StJ on the Origins of Odin

[causticus]

Interesting little speculative tidbit from Tom Rowsell (Survive the Jive) on the possible origins of Odin/Woden:

My current understanding of the development of the cult of Wodanaz is as follows:

In the Bronze age the pre-Germanic people of Scandinavia worshipped a sky father derived from PIE *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr but he merged with and became indistinct from the dark god of the Männerbund, guardian of the cattle herds and the underworld known in PIE as *Welunos.

By the time Proto-Germanic was spoken in 500 BC they called this god *Wōdanaz " one of divine-frenzy" and his worship was probably widespread in all Germanic speaking regions, which by then included the continent (North Germany).

With the influence of Rome on Germania in the common era, and many Germanic folk serving in the Roman military, the cult of *Wōdanaz took on a Roman character - especially in Germany - with the Germanic comitatus being based in part on Roman military culture and *Wōdanaz himself being depicted in Romanised forms, sometimes even with Roman artefacts. The military Germanic elite represented a changing power structure in the region, and with the increased regional power and wealth of Odinic military aristocratic leaders, many of whom had served in the Roman army, there was a corresponding increase in the focus on the cult of *Wōdanaz.

I don't think this means he wasn't the principle deity before Roman influence, but I think that the cults of other gods diminished in importance as the emphasis on these new military elites defined the Germanic culture. This is the time when the duel raven motif starts to proliferate and also the bracteates which seem to depict Germanic kings in the style of Roman emperors on solidi, but surrounded by Odinic imagery; ravens, swastikas, runes, horses. One runic bracteate inscription even says "he is wodnaz's man". The deliberate invention of the purpose built runic script by an elite literate caste coincides with these events around 2000 years ago.

*Wōdanaz retained this status and the association with runes, ravens and war throughout the Germanic world for over 1000 years until his cult was destroyed by Christians.

"Welunos" sounds a lot like the Slavic god Veles, in both name and speculative attributes. This hints at a very ancient Indo-European theology that had the "Sky Father" bifurcated into Light and Dark aspects. In the archaic Roman religion (prior to its Hellenization), the Jupiter/Veovis pairing may have been another instance of this duality. In the later (Hellenized) Roman religion, most of the archaic Italic elements were memory-holed and this dark aspect was either lost or conflated with other cthonic gods like Dis Pater and Pluto (Hades). In the Greek tradition, I've seen associations of Hades and Dionysus, which may be getting at the same sort of thing; Dionysus being the "dark side" of Zeus makes a lot of sense. As an aside, one thing that bugs me a bit about our modern-day "Germanic" theology that has been cobbled together from loose scraps, is the lack of the "Light side" of the Sky Father; it seems like Thor serves as a proxy for this, though he's more of a son than father figure. A few among the more philologically-inclined Heathens have suggested that Tiw/Tyr once performed this function, but from what I've seen, the evidence seems very lacking for thing, as mere cognates are not really good evidence for theological connections, in my view.

Anyway, this all seems like quite fascinating food for thought.

Comments

[jprussell]

Definitely fascinating stuff! And a nice, coherent summary from Rowsell. A couple of thoughts that come to mind:

1. Are you familiar with Dumezil's Mitra-Varuna? So far, I only know it by report, as I've had a copy on pre-order for over a year as the publication date of a new edition keeps getting pushed back (currently slated for December 20th of this year, but we'll see). Anyhow, he argues that the PIE religion had a "Lawful Sovereign" and a "Terrible Sovereign," the former of which represented the power and authority inherent in establishing, following, and enforcing clear laws, and the latter of which represented the power and authority of being scary, unpredictable, and unstoppable. The name comes from the better documented (both generally, and in this specific case) Indo-Iranic branch of descendant religions, but he does a lot of comparative work with the Germanic myths, identifying Mitra as cognate with Tyr and Varuna with Odin. Take Dumezil with as much salt as you find appropriate, especially since I believe a large part of his argument is based on etymological factors, which as you say are not really dispositive on their own, but that's likely one of the main sources for the kind of speculation on those two Gods/functions you mentioned.

2. While I agree with you that modern Heathens likely don't pay enough attention to the "Light Side of Odin/Woden," a potential reconciliation of the factors following Rowsell's hypothesized development popped into my head, so I thought I'd share for comment: you do find Odin depicted as both the "Light" and "Dark" side of the military aristocracy in the myths, if you consider the light side to be the "Lord of the Hall" and the dark side to be the "Lord of the Battlefield." Within the context of such a military aristocracy, being a ring-giver and feast-sharer who presides over celebrating military and social success would be a large part of that "light-side ruler" side of things you mention. I also suspect that His role as Allfather and Lord of Poetry touch on this side of things, but I agree that the darker, grittier, earthier aspects of what He has to teach predominate in the surviving myths, and especially most symbolic links with light and the sky have not come down to us, except in very scanty form, like His transformations into eagles and association with Thor.

Once again, fascinating stuff, and well worth pondering.

Cheers,
Jeff

[causticus]

No problem, this stuff is so fun!

1. I'm familiar with Dumezil and his Trifunctional hypothesis, but I haven't heard of that particular work of his. I'm vaguely acquainted with the theory you outline and have seen more than a few commentators online pointing out the supposed links between Mithra and Tyr. I guess I'm kind of agnostic on this; seems rather speculative in a way that leans very hard on philology.

2. Oh that's quite fascinating. I do wonder though how other Germanic groups, more distant from the North Sea & Scandinavian cultural cluster, handled these godly attributes. Of course, we'll probably never know, but it does seem like each tribal cluster or region had its own lore and main deity or deities (i.e. what we know of the Gothic pantheon features almost entirely different names than what we're used to seeing) they emphasized over others. Even within Scandinavia, Thor seemed to have be the main god of the Uppsala temple, and throughout the rest of Sweden, I've read that Freyr was likely to the most venerated god. Having said all of that, you probably know a lot more about this than me!

[jprussell]

1. Fair enough. As I said, it does seem to lean heavily on etymological arguments, but my understanding is that it does not only rely on that, though the other supports of their own issues - for example, references to "Tyr of the Thing" can be taken to either mean that Tyr, the One-Handed Wolf-Fetterer, had an especial connection to the law-making council (the Thing), or else to mean "God of the Thing" and could refer to some other God. My own gnosis suggests the tie to Law is a genuine one, but I haven't gotten far enough to be confident on how far back that goes or whether it's tied to Mitra and His myths or not. So, I'm also agnostic, but curious, and open to the possibility that it's right. (I'll know more of what I think about the hypothesis when that dang book gets published!)

2. That's a fair point, and one that lots of Heathens argue about, because there's lots of room for doubt: Adam of Bremen's account of Uppsala is regarded as everything from authentic eye-witness account to wild fabrication, that the royal family genealogies are either rock-solid proof of ancient worship or else limited in significance to the families in question, and so forth. To say nothing of debate about how localized (and varied) local cults truly were, both in practice and in Beings worshiped. My own current take is that the evidence for long-lasting pan-Germanic myths and deities is solid enough to believe that Gods like Thor/Thunor and Odin/Woden were known and worshiped by most/all of the Germanic-speaking folks, but that the "on the ground" picture was almost certainly far more complicated than we have any grasp of, because I have a rule of thumb that everything religious is more complicated than we tend to assume, by analogy with material biological nature (what with speciation, ecological niches, biodiversity, and all that). As for practical implications, well, we've got to work with what we've got, which might only be a window into the upper-class, literate "beliefs" (scare quotes because it's awfully hard to say how much of what's in the Eddas and Sagas is authentic preservation of beliefs and practices versus entertaining tales, and a few other issues) of a tiny island outpost at the edge of the Germanic world, but perhaps that window has survived for a Reason. On the other hand, that might just be my protestant upbringing showing itself, as it's basically an argument for divine providence of a kind.

[causticus]

1. Yeah the Light/Dark aspects and manifestations of the Sky Father feels right to me on an intuitive level. And I think we see this manifesting all throughout the world of IE traditions. The Apollo/Dionysus contrast immediately comes to mind. Secondly, the Mars Thingsus angle is quite fascinating and the Tyr of the Eddas may in fact be a connection of the Thing war god to a very old deity, Nodens/Nuada, that we find all throughout the Celtic world. That's something for another entry though.

2. Fair enough on Adam of Bremen's account. But yeah, surely the "on the ground" reality (of what I agree are two pan-Germanic deities) was likely something that differed quite from our modern understanding, which is mostly based on a 19th century Romanticist interpretation of the Icelandic literature. Having said that, and interpretations aside, the Eddas and Sagas works most certainly constitute a very potent reservoir of symbolism and a live egregoric connection to real deities. This gets into the old authenticity/efficacy argument from past discussions, and I think we both tend to err on the side of efficacy. Which means, no, the Eddas and Sagas is not literally "the religion of our ancestors"...but yes, it's potent material to work with nonetheless! Same goes with the voluminous amounts of Greco-Roman lore and philosophy we're very lucky to have available to us today.

[jprussell]

1. Huh, interesting, I hadn't thought much about the Nodens/Nuada angle, I'll have to revisit the comparative works on Celtic/Germanic stuff I have (Mostly H.R. Ellis-Davidson and Taliesin's Map) to see if they point out that parallel. For what it's worth, I call upon Tiw (Anglo-Saxon etymological cognate of Tyr) for "Spirit Above" in the Sphere of Protection, in part because the Old English Rune Poem entry for "Tiw" (the /t/ Runestave) seems to be referring to the North Star, so I get a very solar/heavenly "feeling" for Him that doesn't feel disconnected from the other myths. (Small aside on one of my experiences of gnosis here: in thinking about the Fenris binding myth, in conjunction with the idea of Woden as the God of the coming-of-age mannerbund/"wolfpack," it struck me that one of the things Tiw/Tyr is is the God of society harnessing the violence and chaos of "the wolf" or the berserker, and losing His hand is the symbol of the cost of sending your young men to do dangerous, violent things. So, not so much the "God of War" in the sense of the battlefield, so much as the sense of "war as a way for a society to settle things," which jives with a more lawful/solar deity.)

2. Huh, despite just writing an essay on this very topic, the idea that one of the main pieces of value in the Eddas and Sagas is their link to the egregore/astral forms that living Gods found congenial at some point is very profound and sounds right on hearing it put plainly. Thank you!

[causticus]

1. Yeah, Nodens/Nuada is also an elder god, who once served as king of the gods, who loses is arm or hand in battle and then gets dethroned; also a god the Romans associated with Mars. The Brythonic Nodens was also a sea god. So yeah, very clearly, a different god from Tiw/Tyr, but there appears to have been some myth-trading going on between peoples long before recorded history, likely via the Rhineland region and the Low Countries. I do wonder too how many Celtic tribes became Germanized once Celtic power and cultural prestige was on the steep decline.

2. You're welcome. I always like the remind myself that myths exist just as much in the present as they do in the past, and in that wyrd-woven web of possibilities we crudely call "the future".

[jprussell]

1. Interesting! Definitely worth looking into more. There's also, of course, Gaius Mucius Scaevola (a cognomen which means, hilariously, "leftie"), who thrust his hand into a fire to demonstrate how hard the Romans were to the king of the besieging army of Clusium, winning the battle without a fight, which fits nicely into the Dumezilian thesis that much of early Roman "history" is euhemerized myth (though, of course, there's also the possibility that certain images/acts/symbols simply recur in similar situations due to their power and associations).