Where did Óðinn come from?
Óðinn or Wodan, or you can call him one of at least fifty other names, is often considered
the chief god of the Aesir, the leader of the Old Norse gods, a god of poetry, wisdom,
and death.
But do we really know how old he is, where he came from, his original purpose?
In this video, probably the first of many, I will talk about one part of Óðinn’s
origin, and that is how he became the chief of the wild hunt, how he therefore must be
many thousands of years old, and how he came to be associated with ravens, wolves, and
horses, and finally, reviewing whether we are correct in assuming who Tacitus was referring,
was Wodan, when using the term “deus maximus”.
So welcome to the origin of Óðinn part one, the wild hunt, and welcome to Crecganford.
The proto Indo Europeans lived in a place where we can’t exactly pinpoint, and we
use language as a way of trying to triangulate this.
But words have different strengths at different times in culture’s history, and they can
easily be clumped together, leaving any hope of an accurate assessment all but lost.
And whilst we can try and recreate the language, what the pantheon of the indo-europeans looked
like 8,000 years ago is all but an educated guess.
So I will be honest and say there will be no firm answers here, but we can infer things
with a reasonable degree of confidence, and I can present ideas that maybe new to you,
and which have a significant amount of academic support.
The most ancient of gods, so in the times of proto Indo Europeans, were neither human
like, nor considered individuals, they could be considered spirits within natural elements,
often doing harm, spreading diseases or drought, and so they were often referred to in a neutral
and plural form.
And our ancestors tried to placate them through sacrifice, not out of love, but out of fear.
For Óðinn he is first inferred by Tacitus, a Roman historian, who did not mentioned the
deities name, but identified him with the term “deus maximus” of the Teutons, and
compared the god to Mercury, and since “dies Mercurii” became Wodan’s day, to us Wednesday,
it is hard to argue against the fact that Tacitus was referring to Wodan, or as his
name would have been pronounced at this time in most of Europe, Wōðanaz.
However, Wōðanaz probably had a non-human form two thousand years ago, but must have
had features to allow Tacitus to apply an “interpretatio romana” to this god.
And “interpretatio romana” is a method of describing something in a way that Romans
could compare rather than using the locals name for it, hence why Tacitus never used
the name Wodan.
Most other mentions of Wodan after this time rely on folklore and myth, and we know from
my previous videos how these stories can completely change in a generation let alone two thousand
years.
However, there is one piece of folklore that is well known enough, with much academic research,
that may allow us to figure out part of the origin of Óðinn.
And that myth is called the Wild Hunt.
Even if we can’t be one hundred percent sure where the name Wōðanaz originated,
the name of the modern wild hunter, which is Wode, goes back to the indo-european word
“wōðu” and this word seems to be noun for describing a collection of spirits, or
in this case, wild hunters.
This type of plural word ties in well with how we understand primitive objects were worshipped,
in multiples.
So whilst we may conclude that “wōðu” then led to wodanaz, how it then led to either
Óðr or Óðinn is not obvious.
There are many thoughts, and just as an aside some believe that Wodan became Óðinn through
the linguistical evolution of dropping a W as the start of a word when it was followed
by a vowel.
Much like the word wolf went to “ulf” in Old Norse.
Some believe that “inn”, which means “the” was added to Óðr, maing Odin, and in effect
taking the word Poet and making it “the poet”.
And some believe that the names were the same name anyway, due to the phonetic connection,
whilst some believe that they are not connected at all.
And we will look at this part of Óðinn’s name evolution in another video.
But for now, what we can be sure of is that Wodan’s predecessor dates back to before
the indo-european pantheon was created, and was not of a human form, but also not an individual
entity, but a group of horrific wild hunters, and only as time passed and myths evolved
did Óðinn become its leader.
Now those who are familiar with wild hunt stories would have probably heard many names
who have led it, King Arthur or Harlequinn, and many local variations, but probably the
oldest of the names we know is Wode, or its many variations, and that name can be directly
associated with “wōðu”.
In effect whilst he was associated with the group of “wōðu”, wode was considered
a singular form.
Óðr can be considered as Wode, but in his North Western European form.
Now little is known of Óðr, he is mentioned a couple of times in the Poetic Edda of the
Old Norse, and he was known to be Freyja’s husband.
And then we also have Óðinn emerging as the leader of the hunt at this point in history,
and whilst they may be considered the same person now, they almost certainly grew independently
of each other, and then the similarity of their names helped merge the their attributes
together at a later date into the form of one individual, Óðinn.
So let’s get back to the wild hunt, and what it really was.
The hunt was in effect a procession of the dead riding at speed through the sky, and
would help strengthen the view that Óðinn is associated with the dead, and this was
his primary role, long before he was considered a sorcerer type.
There has been a lot of academic work on the hunt, and Endter’s book on the wild hunt,
talks of different animals being the leader of the wild hunt, animals including a wolf,
a raven, and a horse.
And here there is another thing about the hunt that is often misunderstood, the leader
didn’t ride at the front of the procession, they chased it, as it was the leader, this
“devil” figure pursuing the dead trying to capture or consume them, they were hunting
the procession of the dead.
Many stories talk of the spectral huntsman on his horse chasing women or female types,
maybe trolls, and it is this connection with Óðinn on horseback chasing the dead that
put him in the minds of people as “Lord of the Dead”, with some academics additionally
arguing that the carrying of a spear also help signify this role, something that Óðinn
is well known for with Gungir, the spear that always hits it target.
Sometimes in these myths, and in European folklore as a whole, it was the horse that
ate people, and the man-eating-horse allows a connection between Óðinn as a human and
as a anthropomorphic shape, being associated with animals that chased the hunt, the ravens,
the wolves, the horse.
Now even considering all this, we still can’t link the wild hunt with Mercury and Tacitus’
observations.
However, this is where we should delve into Tacitus’ observations more.
Tacitus’ informants may have only reported from a couple of sources of deus maxiumus
from the Teutons, and so there may have been many tribes where the main figure was someone
else, Thor or Tyr for example, elsewhere across Europe and Scandinavia.
Although as mentioned at the start, the naming of Wednesday, Wodan’s day, really makes
it difficult to assume anything else.
Also between Óðinn and Mercury we have commonalities like they both wore a hat, had a staff, were
often travelling, writers of poetry, they had the ability to fly, they had much wisdom,
and of course, propensity for deceit.
However, we do not know exactly where the reports came from, and the Teutons were not
the only tribes in Europe, there were Celts too, and the Celtic god Lug, who too was Mercury
in “interpretatio romana”.
And it is worth looking at this just to ensure “deus maximus” was Wodan.
You see Lug had similar attributes to Mercury, with ravens for example.
And if we take a view that whoever was observing the locals from a Roman perspective must have
been seeing something obvious to allow them to make an interpretation.
It may have been clothes, it may have been ravens, but it would not have been the stories
about the god as the ability to record words would not have been passed to Tacitus, only
very clear observations.
What we need to understand is that did Wodanaz of the early first millennium have a form
that was followed by ravens?
And this is because we know for sure that Lug did at this point, meaning that if we
can’t prove this then we have an element of doubt over who “deus maximus” was.
And here we are helped with an dedicational inscription, “Mercurio Hranoni”, found
in Bornheim-Hemmerich, which was in Germania territory and written using a Germanic emphasis,
not Celtic, and the inscription means “to Mercury Raven”, and therefore we can infer
due to the Germanic bias of the inscription that this can be translated as “to Mercury
Wodan”.
If you are interested in this inscription further and how it translates, I would recommend
Wagner’s book on Historical Language Research if you wish to understand why this meaning
is the one I’m promoting.
And so, despite the potential of Tacitucs describing the Celtic Lug, we can feel confident
that a god called Wodan is who he is really attesting to.
Now there is much more I can say about Óðinn’s name and his origin, as etymology and myth
make an interesting mix to wander through, but for now, and in regards to the Wild Hunt,
I feel we have shown enough information to understand how Óðinn came to be its chief,
how he was considered the Lord of Death, and how some animals came to be associated with
him.
And knowing that, and knowing he belongs with the hunt, makes him as old as the proto Indo-Europeans
themselves.
That’s over 8,000 years old.
There is more to the story of Odin and I hope you enjoyed this, and we will look further
at his name in future videos.
I’ll also put references to a few books I used for this research down below.
Please would you support the channel by pressing the like button and subscribing, it helps
tremendously.
And then you can use the notification button to be alerted when new videos come out.
And so until then please, stay safe, stay well, and this was Crecganford.