I believe he gives good advice, but I wouldn't trust him with my sister. . . . It wouldn't shock me either to find that Odin was indeed an ancient warlord, perhaps even a devotee of the Lady, whose legend supplanted its rivals until they seemed or became equal; but in the end, it feels like I have a universal pass from her, so it doesn't matter so much to me either way. Whether a shaman hung himself on a tree, or a god upon the universe, he seems as though made of whispers on the tongues of travelers, and there is an open invitation still standing for a visit.
Even those who are drawn to Odin may find themselves in danger. Those who have worked with him for a while may be called to counsel others who are struggling with the impact of having their minds blown by that mighty wind. Here are some more comments from Lorrie Wood.
If you're looking for the answer to, “Which Odin is the mindfucker?” The answer is yes. They ALL are. Is Mindfucker appropriate, if not directly attested? By me, yes.
Sometimes you crack an egg, it's a mess. Sometimes it's an omelet. Head-cracking—whatever little damage was needed to open awareness to a worldview outside the one you were handed—is this way: when you knock on a door to open it, sometimes you think you're gently rapping but whoops it's a battering ram. Idiots like me try to mop up the messes and make soufflé, which after a few times comes with the hard-won understanding that THIS one ain't coming together—or it's not my mess to tidy, or whoops I don't actually know wtf to do with duck eggs as my specialty is raven eggs, etc.
. . . it's a hobby. >.<
That all being said, there are a few I know who took his touch extremely poorly, and who, despite needing professional help, have run through whole Rolodexes of priests of all faiths and found either no good counsel, or no counsel they were able to put into action. I also learned when to say “Nope, sorry, this is beyond my capabilities as an ad hoc pastoral counselor, here are pagan-and-heathen-friendly professionals, best of luck.” Boundaries are awesome and completely within my praxis. :P
(Contrariwise, I also sometimes ignore my own damn advice.)
And, yet, sometimes the wrestling match with the god ends happily. In an article titled, “How I found Odin and what he did to me when he caught me,” Bari, a very talented healer and teacher, describes her mostly painful contacts with Odin during a lengthy spiritual journey that culminated at an oracular ritual at the 2006 PantheaCon, a Pagan festival held annually in San Jose, California. It should be noted that although Odin claimed her, it was not an exclusive contract, and she has continued to work with other Powers.
I knew it was time to ask my question. The woman before me had asked to speak with Odin, who promptly began riding the seer. The querent stepped down, and I stepped forward. Before I said anything, the seer said in a booming voice, “Well, hello!” with a leer (obviously still channeling, obviously having recognized me). I started to shake and realized I was very frightened. I approached and said, “I am scared to be here but I am fairly certain Odin contacted me during the Blót on Friday and told me he had a message for me. I am here to receive that message.”
He laughed and pointed at me and said, “By the way, you're mine.”
My whole body started shaking hard and I felt like something cracked open, and I started crying.
“Oops.”
“I've been running from you for so long.”
Aloud, I heard, “It would go easier for you if you were to stop running, I think.” And in my heart, I also heard, “Stop crying, you knew this was coming.”
I told him he'd hurt me and that I need him to be more gentle with me. He told me I had to tell him when he was being too rough. I thanked him and stepped down.
When I stepped back I had several folks rally around me to talk me down. I definitely appreciated being told that I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do, not to be a scared rabbit, that even us small furry folks have teeth and claws. Several women came to me to say they were his as well, and welcome to the family. I was so overwhelmed I didn't really know what to do: I was furious and felt manipulated, but I also felt incredibly honored and loved, I felt grateful for the community magically showing up—and I felt trapped and uncomfortable and very exposed. I knew he'd done an end-run with me—I had refused to talk to him for so long that the only way he was going to get me to sit still long enough to have this conversation was to do it in a very public place, in front of a room full of people where I couldn't deny what had happened.
Is Odin a savior or a deceiver?
Yes.
Are his deeds always justified?
Refusing to act has consequences, too.
Does the end justify the means?
Prime Minister Churchill thought so when he decided not to warn the people of Coventry about the coming German air raid because doing so would have revealed that the British had cracked the German code. President Truman thought so when he authorized use of the atomic bomb. They did not make these decisions lightly. When Odin is Bölverk or Ygg, the suffering he causes torments him as well.
Practice
I have no exercises for connecting with this aspect of Odin except, perhaps, a recommendation to find a good book on history and contemplate the long-term effects of drastic interventions. For those caught up in it, the destruction is terrible, but eventually something new emerges that, if not better, at least allows the evolution of new and different ways.
The problem with trying to work with Bölverk is that he is treacherous. The trick that brings down your enemy is just as likely to take you with him. The politicians who call for Change! without calculating the cost terrify me. Odin gives victory to suit his purposes, not ours. Sometimes today's defeat paves the way for a greater good tomorrow, but that doesn't change the suffering of those in the way. We cannot see all ends. I am not sure that Odin himself can see all ends. He is an opportunist, who will do his utmost to turn both good and evil to the service of evolution.
I have been in situations in which I was sorely tempted to invoke Bölverk. In the end, I didn't do it, because I did not have the courage to trust the outcome, knowing his solution might destroy me and mine as well. I actually think that if you want to play a trick on an enemy, calling on Loki might be safer.
Seventh Night Meditation: Bolverk
Set up your altar as usual and light a brown candle. I do not invoke Odin by his baleful names. Instead, I offer the following prayer.
Hail to Odin, god of many names.
This is what I ask:
Turn away your face of Terror.
From my own bale-works bring blessings.
Change my choices when they go awry.
Truth reveal when words betray me
And deeper good beneath deception.
May stirred strife spur me to ambition
To strive, to struggle, and not to yield.
Wodan's Hunt
(to the tune of “St. Stephen”; for music, see appendix 2)
Wodan is a holy god,
and stark with Áses might.
'Tis sung how Baldr's horse he did heal
before the great gods' sight.
Yet swiftest of all, his own steed,
Old Sleipnir, dapple grey,
When winter winds begin to howl,
He rides 'til break of day.
O mortal man, you may well fear
When the host rides through the sky,
And crouch beside your fire warm,
When Wodan's Hunt rides by.
Now ale is poured and coals aglow,
And clan sits by the hearth,
The Yule log is burning bright,
Of food we have no dearth.
We set out offerings for the Host,
Hung from the old dark yew,
The apples red and braided bread,
And horns of frothing brew.
O mortal man, you may well fear
When the host rides through the sky,
And crouch beside your fire warm,
When Wodan's Hunt rides by.
That shrieks about the roofs.
We hear the riders' wailing horns,
we hear their dreadful hooves.
The trolls all rage and furious run,
From howe to howe they howl,
And alfs ride forth from mounds' high tops,
Beneath their pale cauls.
O mortal man, you may well fear
When the host rides through the sky,
And crouch beside your fire warm,
When Wodan's Hunt rides by.
The ghosts awake to mount their steeds,
The slain from restless sleep.
They gather all in Wodan's train
To fare from keep to keep.
And some we know will ride this night,
As empty lie their beds,
The stable doors will hang ajar,
The horses bear the dead.
O mortal man, you may well fear
When the host rides through the sky,
And crouch beside your fire warm,
When Wodan's Hunt rides by.
— Kveldúlfr Hagen Gundarsson
Fig. 16. Odin rides with the Hunt
CHAPTER NINE
God of the Dead
Cattle die, kinsmen die,
You yourself will die.
But fair fame dies never,
For the one who wins it.
—Hávamál 76
If there is one quotation most Heathens know, it would be the one above. These words of the High One are taken as a call for courage, but they also have implications for the way we think about death and about Odin as a god who is as concerned with the dead as he is with those who are living. Stephan Grundy interprets Odin's blue-black cloak as the livor mortis from pooling blood that colors the back and shoulders of a corpse that has been lying on the ground.
As it happens, I began working on this chapter on Hallowe'en, an appropriate time to consider Odin in his aspect as a scary, one-eyed death god. Several of his names confirm his claim to this role. Price lists ten “Gallows-names” for Odin. As Hangatyr or Váfudhr (Dangler), he is the god of the hanged who knows how to make them speak, whether they were strung up for a crime or as an offering. Twelve names show him as Lord of the Dead. As Draugadrótin, he is the ruler of the Draugar, a particularly nasty type of Norse zombie. As Hléfödhr (Mound Father), he wards those whose bodies or ashes are buried in the earth; and as Valfadhr, he is the Father of the Slain who presides over his chosen warriors in Valhalla. As we see in the song that introduces this chapter, on stormy winter nights, Odin leads the Wild Hunt that brings both death and blessings.
How central are these aspects to Odin's nature? The worlds between which Odin walks include those of the living and the dead. In The Cult of Ódhinn, God of Death, Grundy (2014) argues that Odin's original and primary function was as a death god and shows how Odin's other aspects could have developed from this role. I highly recommend this book, which explores aspects of Odin's nature often skipped elsewhere. It is academic in style, but now that so much of the Old Norse literature is available online, you can look up the quotes in translation.
Wolves and Ravens
For a first clue to Odin's role as a god of death, let us consider his animal companions. Odin's wolves are called Geri and Freki, “Hunger” and “Greed.” Today, most of us see wolves and ravens in a positive light. Wolves are canny beasts with an admirable social organization whose example may well have shown early humans how to work together to hunt.
Ravens are known for their brilliance at solving problems, but what Huginn and Muninn are usually thinking about and remembering is where to find things to eat. In the wild, ravens will often raise a clamor of cawing over the body of a fallen animal in order to attract the wolves, who can tear open the body, so that the ravens can get at the soft bits. Both creatures are highly effective and opportunistic scavengers, and in the old days, human bodies were among their favorite foods.
When Odin stands below the scaffold to talk to the hanged man, a raven is probably sitting atop it, waiting, as they do in the song “The Twa Corbies,” to pluck out a “bonny blue eye.” When men were sacrificed to Odin, they were hanged as well as stabbed, and the ravens always came.
Odin is Hrafnagudh (Raven God), Hildolf (Battle Wolf), and Kjallar, the one who nourishes the carrion eaters. The real banquet hall for both wolves and ravens is the battlefield, as in this poem by the late Paul Edwin Zimmer (1979):
The Dead lie in silence upon the cold ground,
And the calling of Ravens is all of the sound.
When the Heroes have fallen, the birds always know—
And the hunger of Ravens their Honor shall show.
The Black Bird of Odin, who blesses the slain,
Shall rise filled from the field where the Heroes have lain;
Where the Valkyrie bears men's souls on her swift steed,
The Ravens shall thank them, as they wing down—to feed.
Hangatyr: Gallows God
I know a twelfth, if I see in a tree
A hanged corpse dangle,
I cut and color certain runes
So that man walks
And talks with me.
—Hávamál 157
The ability to reanimate and speak to the dead is a mighty magic, and of all the dead, those who died on the gallows are the closest to the God of the Hanged. There are two reasons for this. First, as we have seen, Odin himself was hanged on the Worldtree, and speared as well. We know from the history of Starkad and other references in the sagas that this was the traditional mode of sacrifice to Odin, so when the god proclaims that he was sacrificed to himself, he is speaking literally.
A second reason might be that tightening a noose stops the breath. It was Odin who gave humans that gift in the first place. What does it mean that he can still make a man speak when the breath has been taken away?
And why, if the sacrifice has been hanged, is he also pierced by a spear? Odin's own dedicated weapon is the spear Gungnir. In sources from the 1st century through the Viking Age, there is abundant evidence that casting a spear over the opposing army dedicated them to Odin. Not only did the god claim the battle dead, but any surviving foes might be hanged afterward as an offering.
As a god of death, Odin is most present at the moment of dying, the stabbing anguish of the convulsing heart, the last struggle for breath. He is the giver of önd, and wherever the breath goes, he goes as well. The dead are without breath, but as they experience further transformations, they know the god after another manner.
In chapter 5, I quoted the first part of a poem by Fjolnirsvin in the form of a conversation with Odin. This is the remainder, in which Odin replies, and the imagery of the Odinic sacrifice leads to a confrontation with death.
II. Oðinn
When I manifest fully, I will bring your death,
which you await
like bride awaits bridegroom,
kindling wants fire,
drink cries out for fermentation.
not what comes after
(though much comes after)
but the moment of transition itself,
in which I am sovereign.
Maker of bounds, transgressor of limits,
trickster, I
lead all your chances
to that quick terror
to that ecstasy
when noose tightens on the beam
when reed becomes spear,
iron parts rib,
and point crosses perpendicular flesh.
III. Me
Let me not (Oh, let me!) pray too much.
“Gift calls out for gift.”
Is it better to remain ignored
or chance destruction from what is given in return?
Valhalla
In previous chapters, we encountered Odin as a god of war and battle frenzy and a Stirrer of Strife. But why is he so bloodthirsty? The role in which he is most often connected with the dead i
s as Valfadhr, Lord of Valhalla, the hall of the slain, where the einherior, the “only,” or perhaps, “number one” warriors, feast all night and fight all day. A euphemism for death in battle is “to visit Odin,” or “to be Odin's guest.”
Popular belief has it that the ambition of all Norsemen was to join him there, however Viking Age concepts of the afterlife included a number of options, including joining one's ancestors in Hel, reincarnating in the family line, or becoming one of the spirits of the land. As an afterlife destination, Valhalla is “invitation only,” a very exclusive club to which Odin admits only the most heroic of the slain.
Sometimes Odin delivers the invitation in person, as in Volsungasaga 11–12.
The battle had been going on for some time, when a man came into the fight. He had a wide-brimmed hat that sloped over his face, and he wore a black hooded cloak. He had one eye, and he held a spear in his hand. This man came up against King Sigmund, raising the spear before him. When Sigmund struck hard with his sword, it broke against the spear. Then the tide of the battle turned, for King Sigmund's luck was now gone, and many of his men fell. The king did not seek to protect himself, and fiercely urged his men on.
When night falls, Sigmund's wife searches the battlefield and finds him dying from many wounds, however he refuses to let her treat him, because Odin has broken the sword that the god himself once gave him. “Odin does not want me to wield the sword since it is now broken. I have fought battles while it pleased him. . . . But my wounds tire me, and I will now visit our kinsmen who have gone before.” While the saga does not specifically mention Valhalla, Sigmund is of Odin's line, and we can assume they all ended up there.
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