Odin

Odin (Óðinn) is the chief of the Aesir (Æsir) and Allfather in Norse mythology. He is the son of Borr and the giantess Bestla, and grandson of Búri, the first being to emerge from the primordial ice. Together with his brothers Vili and Vé, he slew the primordial giant Ymir and from his body shaped the cosmos: from the flesh he made the earth, from the blood the sea, from the bones the mountains and from his skull the vault of the sky. From two logs found on the shore, the three brothers created the first human couple, Ask and Embla, to whom Odin granted breath and life. From his seat in Asgard, Odin rules the Aesir and watches over the nine worlds held up by the ash tree Yggdrasil.

Hungry for knowledge, Odin gave one of his eyes at Mímir's well, kept beneath one of the roots of Yggdrasil, in exchange for a draught of its waters and the wisdom they bestow. In his most extreme quest he hung from the world tree for nine nights, wounded with his own spear and without food or drink, offered to himself, until he discovered the runes and the magic songs that confer power. A master of seiðr, the prophetic magic taught to him by the goddess Freyja, he knows fate and works enchantments. From the throne Hliðskjálf he beholds all the worlds, and each day he sends his ravens Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory) to roam the earth so that at nightfall they may report to him all they have seen. At his feet lie the wolves Geri and Freki, to whom he gives his food, for wine and mead are enough for him. He also seized from the giants the mead of poetry, a gift he shares among the gods and the poets.

Lord of war and of the dead, Odin receives into Valhalla the einherjar, the warriors fallen with honor whom the Valkyries choose on the battlefield and lead to his hall, where they fight each day and feast each night awaiting the Ragnarök. He rides Sleipnir, the eight-legged steed, and wields the spear Gungnir, which never misses its mark; he also possesses the ring Draupnir, from which eight equal rings drip every nine nights. Knowing the prophecy, he is aware that at the Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods, the Aesir must face the giants and the monsters. There Odin will march against the wolf Fenrir and be devoured by its jaws; his son Víðarr will avenge him by tearing the wolf apart. After the destruction, the earth will rise anew from the sea and some gods will survive to people it again.

Much of the image of Odin held today is recent and deserves to be dated. The valknut, the three interlaced triangles sold as his symbol, is carved on stones from Gotland and on the Oseberg ship, but no ancient source names it or connects it with him: the term "valknut" is itself a nineteenth-century Norwegian coinage, and the attribution to Odin is a modern hypothesis about mute images. The horned helmet was never worn by any Viking or any Norse god; it comes from the costumes Carl Emil Doepler designed for the premiere of Wagner's cycle in 1876. Odin's link with Wednesday is genuinely old, but indirect: it arises from the interpretatio romana, which paired Mercury with the Germanic Wodan, and from there came English Wednesday and Dutch woensdag. And there is a version that tends to surprise because it comes from the tradition itself: in the Ynglinga saga, Snorri presents him as a human king arrived from Asia and deified for his sorcery, an attempt to fit the pagan gods inside Christian history without denying them outright.