Tales of Norse mythology.
Odin.
The father of gods and men,
Odin,
Otherwise known as Vothan,
Odin,
Or Odin,
Was the highest and holiest god of the northern races.
He was the all-pervading spirit of the universe,
The personification of the air,
The god of universal wisdom and victory,
And the leader and protector of princes and heroes.
As all the gods were supposed to be descended from him,
He was surname Al-father,
Or Al-father,
And as eldest and chief among them,
He occupied the highest seat in Ausgard.
Known by the name of Hlidskjarrd,
This chair was not only exalted throne,
But also mighty watchtower,
From whence he could overlook the whole world and see at a glance all that was happening among gods,
Giants,
Elves,
Dwarves,
And men.
From the hall of heaven he rode away to Hlidskjarrd and sat upon his throne,
The mount from whence his eye surveys the world,
And far from heaven he turned his shining orbs to look on Mithgar and the earth and men.
None but Óðinn and his wife and queen Frigg were privileged to use this seat,
And when they occupied it,
They generally gazed towards the west and south,
The goal of all the hopes and excursions of the northern nations.
Óðinn was generally represented as a tall,
Vigorous man,
About fifty years of age,
Either with dark curling hair or with a long grey beard and bald head.
He was clad in a suit of grey with a blue hood,
And his muscular body was enveloped in a white-blue mantle flecked with grey,
Fleecy clouds.
In his hand Óðinn generally carried the infallible spear Gungnir,
Which was so sacred that an oath sworn upon its point could never be broken,
And on his finger or arm he wore the marvellous ring Draupnir,
The emblem of fruitfulness,
Precious beyond compare.
When seated upon his throne or armed for the fray,
To mingle in which he would often descend to earth,
Óðinn wore his eagle helmet,
But when he wandered peacefully about the earth in human guise,
To see what men were doing,
He generally donned a broad-brimmed hat,
Drawn low over his forehead,
To conceal the fact that he possessed but one eye.
Two ravens,
Húgin,
Meaning thought,
And Múninn,
Meaning memory,
Perched upon his shoulders as he sat upon his throne,
And these he sent out into the wide world every morning,
Anxiously watching for their return at nightfall,
When they whispered into his ears news of all they had seen and heard.
Thus he was kept well informed about everything that was happening on earth.
Húgin and Múninn fly each day over the spacious earth.
I fear for Húgin,
That he come not back,
Yet more anxious am I for Múninn.
At his feet crouched two wolves or hunting hounds,
Geri and Freki,
Both meaning the ravenous or greedy one,
Animals which were therefore considered sacred to him,
And of good omen if met by the way.
Óðinn always fed these wolves with his own hands from meat he set before him.
He required no food at all for himself,
And seldom tasted anything except the sacred meat.
When seated in this state upon his throne,
Óðinn rested his feet upon a footstool of gold,
The work of the gods,
All of whose furniture and utensils were fashioned either of that precious metal or of silver.
Besides the magnificent hall Glardhsheim,
Where stood the twelve seats occupied by the gods when they met in council,
And Valaskjálf,
Where this throne Hlidskjálf was placed,
Óðinn had a third palace in Ásgar,
Situated in the midst of the marvellous grove Gláðir,
Whose shimmering leaves were of red gold.
This place,
Called Valhalla,
The hall of the Chosen Slain,
Had five hundred and forty doors,
Wide enough to allow the passage of eight hundred warriors abreast,
And above the principal gate where boars had,
And an eagle-hoose piercing glance,
Penetrated to that far corners of the world.
The walls of this marvellous building were fashioned of glittering spears,
So highly polished that they illuminated the hall.
The roof was of golden shields,
And the benches were decorated with fine armour,
The gods' gifts to his guests.
Here long tables afforded ample accommodation for the Einherjar,
Warriors fallen in battle,
Who were especially favoured by Óðinn.
Easily to be known is,
By those who to Óðinn come,
The mansion by its asp,
Its roof with spears is laid,
Its hall with shields is decked,
With courseless are its benches strewn.
The ancient northern nations redeemed warfare the most honourable of occupations,
And considered courage the greatest virtue,
Worshipped Óðinn principally as god of battle and victory.
They believed that whenever a fight was impending,
He sent out his special attendants,
The shield,
Battle,
Or wish-maidens,
Called the Valkyrir,
Or Valkyries,
Choosers of the slain,
Who selected from the dead warriors one half of their number,
Whom they bore on their fleet-seats over the quivering rainbow bridge Bifrust into Valhalla.
Welcomed by Óðinn's sons Hermodr and Bragi,
The heroes were conducted to the foot of Óðinn's throne,
Where they received praise due to their valour.
Where some special favourite of the god was thus brought into ausgald,
Valfadr,
The father of the slains,
As Óðinn was called when he resided over the warriors,
Would sometimes rise from his throne and in person bid him welcome at the great entrance gate.
Besides the glory of such distinction and the enjoyment of Óðinn's beloved presence day after day,
Other more material pleasures awaited the warriors in Valhalla.
Generous entertainment was provided for them at the long tables,
Where the beautiful white-armed virgins,
The Valkyrir,
Having laid aside their armour and clad themselves in pure white robes,
Waited upon them with a serious attention.
These maidens,
Nine in number according to some authorities,
Brought the heroes great horns full of delicious meat and set before them huge portions of boar's flesh upon which they feasted heartily.
The usual northern drink was beer or ale,
But our ancestors fancied his beverage too coarse for the heavenly sphere.
They therefore imagined that Valfadr kept his table liberally supplied with mead or hydromel,
Which was daily furnished in great abundance by his she-goat,
Heidrinn,
Who continually browsed on the tender leaves and twigs on Leradr,
Yggdrasil's topmost branch.
Rash war and perilous battle,
Their delight,
And immature and red with glorious wounds,
One peaceful death,
That choice,
The writhing fence,
A rite to feast and drain immortal bowels,
In Odin's hall,
Whose blazing roof resounds,
The genial uproar of those streets who fall In desperate fight or by some brave attempt.
The meat upon which the Ain Heriar feasted was the flesh of the divine boar Saahrimnir,
A marvelous beast daily slain by the cook Angrimnir and boiled in the great cauldron Eldhrimnir,
But although Odin's guests had true northern appetites and gourged themselves to the full,
There was always plenty of meat for all.
Angrimnir cooks and Eldhrimnir Saahrimnir,
This the best of flesh,
But few know what the Ain Heriars eat.
Moreover,
The supply was exhaustless,
For the boar always came to life again before the time of the next meal.
This miraculous renewal of supplies in the Leradr was not the only wonderful occurrence in Valhalla,
For it is related that the warriors,
After having eaten and drunk to satiety,
Always called for their weapons,
Armed themselves,
And rode out into the great courtyard where they fought against one another,
Repeating the feats of arms for which they were famed on earth,
And recklessly dealing terrible wounds,
Which,
However,
Were miraculously and completely healed as soon as the dinner horn sounded.
All the chosen guests of Odin daily plied the trade of war.
From the fields of festal fight,
Swift they ride in gleaming arms,
And gaily at the board of guards quaff the cup of sparkling ale and eat Saahrimnir's vaunted flesh.
Whole and happy at the sound of the horn,
And bearing one another no grudge for cruel thrusts given and received,
The Ain Heriars would ride gaily back to Valhalla to renew their feats in Odin's beloved presence,
While the white-armed Valkyryr with flying hair glided gracefully about,
Constantly filling their horns or their favorite drinking vessels,
The skulls of their enemies,
While the scarlet sang of war and of stirring viking poor eggs.
Fighting and feasting thus,
The heroes were set to spend their days in perfect bliss,
While Odin delighted in their strength and number,
Which,
However he foresaw,
Would not avail to prevent his downfall when the day of the last battle should dawn.
As such pleasures were the highest northerwarriors' fancied pain,
It was very natural that all fighting men should love Odin,
And early in life should dedicate themselves to his service.
They vowed to die arms in hand,
If possible,
And even wounded themselves with their own spears when death drew near,
If they had been unfortunate enough to escape death on the battlefield and were threatened with straw death,
As they called,
Deceased from old age or sickness.
In reward for this devotion,
Odin watched with special care over his favorites,
Giving them gifts,
A magic sword,
A spear,
Or a horse,
And making them invincible until their last hour had come.
When he himself appeared to claim or destroy the gift he had bestowed,
And the valkyrie bore the heroes to Valhalla,
He gave to Hermod a helm and corset,
And from him Sigmund a sword received.
When Odin took an active part in war,
He generally rode his eight-footed gray steed,
Sleipnir,
And bore a white shield.
His glittering spear flung over the heads of the combatants,
Was a signal for the fray to commence,
And he would dash into the midst of the ranks chanting his war cry,
Odin has you all.
At times he used his magic bow,
From which he would shoot ten arrows at once,
Every one invariably bringing down a foe.
Odin was also supposed to inspire his favorite warriors with the renowned berserker rage,
Which enabled them,
Although naked,
Weaponless,
And sore beset,
To perform unheard of feats of valor and strength,
And move about as with charmed lives.
As all these characteristics,
Like their all-pervading elements,
Were multitudinous,
So also were his names,
Of which he had no less than two hundred,
Almost all descriptive of some phase of his activities.
He was considered the ancient god of semen and of the wind.
Odin,
As wind god,
Was pictured as rushing through mid-air on his eight-footed steed,
From which originated the oldest northern riddle,
Which runs as follows.
Who are the two who ride to the thing?
Three eyes have they together,
Ten feet and one tail,
And thus they travel through the lands.
And as the souls of the dead were supposed to be wafted away on the wings of the storm,
Odin was worshipped as the leader of all disembodied spirits.
In this character he was most generally known as the wild huntsman,
And when people heard the rush and roar of the wind they cried aloud in superstitious fear,
Fancying they heard and saw him ride past with his train,
All mounted on snorting steeds and accompanied by baying hounds.
And the passing of the wild hunt,
Known as Wodin's hunt,
The raging hosts,
Gabriel's hounds,
Or Asgardrea,
Was also considered a presage of such misfortune as pestilence or war.
The Rhine flows bright,
But its waves ere long,
Must hear a voice of war and a clash of spears or hills among,
And a trumpet from afar,
And the brave on a bloody turf must lie,
For the huntsman hath gone by.
It was further thought that,
If any were so sacrilegious as to join in the wild Halloo in mockery,
They would be immediately snatched up and whirled away with the vanishing host,
While those who join in the Halloo with implicit good faith would be rewarded by the sudden gift of a horse's leg,
Heard at them from above,
Which,
If carefully kept until the morrow,
Would be changed into a lump of gold.
Sometimes it left behind a small black dog,
Which,
Cowering and whining upon a neighboring herd,
Had to be kept for a whole year and carefully tinned unless it could be exorcised or frightened awake.
The usual recipe,
The same as for the rhythms of challenging,
Was to brew beer in eggshells,
And this performance was supposed so to startle the spectral dog that he would fly with his tail between his legs,
Exclaiming that,
Although as old as the Bhegma or Bohemian forest,
He had never before beheld such an uncanny sight.
I am as old as the Bhegma wall,
And have in my life such a brewing not seen.
The object of this phantom hunt varied greatly,
And it was either visionary boar or wild horse,
White-breasted maidens who were caught and borne away bound only once in seven years,
Or the wood nymphs called moss maidens,
Who were thought to represent the autumn leaves torn from the trees and whirled away by the wintry gale.
In the Middle Ages,
When the belief in the old heathen deities was partly forgotten,
The leader of the wild hunt was no longer Odin,
But Charlemagne,
Frederick Barbarossa,
King Arthur,
Or some saboteur breaker like the squire of Rodenstein,
Or Hans von Hackelberg,
Who in punishment for his sins was condemned to hunt forever through the realms of air.
As the winds blew fiercest in autumn and winter,
Odin was supposed to prefer hunting during that season,
Especially during the time between Christmas and Twelfth Night,
And the peasants were always careful to leave the last sheep,
Or measure of grain,
Out in the fields to serve as food for his horse.
This hunt was of course known by various names in the different countries of Northern Europe,
But as the tales told about it are all alike,
They evidently originated in the same old heathen belief.
And to this day,
Ignorant people of the North fancy that the baying of a hound on a stone midnight is an infallible presage of death.
The wild hunt,
Or raging host of Germany,
Was called Herlating in England,
From the mythical king Herla,
Its supposed leader.
In Northern France it bore the name of Mene de Lecion from Hell,
Goddess of death,
And in the Middle Ages it was known as Cain's hunt,
Or Herod's hunt.
These latter names being given because the leaders were supposed to be unable to find rest on account of the iniquitous murders of Abel,
Of John the Baptist,
And of the Holy Innocence.
In central France,
The wild huntsmen whom we have already seen in other countries as Odin,
Charlemagne,
Barbarossa,
Rodenstein,
Von Hackelberg,
King Arthur,
Hell,
One of the Swedish kings,
Gabriel,
Cain,
Or Herod,
Is also called the great huntsmen of Houtenbleau,
And people declare that on the eve of Henry IV's murder,
And also just before the outbreak of the great French Revolution,
His shouts were distinctly heard as he swept across the sky.
It is generally believed among the northern nations that the soul escaped from the body in the shape of a mouse which crept out of the corpse's mouth and ran away,
And it was also said to creep in and out of the mouths of people in a trance.
While the soul was absent,
No effort or remedy could recall the patience to life,
But as soon as it had come back,
Animation returned.
As Odin was the leader of all disembodied spirits,
He was identified in the Middle Ages with Piper of Hamelin.
According to medieval legends,
Hamelin was so infested by rats that life became unbearable and a large reward was offered to any who would rid the town of these rodents.
A piper in party-colored garments offered to undertake the commission,
And the terms being accepted,
He commenced to play through the streets in such wise that one and all the rats were beguiled out of their hose until they formed a vast procession.
There was that in the strains which compelled them to follow until at last the river Vesa was reached and all were drowned in its tide.
As the rats were all dead and there was no chance of their returning to play them,
The people of Hamelin refused to pay the reward and they bade the piper to do his worst.
He took them at their word and a few moments later the weird strains of the magic loot again arose and this time it was the children who swarmed out of the houses and merrily followed the piper.
The burghers were powerless to prevent the tragedy and as they stood spellbound the piper led the children out of the town.
And the Koppelberg,
A hill on the confines of the town,
Which miraculously opened to receive the procession and only closed again when the last child had passed out of sight.
This legend probably originated the adage to pay the piper.
The children were never seen in Hamelin again and in commemoration of this public calamity all official decrees have since been dated so many years after the Pied Piper's visit.
In this myth Odin is the piper.
The shrill tones of the flute are emblematic of the whistling wind.
The rats represent the souls of the dead,
Which cheerfully follow him and the hollow mountain into which he leads the children is typical of the grave.
Another German legend which owes its existence to this belief is the story of Bishop Hattel.
The miserly Pullet,
Who annoyed by the clamorous of the poor during a time of famine,
Had them burn alive in a deserted barn like the rats whom he declared they resembled,
Rather than give them some of the precious grain which he had laid up for himself.
Soon after this terrible crime had been accomplished,
The bishop's retainers reported the approach of a vast swarm of rats.
These it appears were the souls of the murdered peasants,
Which had assumed the forms of the rats to which the bishop had likened them.
His efforts to escape were vain,
And the rats pursued him even into the middle of the Rhine,
To a stone tower in which he took refuge from their fangs.
They swam to the tower,
Gnawed their way through the stone walls,
Peering in on all sides at once.
They found the bishop and devoured him alive.
The red glow of the sunset above the rat tower near Bingen on the Rhine is supposed to be the reflection of the hell fire in which the wicked bishop is slowly roasting in punishment for his heinous crime.
In some parts of Germany,
Odin was considered to be identical with the Saxon god Irmin,
Who's statute the Irminsul,
Near Paderborn,
Was destroyed by Charlemagne in 772.
Irmin was said to possess a ponderous brazen chariot,
In which he rode across the sky along the path which we know as the Milky Way,
But which the ancient Germanics designated as Irmin's Way.
This chariot,
Whose rumbling sound occasionally became perceptible to mortal ears as thunder,
Never left the sky,
Where it can still be seen in the constellation of the great bear,
Which is also known in the north as Odin's or Charles' Way.
To obtain the great wisdom for which he is so famous,
Odin,
In the morn of time,
Visited Mimir's spring,
The fountain of all wit and wisdom,
In whose liquid depths even the future was clearly mirrored,
And besought the old man who guarded it to let him have a draught.
But Mimir,
Who well knew the valley of such a favor,
For his spring was considered the source of memory,
Refused the boon unless Odin would consent to give one of his eyes in exchange.
The guard did not hesitate,
So highly did he prize the draught,
But immediately plucked one of his eyes out,
Which Mimir kept in pledge,
Sinking it deep into his fountain,
Where it's shown with mild lustre,
Leaving Odin with but one eye,
Which is considered emblematic of the sun.
Drinking deeply of Mimir's fountain,
Odin gained the knowledge he coveted,
And he never regretted the sacrifice he had made.
But as further memory of the day broke off a branch of the sacred tree Yggdrasil,
Which overshadowed the spring,
And fashioned from it his beloved spear,
Gunnir.
But although Odin was now all wise,
He was sad and oppressed,
For he had gained an insight into the future,
And had become aware of the transitory nature of all things,
And even of the fate of the gods,
Who were doomed to pass away.
This knowledge so affected his spirits that he ever after wore a melancholy and contemplative expression.
To test the value of the wisdom he had thus obtained,
Odin went to visit the most learned of all the giants,
Vafthrednir,
And entered with him into a contest of width,
In which the stake was nothing less than the loser's head.
On this occasion,
Odin had disguised himself as a wanderer,
By Frigg's advice,
And when asked his name,
Declared it was Gangrad.
The contest of width immediately began.
Vafthrednir questioning his guess concerning the horses which carried day and night across the sky,
The river Ithing separating Jötunheim from Asgard,
And also about Vigrid,
The field where the last battle was to be fought.
All these questions were to be minutely answered by Odin,
Who when Vafthrednir had ended,
Began the interrogatory in his turn,
And received equally explicit answers about the origin of heaven and earth,
The creation of the gods,
The quarrel with the Vanir,
The occupation of the heroes in Valhalla,
The offices of the Norns,
And the rulers who were to replace the Æthir when they had all perished with the world they had created.
But when,
In conclusion,
Odin bent near the giant and softly inquired about words,
Alfar the Wistered into his dead son Baldr,
As he lay upon his funeral pyre,
Vafthrednir suddenly recognized his divine visitor.
Starting back in this May,
He declared that no one but Odin himself could answer that question,
And that it was now quite plain to him that he had madly striven in a contest of wisdom and width with the king of the gods,
And fully deserved a penalty of failure.
The loss of his head.
As is the case with so many of the northern myths,
Which are often fragmentary and obscure,
This one ends here.
And none of the scouts informs us whether Odin really slew his rival,
Nor what was the answer to his last question,
But mythologists have hazarded the suggestion that the word whispered by Odin in Baldr's ear to console him for his untimely death must have been resurrection.
Besides being god of wisdom,
Odin was god and inventor of runes,
The earliest alphabet used by northern nations,
Which characters signifying mystery were at first used for divination,
Although in later times they served for inscriptions and records.
Just as wisdom could only be attained at cost of sacrifice,
Odin himself relates that he hung nine days and nights from the sacred tree Yggdrasil,
Gazing down into the immeasurable depths of Niflheim,
Plunged in deep thought and self-wounded with his spear,
Ere he won the knowledge he sought.
When he had fully mastered this knowledge,
Odin cut magic runes upon his spear Gungnir,
Upon the teeth of his horse Slapnir,
Upon the claws of the bear,
And upon countless other animate and inanimate things,
And because he had thus hung over the abyss for such a long space of time,
He was ever after considered the patron of divinity of all who were condemned to be hanged or who perished by the noose.
After obtaining the gift of wisdom and runes,
Which gave him power over all things,
Odin also coveted the gift of eloquence and poetry,
Which he acquired in a manner which he shall relate in a subsequent chapter.
Odin,
As has already been stated,
Took great interest in the affairs of mortals,
And,
We are told,
Was especially fond of watching King Hrauding's handsome little sons,
Geirud and Agnarr,
When they were about eight and ten years of age respectively.
One day these little lads went fishing,
And a storm suddenly arose which blew their boat far out to sea,
Where it finally stranded upon an island upon which dwelt a seeming old couple,
Who in reality were Odin and Frigg in disguise.
They had assumed these forms in order to indulge a southern passion for the close society of their protégés.
The lads were warmly welcomed and kindly treated,
Odin choosing Geirud as his favorite and teaching him the use of arms,
While Frigg petted and made much of little Agnarr.
The boys tarried on the island with their kind protectors during the long cold winter season.
But when spring came and the skies were blue and the sea calm,
They embarked in a boat which Odin provided and set out for their native shore.
Covered by gentle breezes,
They were soon wafted thither,
But as the boat near the strand,
Geirud quickly sprang out and pushed it far back into the water,
Bidding his brother's sail away into the evil spirit's power.
At itself same moment,
The wind veered,
And Agnarr was indeed carried away,
While his brother hastened to father's palace with a lying tale as to what happened to his brother.
He was joyfully received as one from the dead,
And in due time he succeeded his father upon the throne.
Years passed by during which the attention of Odin had been claimed by other high considerations,
When one day while the divine couple seated upon the throne,
Hlidskyalf,
Odin suddenly remembered the winter soldier on the desert island,
And he bade his wife notice how powerful his people had become,
And taunted her because her favorite Agnarr had married a giantess and had remained poor and of no consequence.
Frigg quietly replied that it was better to be poor than hard-hearted,
And accused Geirul of lack of hospitality,
One of the most heinous crimes in the eyes of a northman.
She even went so far as to declare that in spite of all his wealth,
He often ill-treated his guests.
When Odin heard this accusation,
He declared that he would prove the falsity of the charge by assuming the guise of a wanderer and testing Geirul's generosity.
Wrapped in his cloud-hued raiment,
With slouch hat and pilgrim staff,
Odin immediately set out by a roundabout way,
While Frigg,
To outwit him,
Immediately dispatched a swift messenger to warn Geirud to beware of a man in wide mantle and broad-brimmed hat,
As he was a wicked enchanter who would work him ill.
When therefore Odin presented himself before the king's palace,
He was dragged into Geirud's presence and questioned brothily.
He gave his name as Grimnir,
But refused to tell whence he came or what he wanted.
So as this reticence confirmed the suspicions suggested to the mind of Geirud,
He allowed his love of cruelty full play and commanded that the stranger should be bound between two fires in such wise that the flames played around him without quite touching him and he remained thus eight days and nights in obstinate silence without food.
Now Agnoth had returned secretly to his brother's palace,
Where he occupied a menial position,
And one night when all was still,
In pity for the suffering of the unfortunate captive,
He conveyed to his lips a horn of ale.
But for this Odin would have had nothing to drink,
The most serious of all trials to the god.
During,
Odin began to sing,
Softly at first,
Then louder and louder,
Until the hall re-echoed with his triumphant notes,
A prophecy that the king who had so long enjoyed the god's favor would soon perish by his own sword.
As the last notes died away,
The chains dropped from his hands,
The flames flickered and went out,
And Odin stood in the midst of the hall,
No longer in human form but in all the power and beauty of a god.
Upon hearing the ominous prophecy,
Gairud hastily drew his sword,
Intending to slay the insolent singer,
But when he beheld the sudden transformation,
He started in dismay,
Tripped,
Fell upon the sharp blade and perished as Odin had just foretold.
Turning to Agnarr,
Who according to some accounts was the king's son and not his brother,
For these all stories are often strangely confused,
Odin bade him ascend the throne in reward for his humanity,
And,
Further to repay him for the timely draft of ale,
He promised to bless him with all manner of prosperity.
On another occasion,
Odin wandered to earth and was absent so long that the gods began to think that they would not see him in Ausgard again.
This encourages his brothers,
Vili and Ve,
Who by some mythologists are considered as other personifications of himself,
To usurp his power and his throne,
And even,
We are told,
To espouse his wife Frigg.
But upon Odin's return the usurpers vanished forever,
And in commemoration of the disappearance of the post Odin,
Who had ruled seven months and had brought nothing but unhappiness to the world,
And of the return of the benevolent deity,
The heathen northmen formally celebrated yearly festivals which were long continued as may-day rejoicings.
Still very lately there was always on that day a grand procession in Sweden known as the May Ride in which a flower-decked may-king Odin pelted with blossoms the fur-enveloped winter-esplanter until he put them to ignominious flight.
In England also the first of May was celebrated as a festive occasion in which maypole dancers,
May-queens,
Maid-merrian and jack-in-the-green played prominent parts.
As personification of heaven,
Odin,
Of course,
Was the love and spouse of the earth,
And as to them the earth bore a three-fold aspect.
The northmen depicted him as a polygamist and allotted to him several wives.
The first among these was Jörð,
The primitive earth daughter of Nýð or of the giantess Fjörgin.
She bore him his famous son Þór,
The god of thunder.
The second and principal wife was Frík,
A personification of the civilized world.
She gave him Baldr,
The gentle god of spring,
Her modre and according to some authorities Tyr.
The third wife was Hrinda,
A personification of the hard and frozen earth who reluctantly yields to his warmth embrace but finally gives birth to Vali,
The emblem of vegetation.
Odin is also said to have married Saga,
Or Laga,
The goddess of history,
Hence our verb to say and to have daily visited her in the crystal hall of Sokvabek beneath a cool everflowing river to drink its waters and listen to her songs about olden times and vanished races.
His other wives were Gríd,
The mother of Vidar,
Gunlöðr,
The mother of Bragi,
Skadi and the nine giantesses who simultaneously bore Heimdallr,
All of whom play more or less important parts in the various myths of the north.
Besides this ancient Odin there was a more modern,
Somewhat historical personage of the same name to whom all the virtues,
Powers and adventures of his predecessor have been attributed.
He was the chief of the acid,
Inhabitants of Asia Minor,
Who so oppressed by the Romans and threatened with destruction or slavery left their native land about 70 BC and migrated into Europe.
This Odin said to have conquered Russia,
Germany,
Denmark,
Norway and Sweden,
Leaving a son on the throne of each conquered country.
He also built the town of Odinsu.
He was welcomed in Sweden by Gylfi,
The king,
Who gave him a share of the realm and allowed him to found the city of Siktuna,
Where he built a temple and introduced a new system of worship.
Tradition further relates that as his end drew near,
This mythical Odin assembled his followers,
Publicly cut himself nine times in the breast with his spear,
A ceremony called Carving Geir Ods and told them he was about to return to his native land,
Ausgard,
His old home,
Where he would await their coming,
To share with him a life of feasting,
Drinking and fighting.
According to another account,
Gylfi,
Having heard of the power of the acid of the inhabitants of Ausgard and wishing to ascertain whether these reports were true,
Journeyed to the south.
In due time he came to Odin's palace,
Where he was expected and where he was deluded by the vision of Har,
Jafn Har and Thridi,
Three divinities,
And thrown one above the other.
The gatekeeper,
Ganglher,
Answered all his questions and gave him a long explanation of northern mythology,
Which is recorded in the younger Edda.
And then having finished his instructions,
Suddenly he vanished with the palace amid a deafening noise.
According to other,
Very ancient poems,
Odin's sons,
Veldig,
Sigi,
Sjöld,
Seming and Yngvi became kings of East Saxony,
West Saxony,
Franconia,
Denmark,
Norway and Sweden,
And from them are descended the Saxons,
Hengist and Horsa,
And rural families of the Northern Islands.
Still another version relates that Odin and Frigga had seven sons who founded the Anglo-Saxon Heftahy,
And in the course of time this mysterious king was confounded with the Odin,
Whose worship he introduced and all his deeds were attributed to the god.
Odin was worshipped in numerous temples,
But especially in the great feign at Uppsala,
Where the most solemn festivals were held and where sacrifices were offered.
The victim was generally a horse,
But in times of pressing neat human offerings were made,
Even the king being once offered up to a better famine.
The first toast at every festival here was drunk in his honour,
And besides the first of May,
One day and every week was held sacred to him,
And from his Saxon name,
Woden was also called Wodinsday,
Whence the English word wednstay has been derived.
It was customary for the people to assemble at his shrine on festive occasions to hear the songs of the skiles,
Who were rewarded for their minstrelcy by the gift of golden bracelets or omelets,
Which curled up at the ends and were called Odin's serpents.
There are but few remains of ancient northern art now extant,
And all the rude statues of Odin were once quite common,
They have all disappeared as they were made of wood,
A perishable substance,
Which in the hands of the missionaries,
And especially of all of the saints,
The northern Ekonoclast,
Was soon reduced to ashes.
Odin himself is supposed to have given his people a code of laws whereby to govern their conduct in a poem called Harvamore,
Or the High Song,
Which forms part of the Edda.
In this lay he thought the fallibility of man the necessity for courage,
Temperance,
Independence,
And truthfulness,
Respect for old age,
Hospitality,
Charity,
And contemptment,
And gave instructions for the burial of the dead.
At home let a man be cheerful and toward a guest liberal,
Of wise conduct he should be,
Of good memory and ready speech,
If much knowledge he desires,
Must often talk on what is good.
Thank you very much for listening to the story of Odin.
Now please relax if you haven't already fallen asleep.
Relax and listen to the sounds of the winter as you start to slowly and slowly fall asleep.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you have a good night.
