Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Odin:
how he constantly endeavored to expand his knowledge, deepened his wisdom,
and develop his magical mastery; how he alone of the gods bore the burden of the future,
knowing that Ragnarok, the great conflict that would end the current age, was not long in coming;
and how one of Odin’s primary motivations that catalyzed his travels and trials, the culmination
of which was to enhance his knowledge, wisdom, and magic, was to discover a means of either
forestalling Ragnarok or of mitigating the events of Ragnarok so that they played out with less loss
on the part of the gods. Through this discussion, we will learn of the story in which Odin cuts out
his own eye - why he did it and what he gained. Let’s get into it.
Odin was the most important Norse god. In the primordial past, he tore apart the proto-giant,
Ymir, and, with the corpse, fashioned the world from blood, flesh, and bone. In the
mythic present, he’s the head of the pantheon, the king of the gods. And in the apocalyptic future,
during the time in which the events of Ragnarok, the ever-looming cataclysmic conflict,
will transpire, he will lead the gods and the heroic dead claimed by the Valkyrie against the
hosts and monsters that rise up to assail Asgard, the divine dwelling of the gods.
His sphere of influence is extensive and eclectic, including: poetry, wisdom, war, ecstasy,
knowledge, mystic arts and trances, hosts, magic, runes, and the dead.
His names were more numerous than the voices of the wind, and he was an unpredictable force,
fickle and capricious. Even those most favored by him, kings, nobles, outlaws, warriors, and poets,
could see their fortunes change in the blink of an eye, their chances for success, victory,
or survival suddenly snatched away, abruptly crumbling underneath them
like the undermined edge of a ravine. Of all his his deeds, past, present,
and future, of his power and purview, one of the characteristics that defines Odin’s
personality and pursuits is his insatiable need to enhance his knowledge, wisdom, and magic;
indeed, this need is catalyst for many of the best known stories comprised by the
constellation of myths that is Norse mythology. His knowledge vast and wisdom profound,
something that drove Odin were the glimpses he saw of the future - glimpses gained through
his gifts of long-sight and prophecy. While these undoubtedly contributed towards strong leadership
both through decisiveness and calculating contemplation, the phantasmagoria of his visions
also mired his life in a miasma of doom, for the impending apocalypse of Ragnarok,
all of the destruction entailed by it, was known to him; he knew the signs that heralded it; he
saw that chaos was to come, and known to him were the names of the gods who would die, even his own.
He bore this burden alone, and because he perceived the dark future that lurked just
out of sight - like a pack of wolves that waited in ambush just passed the next bend in the path -
much of his time was dedicated to activities that could alter the events of the future,
that could forestall all of the death and destruction in-store for the gods. For example,
when Loki tricks the blind god Hodr into killing Baldur with a mistletoe projectile - in all the
world, the only thing that could circumvent Baldur’s invulnerability - the death was felt
more deeply by Odin than any other god. Yes, Baldur was Odin’s son, so of course, he felt
the pain of a father losing their child; however, Odin also knew that Baldur’s death was one of the
main events harbinger to Ragnarok, so not only did he lose his son, it was also an alarming and
poignant reminder that the current age was drawing to and end and, with it, the lives of many gods.
Odin travels far and wide astride Sleipnir, his magnificent eight-legged horse, journeying to the
far corners of the nine realms in search of magic and knowledge. He has two ravens, Hugin and Munin,
meaning, respectively, thought and memory, who fly over the world each day, bearing tidings on
dark wings back to their master. On Yggdrasil, the World Tree, he hanged himself for nine days
and nine nights after transfixing himself with his spear, effectively sacrificing himself to himself.
This experience came within a hair’s breadth of claiming his life,
but the arcane knowledge he gained, the use of runes, an ancient writing system used,
among other things, for magic, certainly rewarded Odin’s intrepidness. Interestingly,
‘Ygg’ can mean `terrible one’, one of Odin’s names, and ‘drasil’ is an ancient word for horse.
Put together they can be interpreted as meaning ‘Odin horse’, a metaphor for a gallows tree. This
shows the parallels drawn by ancient Scandinavians between the sways and bobs of a person who rides a
horse and the desperate struggle of a person hanged by the neck with their hands bound.
Here are the lines of verse from Havamal, a poem of the Poetic Edda, that describe
this nearly-suicidal stunt: “I know that I hung
On the wind-swept tree All nine nights
With spear was I wounded And given to Odin
Myself to me On that tree which no one knows
From which roots it grows. Bread I was not given
No drink from the horn, Downwards I glared;
Up I pulled the runes, Screaming I took them,
From there I fell back again. Of course, the reasons for Odin’s obsessive and
unending quest to expand his magic and mind were many. Undeniably, though, the desire to preempt
a dire and disastrous chain of events written in the future was chief among his motivations.
In addition to what’s already been discussed, Odin also sacrificed one of his eyes, which is what
we’re going to spend the rest of this video on. To understand why Odin resorted to yet another
extreme stunt of self-mutilation, we have to begin with the World Tree,
the three roots that serve as its foundation, and the wells that exist beneath these three roots,
specifically, the Well of Mimir, which is beneath the root that exists in the land of the giants.
Here’s a passage from the Prose Edda to explain:
“The ash [Yggdrasil] is the largest and the best of all trees. Its branches spread themselves over
all the world, and it stands over the sky. Three roots support the tree and they are spread very
far apart. One is among the Aesir. A second is among the frost giants where Ginnungagap once was.
The third reaches down to Niflheim, [the realm of fog where the goddess Hel resides,]
and under this root is the well Hvergelmir; but Nidhogg … [that old cursed dragon,]
gnaws at this root from below. Under the root that goes to the frost giants is the Well of Mimir.
Wisdom and Intelligence are hidden there, and Mimir is the name of the well’s owner. He is
full of wisdom because he drinks from the well …” Odin wished to drink from this well to expand his
wisdom, but he wasn’t allowed to do so without paying a price, one that could not be satisfied
without an iron will. Even a single drink demanded sacrifice, so Odin removed one of his own eyes and
pledged it as payment. Thus, he drank, and he became imbued with the well’s wisdom, picking
up the epithet ‘the one-eyed god’ in the process, one apt for the god who offered up half his sight
and hollowed out his own socket, plucking out the window into the world once encased inside.
Here are some lines that allude to this from Voluspa, another of the poems in the Poetic Edda:
Odin, I know all, Where you hid the eye
In that famous Well of Mimir. Each morning
Mimir drinks mead From Val-Father’s pledge.
Do you know now or what? And that’s it for this video!
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