."

For nine nights, Odin hung on Yggdrasil, pierced by his own spear Gungnir, without food or drink. A sacrifice of himself to himself. At the end of the ninth night, screaming, he seized the runes, the magical symbols that contain the secrets of the cosmos, and rose again with power over magic and fate.

God of Poetry and Magic

Odin obtained the mead of poetry through cunning and seduction. The mead was guarded by the giantess Gunnlöð deep within the mountain Hnitbjörg. Odin bored through the rock in the form of a serpent, spent three nights with Gunnlöð, and drank the three great cauldrons of mead dry. Then, taking the form of an eagle, he flew back toward Asgard with the mead in his belly, pursued by the giant Suttungr in eagle shape. Odin reached the walls just ahead and regurgitated the mead into vessels the gods had prepared. Some drops fell outside the walls during the chase. These, the Norse said, are the portion available to bad poets. The true mead Odin bestows on those he favors.

The runes Odin seized from Yggdrasil were not merely an alphabet but symbols of power, able to heal or curse, bind or reveal. He mastered galdr, the chanting of magical spells, and seiðr, a more shamanic form of magic learned from the Vanir goddess Freyja. The Lokasenna records that Loki taunted Odin for practicing seiðr, which the Norse considered ergi, unmanly. Odin practiced it anyway.

The Wanderer

Odin never rests in Asgard for long. He wanders the nine worlds in disguise: an old man in a gray cloak and wide-brimmed hat, one-eyed, long-bearded, carrying a staff. He gives himself new names wherever he goes. Grímnir, the Masked One. Gangleri, the Wanderer. Vegtam, Way-Tamer. In these travels he tests the hospitality of mortals, seeks wisdom in unlikely places, fathers children with giantesses and human women, and intervenes in human affairs in ways that may help or harm. He is a guest who may bring blessings or doom, a stranger whose true identity is never certain.

Two ravens attend him, Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory), who fly across the nine worlds each day and return to whisper what they have seen into Odin's ears. Through them he knows all that happens throughout the cosmos. Yet in the Grímnismál he admits he fears for his ravens, that one day they might not return. Two wolves, Geri and Freki, feed from his table in Valhalla, for Odin himself needs no food. Wine alone sustains the Allfather.

Gungnir and Sleipnir

Odin's weapon is Gungnir, the spear that never misses its mark. Forged by the dwarves, sons of Ívaldi, Gungnir is among the greatest treasures of the gods. When thrown, it always strikes its target; oaths sworn upon it cannot be broken. Odin used Gungnir to pierce himself during his ordeal on Yggdrasil, consecrating his self-sacrifice with his own weapon. When Odin enters battle, he begins it by hurling Gungnir over the enemy host, dedicating them to death and claiming them for himself.

His mount is Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse, swiftest steed in all the worlds. Sleipnir's origin is extraordinary: Loki, having transformed into a mare to distract the stallion Svaðilfari from completing a giant's fortress, later gave birth to the eight-legged foal and presented it to Odin. On Sleipnir's back, Odin rides between worlds, across Bifröst, down to the gates of Hel, and through the sky itself.

Lord of the Slain

Odin is called Valföðr, Father of the Slain, and his concern is not with those who survive battles but with those who die in them. The Valkyries, his warrior spirits, ride over battlefields selecting the bravest of the fallen to bring to Valhalla.

In Valhalla, the chosen dead, the einherjar, feast and fight each day, dying in practice combat and rising again each evening, preparing for the day Odin will lead them against the forces of chaos. But Odin's relationship to the einherjar is not straightforward: he gives victory to some warriors and death to others, sometimes switching his favor mid-battle. He has been known to abandon favorites, to ordain the deaths of heroes who trusted him, to accept human sacrifice. A glorious death in battle leads to Valhalla; death of old age or illness leads to the cold realm of Hel. What looks like betrayal may be the highest honor Odin can bestow: the chance to die well and join his army of the dead.

Father of Gods and Heroes

Odin's most beloved son was Baldr, born of Frigg, the radiant god whose beauty and goodness made him cherished by all living things. When Baldr began to dream of his own death, Odin rode Sleipnir down to Hel itself to raise a dead seeress and demand the meaning of these visions. The answer was devastating: Baldr would die, struck down by his blind brother Höðr through Loki's treachery, and his death would shatter the peace of Asgard and set the chain of Ragnarök in motion. Odin's grief at the funeral pyre was the deepest of all the gods, for he alone grasped the full weight of what had been lost.

Thor, his eldest and mightiest son by the giantess Jörð, became the great defender of gods and mortals alike. Father and son could hardly have been more different: Thor open and thunderous, Odin subtle and calculating. Among Odin's other sons, Víðarr the Silent would prove the most consequential, not in the age of gods, but at the end of all things.

Odin's fatherhood reached into the mortal world as well. Royal families across Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxon England claimed descent from the Allfather, but the greatest of these lineages was the Völsungs. Odin himself appeared at King Völsung's hall and thrust a sword into the great tree Branstock, declaring that only his chosen could draw it forth. Sigmund alone proved worthy, and Odin watched over his favored line for generations, until the day he appeared on the battlefield and shattered that same sword on Gungnir, ordaining a glorious death for his mortal son. Through Sigmund's heir Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, Odin's bloodline produced the most celebrated hero of the Germanic world.

Ragnarök

Odin knows every detail of how the world will end. He has heard the Völva's prophecy: Fenrir will break his chains, the Midgard Serpent will rise from the sea, Loki will lead the dead against Asgard aboard the ship Naglfar, and the fire giant Surtr will set the world ablaze. Odin himself will face Fenrir and be devoured. Nothing he has gathered, no wisdom or warriors or power, can change this.

Yet he prepares nonetheless, and he will ride to that final battle with Gungnir in hand and the einherjar at his back. When Fenrir swallows him whole, Víðarr will step forward, bracing one foot on the wolf's lower jaw and tearing the beast apart, avenging the Allfather at the cost of the old world's end.

Worship

Odin was worshipped primarily by warriors, kings, and poets. Human sacrifice to Odin is attested, often by hanging or spearing, reenacting his self-sacrifice on Yggdrasil. The tenth-century Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan described a Viking funeral on the Volga that included sacrifices to a god matching Odin's description. Place names throughout Scandinavia preserve his cult, and the day Wednesday, from Old English Wōdnesdæg, "Woden's Day," commemorates the Anglo-Saxon form of his name.