Analyzing Odin

8/7/2019 Analyzing Odin

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Analyzing Odin

I trow I hung on that windy Tree

nine whole days and nights,

stabbed with a spear, offered to Odin,

myself to mine own self given,high on that Tree of which none hath heard

from what roots it rises to heaven.

None refreshed me ever with food or drink,

I peered right down in the deep;

crying aloud I lifted the Runes

then back I fell from thence.1

On the face of it, the Odin resurrection myth is simply part of a largernarrative that describes his quest for knowledge and power. Other myths told

how Odin gained the mead of poetry, and gave up an eye to Mimer in

exchange for a wisdom-infusing drink from the well she guarded.

Who would be surprised if Odins thirst for knowing all ultimately led him

to kill himself, travel to Hel to find the secret of the magical and powerful

runes, then raise himself again? Is there another story between the lines?

Sigmund Freud would have thought so. He believed that gods, like pets,

eventually come to resemble their owners (in deeds if not image), and thatthe anxieties, repression, perversities and neuroses that plague humanity are

reflected in the myths it creates. Freuds masterful dissection of the Moses

and Jesus myths2 shows his approach can yield unique insights.

Psychoanalysis of Odins resurrection requires a deeper look at the god

himself, and even a cursory glance at Odins adventures suggests this deity

had serious internal conflicts.

1 The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Smund's Edda, Part 1: The Mythological Poems, editedand translated by Olive Bray, The Viking Club, 1908, pages 61-111.

2 Freud, Sigmund, The Origins of Religion,Penguin, London, 1990, pages 243-348


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A man (or god) who is conflicted about his sexuality will often

overcompensate for his perceived inadequacies by, in the words of a personknown to the author, trying to nail any moving or unmoving female.

Odins behavior fits this pattern perfectly. Besides Frigg (his goddess-wife),

Odins conquests included the giantesses Jrd and Gunnld, and Rind.

Interestingly, in few, if any, of these dalliances was pleasure Odins true aim.

In Gunnlds case, Odins objective was the theft of the mead of poetry. The

conquests of Rind and Jrd served to produce two sons, Vali and Thor.

The rape of Rind is worthy of closer examination. In Danish historian Saxo

Grammaticus version,3 soothsayers informed Odin that the conception of

Vali was crucial to any plan for vengeance for the murder of Odins otherson, Balder. Three times Odin, first in the guise of a soldier, then a foreigner,then a metalworker, attempted to win the favor of the King of the

Ruthenians and through him the heart of his daughter, Rind. Three times he

was severely rebuffed (by Rind, if not her father). Finally, he took the form

of a medicine woman and convinced the queen to appoint him as a lady-in-

waiting to the princess. When Rind fell ill Odin took his chance and under

the pretence of healing her, drugged and ravished her.

Odin remained the object of rumor and even ridicule despite these constant

attempts to highlight his priapism. But why was it so? His cross-dressingalone was unlikely to have made him suspect; after all, in order to regain his

stolen hammer, Thor dressed as Freya and all but married the frost giant

Thrym, yet Thors masculinity was never questioned.

That Odin had to disguise himself as a woman and get to Rind only after

three earlier unsuccessful attempts at male impersonation is a possible

reason. How masculine was this god, people may have wondered, if he

couldnt win a princess without passing for female? There is however, a

much more likely explanation for this suspicion about Odin. It was revealed

by his blood brother, Loki, during his taunting of the gods at Aegirs feast:

They say that with spells/ in Samsey once

Like witches with charms didst thou work;

3Grammaticus, Saxo, The Danish History, Books I-IX,Book ThreeOnline Medieval and Classical Library Release #28a


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And in witchs guise/ among men didst thou go;

Unmanly thy soul must seem.4

The magic Odin used in the episode to which Loki referred was known as

seid, an art so strongly associated with women that it must have

subconsciously represented something intrinsically feminine. The 13thcentury Icelandic scholar Snorri Sturlinsen wrote that, after such

witchcraft followed such weakness and worry, that it was not thoughtrespectable for men to practice it; and therefore the priestesses were brought

up in this art.5

Something powerful that causes weakness and worry and should

remain within the realm of women? An honest analyst would conclude that

seid probably represented menstruation. The description of weakness and

anxiety, while possibly attributable to the iron deficiency, discomfort andmood swings a woman may experience during her menses, was more likely

a projection onto women, by men, ofmale anxiety about menstruation.

This menophobia appears repeatedly throughout the world. It could be

found in an Australian aboriginal tribe in the nineteenth century, where a

menstruating woman was required to do everything within her power to

avoid crossing the path of men, lest her blood weaken them.6 It is obvious in

the Old Testament, which contains a set of rules for both women and men

for that time of the month-- rules so finicky and saturated with talk of

cleanliness and defilement that they border on the obsessive-compulsive.7 It is, however, commentary on menstruation by a Roman

historian of the first century AD that is most relevant to the subject of Odin.

Pliny the Elder, in hisNatural History, wrote that contact with menstrualblood could turn wine to vinegar, destroy crops, dry up seeds, blunt the edge

of steel, turn ivory dull, kill bees and rust metals with supernatural speed. He

went on to claim that:

4 Lokesenna, or Lokis Flyting, From The Elder Edda, Online Medieval and Classical Library Release,#12c,24

5 Sturlinsen, Snorri, HeimskringlaorThe Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, Online Medieval and Classical Library Release, #15b, 7

6 Frazer , James George, The Golden Bough, MacMillan and Co; Limited, London, 1924, page 603

7 Holy Bible (KJV 1611), Thomas Nelson Inc. , New Jersey, 1970, Leviticus 15: 18-33


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"Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightnings, even, will be scared away by a woman

uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon

her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather8

Compare these ills to the magical powers attributed to Odin by Sturlinsen:

Odin could make his enemies in battle blind, or deaf, or terror-struck, and

their weapons so blunt that they could no more but than a willow wand With words

alone he could quench fire, still the ocean in tempest, and turn the wind to any quarter he

pleased.9

The similarities between the words of these two scholars are undeniable. It

seems Odin menstruated. If he menstruated he must have had a vagina and

in England there is evidence that he did have one.

When a Neolithic wooden carving was discovered in Essex, England in1922, its male physique, gaping vagina and mutilated left eye mystified its

discoverers. For decades it remained a little-known enigma, on display at the

Colchester Castle Museum at East Anglia. Only recently have archeologists

looked at it again and agreed it is almost certainly a very early representation

of Odin.10

The Dagenham idol, as it is now known, has become a sore point for some

self-styled modern-day male pagans, and they have suggested to this author

that the carvings vagina is in fact an anchor point for a separately carvedphallus which has been lost to the past. This is an example of projection,

due, once again, to ever present but repressed castration anxietyanexample so obvious it would be seen for what it is by a shortsighted Jungian

therapist in a darkened room.

If this missing phallus can still have such an effect on men today, it is only

reasonable to assume that a similar anxiety existed among the Norse in the

first millenium AD. As Odins importance increased, so increased the desire

to find a replacement penis. Fortunately a prosthetic was conveniently

8 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 28, Oxford University Press, 2003, Chapter23

9 Sturlinsen, Snorri, HeimskringlaorThe Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, Online Medieval and Classical Library Release, #15b, 6

10 Viegas, Jennifer, Bisexual Viking Linked to Seahenge,Discovery Channel News, August 27, 2004


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found for Odin in the form of Gungnir, a spear fashioned by dwarves and

handed over to the god as a gift. It was immensely strong and never missed

its targetan ever-ready organ that Odin would use in myth after myth in an

unsuccessful subconscious war to defeat his feminine aspect.

In this context the story of Odins sacrifice to himself and his subsequent

resurrection can be understood. He used his spear (phallus) to

stab (rape) his female self, killing his entire self in the process. Once in the

abode of the dead, Odin found the runes, a form of magical power that,

unlike seid (menstruation), was gender-neutral. Equipped with this new

magic, Odin no longer required a vagina and he was free to return to the

living world without the perceived source of his anxiety.

Of course critics will point out a problem with this hypothesis. According to

one account, Odin did not possess knowledge of seid until he gained it fromthe goddess Freya in exchange for the secret of runes. This would mean thathe could not have had seid to leave behind when he came back from the

dead. However, this argument ignores the contradictions inherent in all

mythologies. Myths, like dreams, are often inconsistent, and the power and

truth of one myth does not necessarily supplant the truth and power of the

myths that preceded it.

That Odin once had, and in many ways always will have, both male and

female attributes should neither upset nor surprise the reader. After all, asFreud discovered, all men start out as bisexuals and develop castration

anxiety, and whether this bisexuality and anxiety is sublimated or repressed,it will always remain a part of men. Odins creators (and Odin) did not have

the benefit of psychoanalysis. Todays repressed, conflicted men (and gods)

do.

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Analyzing Odin