page_title: Odin
section_title: Poetic Edda
hierarchical_section_title: Odin / Attestations / Viking Age to post-Viking Age / Poetic Edda
caption_attribution_description: English: A depiction of Ask and Embla (1919) by Robert Engels. Title not given in work.
context_page_description: Odin is a widely revered god in Germanic mythology. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates Odin with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet, and project him as the husband of the goddess Frigg. In wider Germanic mythology and paganism, the god was known in Old English and Old Saxon as Wōden, in Old Dutch as Wuodan, and in Old High German as Wuotan.
  Odin appears as a prominent god throughout the recorded history of Northern Europe, from the Roman occupation of regions of Germania through the tribal expansions of the Migration Period and the Viking Age. In the modern period the rural folklore of Germanic Europe continued to acknowledge Odin. References to him appear in place names throughout regions historically inhabited by the ancient Germanic peoples, and the day of the week Wednesday bears his name in many Germanic languages, including in English.
context_section_description: Odin is mentioned or appears in most poems of the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from traditional source material reaching back to the pagan period.
  The poem Völuspá features Odin in a dialogue with an undead völva, who gives him wisdom from ages past and foretells the onset of Ragnarök, the destruction and rebirth of the world. Among the information the völva recounts is the story of the first human beings (Ask and Embla), found and given life by a trio of gods; Odin, Hœnir, and Lóðurr:
  In stanza 17 of the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá, the völva reciting the poem states that Hœnir, Lóðurr and Odin once found Ask and Embla on land. The völva says that the two were capable of very little, lacking in ørlög and says that they were given three gifts by the three gods:
  Ǫnd þau né átto, óð þau né hǫfðo,
  lá né læti né lito góða.
  Ǫnd gaf Óðinn, óð gaf Hœnir,
  lá gaf Lóðurr ok lito góða.
  Old Norse:
  Spirit they possessed not, sense they had not,
  blood nor motive powers, nor goodly colour.
  Spirit gave Odin, sense gave Hœnir,
  blood gave Lodur, and goodly colour.
  Benjamin Thorpe translation:
  Soul they had not, sense they had not,
  Heat nor motion, nor goodly hue;
  Soul gave Othin, sense gave Hönir,
  Heat gave Lothur and goodly hue.
  Henry Adams Bellows translation:
  The meaning of these gifts has been a matter of scholarly disagreement and translations therefore vary.
  Later in the poem, the völva recounts the events of the Æsir–Vanir War, the war between Vanir and the Æsir, two groups of gods. During this, the first war of the world, Odin flung his spear into the opposing forces of the Vanir. The völva tells Odin that she knows where he has hidden his eye; in the spring Mímisbrunnr, and from it "Mímir drinks mead every morning". After Odin gives her necklaces, she continues to recount more information, including a list of valkyries, referred to as nǫnnor Herians 'the ladies of War Lord'; in other words, the ladies of Odin. In foretelling the events of Ragnarök, the völva predicts the death of Odin; Odin will fight the monstrous wolf Fenrir during the great battle at Ragnarök. Odin will be consumed by the wolf, yet Odin's son Víðarr will avenge him by stabbing the wolf in the heart. After the world is burned and renewed, the surviving and returning gods will meet and recall Odin's deeds and "ancient runes".
  The poem Hávamál (Old Norse 'Sayings of the High One') consists entirely of wisdom verse attributed to Odin. This advice ranges from the practical ("A man shouldn't hold onto the cup but drink in moderation, it's necessary to speak or be silent; no man will blame you for impoliteness if you go early to bed"), to the mythological (such as Odin's recounting of his retrieval of Óðrœrir, the vessel containing the mead of poetry), and to the mystical (the final section of the poem consists of Odin's recollection of eighteen charms). Among the various scenes that Odin recounts is his self-sacrifice:
  I know that I hung on a wind-rocked tree,
  nine whole nights,
  with a spear wounded, and to Odin offered,
  myself to myself;
  on that tree, of which no one knows
  from what root it springs.
  Bread no one gave me, nor a horn of drink,
  downward I peered,
  to runes applied myself, wailing learnt them,
  then fell down thence.
  Benjamin Thorpe translation:
  I ween that I hung on the windy tree,
  Hung there for nine nights full nine;
  With the spear I was wounded, and offered I was,
  To Othin, myself to myself,
  On the tree that none may know
  What root beneath it runs.
  None made me happy with a loaf or horn,
  And there below I looked;
  I took up the runes, shrieking I took them,
  And forthwith back I fell.
  Henry Adams Bellows translation:
  I know that I hung on a windy tree
  nine long nights,
  wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
  myself to myself,
  on that tree of which no man knows
  from where its roots run.
  No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,
  downwards I peered;
  I took up the runes, screaming I took them,
  then I fell back from there.
  Carolyne Larrington translation:
  While the name of the tree is not provided in the poem and other trees exist in Nor
caption: The trio of gods giving the first humans, Ask and Embla, by Robert Engels, 1919
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