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Odin had another palace, named Valhalla, where
he entertained heroes who had fallen in battle and
who would help him fight the Jotun at Ragnarok,
the end of the world. But Odin and most of his
warriors would be killed at Ragnarok—Odin, by the
monster-wolf, Fenrir. Many wonderful tales are told
of Odin, the greatest of the gods. He had as many as
200 different names and attributes.
Odin, along with Thor, Frey, and Tyr, was wor-
shipped for many years after the coming of Christi-
anity to northern Europe.
Lord of the Gallows Odin was called Lord of
the Gallows, God of the Hanged, and God of the
Spear, among many other names. Odin was the god
of knowledge but paid dearly for his wisdom. In one
poem (H avamal , or Words of the High One), Odin
hanged himself from the branches of Yggdrasil, the
sacred tree. He wounded himself with his spear and
hung there for nine days and nine nights, without
nourishment. At the end of that time, he came back to
life and picked up the magic runes that had dropped
from the tree. The runes brought secret knowledge
to Odin. He passed on this wisdom to both gods and
humans.
Men would make human sacrifices to Odin by
hanging prisoners and victims on gallows. It was said
that Odin and his ravens would visit the victims and
talk to them.
The Mead of Poetry The mead of poetry was
the wondrous liquid created by the gods after the
Aesir/Vanir War. Whoever drank the mead would
acquire wisdom and the inspiration to make poetry.
After the truce between the two races of gods (the
Aesir and the Vanir), each god and goddess spat into
a great jar to put a seal on their friendship. According
to a myth in the P rose E dda and Havamal in the
P oetic E dda , the Aesir then carried off the jar, and
out of the spittle they fashioned a man, Kvasir (1),
who walked the world spreading great wisdom to all
who asked for it.
The wicked dwarfs Fjalar (2) and Galar killed
Kvasir, collected his blood in three vats, and mixed
it with honey to make a powerful mead, which they
shared with no one. One day, in a fit of rage, the
dwarfs murdered the giant Gilling and his wife.
They were forced to give the mead to Gilling’s angry
son, Suttung, in exchange for their lives.
Suttung built a strong underground cave in the
mountain Hnitbjorg, where he lived. There he
placed the three containers of mead and entrusted his
daughter, Gunlod, to guard them.
Because Suttung was a boastful, bragging kind
of giant, it was not long before the Aesir heard what
had happened to the divine mead. Odin, a master of
disguise, turned himself into a giant of a man and
went to Jotunheim, calling himself Bolverk. There,
he sharpened the scythes of nine slaves who were at
work in the fields owned by the giant Baugi, Suttung’s
brother. The slaves managed to kill one another with
their carefully honed scythes.
As Baugi now had no field hands, he agreed to let
Odin-Bolverk work for him, for the one-eyed man
looked very strong and seemed to need no rest. Odin
put his magic to use. He worked better than nine
men, for Baugi had promised to try to persuade his
brother to allow Odin a sip of the famous mead as a
reward for his work.
When the work was done, Baugi talked to his
brother, but Suttung refused to part with even one
drop of mead. Baugi then drilled a hole into the
mountain with the auger Rati, and Odin quickly
turned himself into a serpent and slithered into the
chamber where Gunlod guarded the treasure.
When lonely Gunlod saw Odin, once more in
the shape of a tall, handsome man, she forgot all the
promises she had made to her father and entertained
Odin for three days and three nights. At the end, she
even offered Odin a sip of the precious mead from
each of the three containers, Bodn, Odrerir, and
Son. To her dismay, Odin gulped down the entire
contents of the vats, turned himself into an eagle,
and flew off to Asgard. He was closely pursued by
Suttung, who had tasted the mead and so knew
some magic and could change his shape to that of a
powerful eagle. But the gods had lit a great fire just
outside the walls of Asgard. Suttung fell into this and
was burned to death.
Odin spat the precious mead into the vessels
that the gods eagerly held out, but in his haste to
escape Suttung, he spilled some of the mead, which
fell to Earth (Midgard). That is how some lucky
humans acquired the gift of poetry. This story is
in the poem H avamal and in Snorri Sturluson’s
G ylfaginning .
Mimir: How Odin Lost His Eye Mimir was
an ancient being noted for his wisdom. According to
one myth, Mimir was the guardian of a sacred well
(known as Mimir’s Well) that gave knowledge to
those who drank from it. Odin so coveted wisdom
that he gave up one of his eyes to Mimir to gain the
privilege of drinking from the well. Mimir placed
the eye in the well, where it shone as brilliantly as