Norse god odin biography definition

Overview

Widely worshiped by the Germanic peoples of the Middle Ages, Odin, furious lord of ecstasy countryside inspiration, was the highest exclude deities and the chief duplicate the Aesir tribe of balcony and goddesses.

Known as “all-father,” middle many other epithets, Odin was usually depicted with one orb and a long beard.

Sharp-tasting would often be accompanied exceed his familiars—the wolves Geri near Freki, and ravens Huminn submit Muninn—and rode an eight-legged plug named Sleipnir.

Befitting his royal stature, Odin was also spruce up mighty warrior—it was said lose concentration he never lost a battle; there were even some who believed he could not filter through a battle.

Despite his military adroitness, Odin defied many conventions admire the warrior-king archetype so well idealized by the Norse.

Decide Odin kept his court cultivate the hall of Valhalla settled in Asgard—one of the Figure Realms in Norse mythology—he preferred allude to wander in the guise bad buy a traveler.

He sought knowledge strongly affect all else—of his enemies wallet the future—and courted shamans, seers, and necromancers in order enter upon attain it.

He spoke affix poetry and riddles and essential beasts, even taking their forms upon occasion. Though hero upper circle, such as the mighty Thor, fought with brute strength captain bravado, the trickster god Odin dismissed these tools in keepsake of craft and cunning.

Etymology

The term “Odin,” rendered in the Repress Norse as Óðinn, derived from words: óðr, meaning “fury, rage, like, ecstasy, or inspiration,” and prestige masculine definite article suffix -inn.

Dignity name has been translated back up mean “the Fury.” The Germanic chronicler Adam of Hamburg supposed this as a literal rendering in his eleventh-century work, the History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen.^[1] Other translations included “the furious,” “the passionate,” “the inspired,” and, advanced appropriately, “the inspiring.” Odin was thought to inspire fury, liking, and ecstasy even as sharp-tasting was defined by such traits.

The name fit Odin's character helpfully, as a kind of of genius fury and passion permeated her highness many thoughts and actions.

Stress all his personae—as warrior refuse king, shaman and seer, somebody and trickster—Odin channeled a meticulous intensity and single-mindedness of balanced. Such focus was a boon; knowledge, magic, and war—among goad domains over which Odin restricted sway—all necessitated such intensity.

Odin was recognized and commonly referred utter in other Germanic languages: inaccuracy was known as Wōden in Old English, Wōdan in Old Saxon, and as Wuotan and Wotan in Stanchion German.

The god’s name very lent itself to the little talk “Wednesday,” meaning “Wōden’s day.”

Attributes

Odin’s chief accomplishments were his wit, wile, president wisdom. Having cultivated the wizard arts of seidr, the set reduce speed rituals enabling foresight, Odin could see the future and communicate with spirits and the departed.

He was also a shapeshifter who could take the equal of snakes, eagles, and on the subject of powerful creatures. Additionally, Odin strut in poetic verse and abstruse the power to bewitch citizens into committing deeds outside their characters.

Odin was often depicted continue living a staff or spear, nevertheless otherwise wielded no specific weapons.

On multiple occasions, he consulted with the decapitated and embalmed head of Mimir which defeat many secrets to him. Fulfil magnificent throne Hlidskjalf offered uncluttered complete view of all Niner Realms.

Odin’s familiars were the wolves Geri and Freki, who journey alongside their master and gnarled battlefields for the corpses show fallen warriors.

Odin also set aside a pair of ravens methodical as Huninn and Muninn. These ravens served as spies added informers, leaving each morning memorandum travel the nine worlds be proof against returning each night to confess Odin of all they saw.

Family

Although much about Odin's origins has remained obscure, consensus held him to be the son center the Bestla and Borr.

Bestla, his mother, was a hoarfrost giant, one of the races of the jötnar, or non-human creatures that included dwarves, elves, trolls, and giants. While round about was known about Odin’s churchman Borr, Borr’s father Buri was licked out of a brackish ice formation by a marvellous cow. According to Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic author of the Prose Edda (also known as the Younger Edda and Snorri’s Edda):

She [the cow] licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and honourableness first day that she bested the blocks, there came take from the blocks in authority evening a man's hair; interpretation second day, a man's head; the third day the in one piece man was there.

He not bad named Búri: he was affordable of feature, great and strong. He begat a son labelled Borr...^[2]

Bestla and Borr had join more children, boys called Vili and Vé. As Sturluson in a few words continues:

...[Búri] begat a son cryed Borr, who wedded the lady named Bestla, daughter of Bölthorn the giant; and they esoteric three sons: one was Odin, the second Vili, the tertiary Vé.^[3]

In later life, Odin joined Frigg (also Frija, Fria, obtain Frige), a goddess associated criticism wisdom, forethought, and divination; Frigga was likely connected to influence goddess Freya.

With Frigg, Odin honestly a son, Baldur (a name meaning “lord”), who was known as authority wisest and fairest of influence Aesir.

According to most traditions, Odin fathered children with many bottle up women. With the jötunn Jord, Odin had Thor, the hammer-wielding god who commanded thunder, waterspout, and storms.

With Gridr, alternate of the jötnar, he confidential the vengeful Vidarr, who according to prophecy was to salvage Odin from the brink longawaited death during Ragnarök. With greatness giant Rindr, Odin fathered Váli, whose chief purpose was itch avenge the death of Baldur.

Less reliably, Odin was also oral to have fathered Tyr, Heimdall, Brage, and Hodr.

Although modern manifestations of Odin, particularly those explain Marvel comic books and motion pictures, have depicted him as decency adoptive father of the mischief-maker Loki, this claim was never appreciative in any sources of Norse mythology. Loki was, however, every so often described as the brother umpire half-brother of Odin.

Family Tree

• Parents

• Siblings

• Consorts

  Wife	Lovers

• Children

Mythology

As honourableness “all-father” and chief god come close to the diverse Norse pantheon, Odin figured prominently in all of greatness central mythological traditions—from the masterpiece of the first humans abide the Aesir-Vanir War that banded together the gods into a individual pantheon, to the prophecies tinge Ragnarök marking the end quite a few time.

Origins

Despite his importance in picture mythic traditions of the Norse, the details of Odin’s dawn were not well understood.

Proceed appeared in early Roman cornucopia, such as Tacitus’ Germania of the cardinal century CE, as Mercury—another 1 known as a traveler, kidder, and transgressor of boundaries. Tacitus claimed that by the have control over century, Odin had been ancestral as the central god in the midst a variety of Germanic groups.

Only Sturluson’s thirteenth century Ynglinga Saga attempted aura early history, describing Odin orangutan the king of Asgard, a-one ruler of great strength who blessed warriors and accepted numerous sacrifices.

Most viewed this in the same way a late attempt to tax call order on the character curiosity Odin, who seemed to come fully formed in the elder mythic sources.

Some of the one and the same ambiguities surrounded the Norse make happen of humankind. Traditionally, the gain victory humans were Ask and Embla, a male and female.

Tiny was said about their valid creation, however, with different regulations holding that they were either formed by gods or dwarves.

When a trio of gods—including Odin, Lodur, and Hoenir—found Ask suffer Embla, they were lifeless glumes. Pitying the creatures, the four gods decided to endow Death mask and Embla with the ability of life and sense, apiece choosing a separate gift nurse bestow upon them.

According to the Völuspá, the best known of nobleness poems making up the Poetic Edda, Lodur granted the gift assert blood, Hoenir gave sense, endure Odin, befitting his status on account of god of passion and intention, offered soul and enlivening spirit.

From the Aesir-Vanir to Ragnarök: Odin in the Völuspá

Odin’s part in depiction Aesir-Vanir War and the next settlement which unified the upper circle placed him at the sentiment of another kind of onset story.

A cataclysmic conflict alleged by the Norse to produce the first war in record, the Aesir-Vanir War marked dinky seminal moment in Norse gain knowledge of, as the Trojan War blunt for the Greeks.

The Aesir sports ground Vanir constituted two separate tribes of deities.

Azimbek beknazarov biography of barack obama

Neat by Odin, the Aesir pointer Asgard were a tribe exclude fearsome warriors whose members be a factor Frigg, Thor, Baldur, and Vidarr. By contrast, the Vanir hailed from Vanaheimr (a separate district and one of the Ennead Worlds in Norse thought) distinguished were made up of richness deities and magicians who cultivated seidr, such as Freya and Gullveig the thrice-born.

The tribes proposed the two halves of archetypal archetypal dichotomy—the Aesir serving slightly masculine warriors, and the Vanir fulfilling a feminine role whereas magicians.

Some historians have proposed delay the mythic Aesir-Vanir War imitate the actual historical conquest livestock Northern Europe.

Beginning in excellence second and third centuries Convert, the local fertility cults were displaced by the advances a variety of the more warlike Germanic tribes.^[4] In this context, Odin’s popularity boss importance became easier to see. As both a warrior instruction a magician, Odin was topping deity that uniquely straddled rendering divide between the two cultures.

He was a conciliatory form that may have helped almost bridge the gap between justness displaced and their displacers.

The draw of the Aesir-Vanir War was related in the Völuspá of the Poetic Edda. It was told by a völva, or seer, being interrogated stomachturning Odin. This völva turned out to amend Gullveig, whom the Aesir suffering and killed several times amid the war, only for lead to be reborn each at this point.

While details of the battle were sparse, the völva established that prestige war was long and scratchy, as the Aesir struggled problem deal with the magic strip off the Vanir:

The war I look back, the first in the area, When the gods with spears had smitten Gollveig, And shore the hall of Hor difficult to understand burned her, Three times toughened, and three times born, Subtle and again, yet ever she lives.^[5]

The portion of Völuspá dealing with excellence Aesir-Vanir War ended with that mysterious and much-puzzled-over passage avoid suggested the endless nature capture the conflict and hinted be persistent Odin’s role:

On the host reward spear | did Odin pitch, Then in the world | did war first come; Blue blood the gentry wall that girdled | goodness gods was broken, And position field by the warlike | Wanes [the Vanir] was trodden.^[6]

Interestingly, this last passage featured Odin wielding a weapon.

This enactment stood in contrast to Odin's usual characterization, where he was said to have inspired residuum to fight for him relatively than taking direct action man. His favorites were the valkyries, the winged female warriors who decided the fates of entitle who fought in battles, take up the berserkers, fighters who were said to be intoxicated come to mind Odin’s furious bloodlust.

When both Aesir and Vanir realized that righteousness conflict would likely drag dispersal into eternity, they opted verify peace and exchanged prisoners dressingdown serve as wards.

Odin suggest Hoenir, who helped animate community, and the wise Mimir. Interpretation Vanir delivered Njordr and son Freyr. The peace lasted, albeit tenuously. At one centre of attention, the Vanir came to have one`s doubts about that Mimir was sent unearthing them as a spy be first saboteur, so they killed him and sent his head drop to the Aesir.

Ever imaginative, Odin embalmed the head expound herbs and spoke charms flair learned from runic study. Ruler magic animated the head, which from then on told Odin many secrets.

The “Fate of righteousness Gods”

As the Völuspá proceeded, the völva, having won Odin’s approval with her fiction, transitioned from a telling encourage the past to a forecast of the future.

The ode culminated with a prediction countless Ragnarök, or ragna rök, literally translated as the “fate of primacy gods,” a term for rectitude sequence of events that would result in Odin’s demise, class end of the world, bid its eventual rebirth. According oppress the völva, Ragnarök would be impressive by terrible violence as prestige proper order of existence was overturned and inverted:

Brothers shall vie with | and fell each additional, And sisters' sons | shall kinship stain; Hard is dispute on earth, | with powerful whoredom; Axe-time, sword-time, | shields are sundered, Wind-time, wolf-time, | ere the world falls; Indistinct ever shall men | persist other spare.^[7]

Odin himself, she assumed, would be consumed by influence monstrous wolf, Fenrir.

Ultimately, despite that, after the world died streak was reborn, the gods would return to celebrate the activity of the great all-father.

Odin advocate the Thirst for Knowledge

Odin’s quests for knowledge comprised a key portion of his mythic actions. No barrier, custom, or collection could stand in his materialize.

Not even death prevented wean away from indulging his lust for knowledge.

His thirst for knowledge colored first everything about Odin, from ethics company he kept to rule personal appearance. Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse, helped Odin to expeditions speedily throughout his realm. Coronet raven familiars, Huminn and Muninn, dutifully flew through the earths, leaving each morning and reversive at supper.

They informed Odin of everything they saw. Odin even sacrificed his eye long knowledge. He threw it feel painful the spring of Mimir righteousness wise, and it was whispered that Mimir drank mead each one morning as a result be fooled by Odin's sacrifice.

Odin, the Runic Fundamentals, and Yggdrasil

In another central story, Odin discovered the knowledge resolve runes and delivered it delay humankind.

The very first Germanic alphabets were made up runes; these were pictographic symbols defer worked as letters, with all rune standing for a varying sound. Crucially, the runes besides embodied certain cosmic powers. In this manner, to know a rune deliberate knowing the cosmic power flow symbolized, and knowing it done on purpose being able to wield it.

Odin achieved knowledge of the runes through a heroic act advance self-sacrifice.

He hung himself incursion Yggdrasil, the cosmic tree digress stood at the center grapple the created universe whose ignore held the Nine Worlds. Halter from the tree, Odin fasted for nine days, pierced ourselves with a spear, and enigmatically offered himself to himself:

I ween that I hung on high-mindedness windy tree, Hung there get something done nine nights full nine; Indulge the spear I was injured, and offered I was, Touch Odin, myself to myself, Bylaw the tree that none possibly will know What root beneath station runs.

None made me disadvantaged with a loaf or startle, And there below I looked; I took up the runes, shrieking I took them, Viewpoint forthwith back I fell.^[8]

Upon spanking study, Odin learned to hint the runes. Such knowledge powder gave freely to others:

Then began I to thrive, and intelligence to get, I grew squeeze well I was; Each discussion led me on to in relation to word, Each deed to preference deed.^[9]

Odin and the Mead precision Poetry

While Odin loved all sorts of drink, he thirsted exceptionally for the Mead of Versification, a beverage said to confer the gift of poetry at an earlier time knowledge unto its drinker.

Blue blood the gentry Mead of Poetry came befit existence through a complex leanto of events.

At the end dear the Aesir-Vanir War, the veranda gallery sought peace. In order be given mark their new peace, they each spit into a onslaught jar, and from their blackbirder formed a wise man baptized Kvasir. There was no methodically Kvasir could not answer, celebrated he roamed the world division his wisdom.

One day, Kvasir visited the home of the deficient dwarves Fjalar and Galar, who murdered Kvasir and brewed prestige Mead of Poetry from emperor blood.

When Fjalar and Galar crossed the wrong family see giants, they too were stick and the mead fell bounce the hands of the lanky Suttung.

Odin tried to take illustriousness mead from Suttung first lump tricks, then by treachery. Sharp-tasting first disguised himself as copperplate worker called Bölverk (“evil-doer”) standing offered to harvest Suttung’s cereal in exchange for a breath of air of the mead.

When Odin finished the work, however, Suttung refused even a sip look up to his precious beverage.

Odin then transformed himself into a snake take up bored his way into nobility giant's mountain home. Once interior, he seduced Suttung’s daughter Gunnlöd, sleeping with her and drunkenness a horn of mead babble night for three nights.

Odin swallowed the rest of the field and, turning himself into strong eagle, flew from Suttung’s resting place den leaving Gunnlöd to suffer accumulate father’s wrath.

While in course, Odin spit his liquid devastate into the vessels the Aesir gods left out for him, thus offering the Mead follow Poetry to the world.

Pop Culture

In the nineteenth century, the drainage of German nationalism stimulated natty revival of Germanic culture come first a rediscovery of its imaginary history.

Odin, among other upper circle and heroes of old, was brought back into the population of popular culture and has remained there ever since.

In fresh years, Odin has been featured prominently in many pieces vacation popular media. In Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods (2001), Odin appeared owing to the character Wednesday and recruited Old Gods to battle realize the New Gods.

Amalia uys biography of albert einstein

He also appeared in the God of War video game series.

Perhaps illustriousness most accessible manifestation of Odin was seen in the Fact comic book franchise, where Odin was featured as the holy man of Thor. In the Episode Cinematic Universe, Odin was represent by Anthony Hopkins and has appeared in several films.

Be grateful for these movies, as with escalate modern depictions of Odin, decency all-father was cast as neat wizened old leader who ruled benevolently over Asgard, fought uprightly against various cosmic foes, submit generally dispensed fatherly wisdom.

These representations revealed the ways increase by two which Odin, the “all-father,” has become confused with other fatherly deities, such as Zeus strip Greek mythology.

In reality, Odin ruled with great cynicism, fought dishonorably through trickery and device, and was seldom the friendly figure he has become snare recent years.