Norse

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Norse

Odin

The Allfather

Domain: Wisdom & Sorcery
Alignment: True Neutral
Element: Air
Relics of Power: Spear Gungnir

Speak with Odin

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Norse & Germanic peoples

Region

Scandinavia & northern Europe

Period

Viking Age, 8th–11th c.

The gods of Asgard were worshipped by the Norse peoples of Scandinavia and by the Germanic tribes, especially during the Viking Age. Warriors sought to die in battle to reach Odin's Valhalla, and the myths were preserved in the Icelandic Eddas. The cult declined with the region's Christianization around the year 1000.

The Norse celebrated blóts, seasonal sacrifices with feasts of meat and mead, such as the Yule of the winter solstice. The great temple at Uppsala, in Sweden, hosted every nine years one of the largest sacrificial festivals of the Viking world.

At a glance

Odin (Óðinn) appears in Norse sources as a god associated with sovereignty, war, poetry, and the search for knowledge. Poems and prose assign him different names and roles: in Hávamál he recounts gaining the runes; in Gylfaginning he gives an eye as a pledge at Mímir’s well. The sources also connect him with creation alongside Vili and Vé, the mead of poetry, and the final battle of Ragnarök, where Fenrir kills him. These accounts belong to different medieval genres and compilations; they do not form one biography or make every detail a historical description.

22 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

Spear Gungnir, ravens Huginn and Muninn, wolves Geri and Freki, steed Sleipnir

Family

Parents

BorrBestla

Siblings

ViliVé

Odin

Unions

FriggJörð (Earth Personified)

Children

Thor Baldur Vidar Váli

Genealogy according to Edda em Prosa, A Ilusão de Gylfi (Gylfaginning), capítulos 6-9; Edda Poética, A Profecia da Vidente; Hávamál, estrofes 140-147 (numeração de Thorpe)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anonymous, The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson (Translation by Benjamin Thorpe). read
Snorri Sturluson, The Younger Edda / The Prose Edda. translation: Rasmus Björn Anderson; edition Chicago, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1901 (copyright 1879). read
Adam of Bremen / Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum (book 4, chs. 26–27). translation: Allan A. Lund (ed., Danish) and Birgitta Wallace (English), Wormianum, 1978. read

Studies

J. R. R. Tolkien (ed. Humphrey Carpenter), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, letter 107, to Allen & Unwin, Dec. 1946 (checked via citation in Wikipedia, Gandalf entry). 2023. open
Wikipedia, Wednesday (origin of the English name). 2026. open
Wikipedia, Der Ring des Nibelungen (characters: Wotan and Fricka). 2026. open

Name and epithets

Óðinn is the Old Norse form. Odin is the conventional English form; Othin, Woden, and Wotan belong to related Germanic languages and traditions, and are not interchangeable names in every context.

In the ancient sources

Poetic Edda, poems of uncertain date, preserved in medieval manuscripts. Poems in which Odin speaks or acts: in Hávamál he recounts hanging nine nights on an unnamed tree, wounded by a spear; he contests wisdom with the…

The myths

The sacrifice and the gaining of runes. In Hávamál, Odin tells Loddfáfnir that he remained for nine nights suspended on a wind-swept tree, wounded by a spear and offered to himself.

Worship and archaeology

Adam of Bremen’s account of Odin’s cult is indirect and comes from a Christian chronicler. Adam of Bremen, writing around 1075 (Gesta Hammaburgensis, book 4, chapters 26–27, in the Lund and Wallace edition), describes a…

How the god was depicted

Gylfaginning, Grímnismál, Skáldskaparmál and Adam of Bremen describe attributes of Odin, not a fixed image. He has only one eye, since he left the other as a pledge at Mímir’s well (Gylfaginning 15).

What scholars debate

Poem and prose compilation. Odin’s image is not contained in a single source. Hávamál speaks in the first person about runes and mead; Grímnismál and Vafþrúðnismál organize knowledge through speeches and contests; Gylfa…

After antiquity

A few examples show how the name and figure of Odin endure, without exhausting his reception. In Richard Wagner’s cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Wotan, the Germanic form of the name, is king of the gods and husband of F…

Did you know?

In the Prose Edda, Odin gives the food from his table to his wolves Geri and Freki. He lives on wine, which serves as both his food and drink.

Codex relic

Spear Gungnir. A dwarven runic spear that never misses its target and returns to the Allfather's grasp.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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