ORIGIN: Icelandic and Germanic
TYPE: Head of the Aesir Sky gods and principal god of victory in battle. God of the dead.
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: Viking period circa 700 CE and earlier, until Christianization (Circa 1100 CE) and beyond.
SYNONYMS: Odin; Sigtyr (god of victory); Val-father (father of the slain); One-eyed; Hanga-God (god of the hanged); Farma-god (god of cargoes); Hapta-god (god of prisoners).
CENTER(S) OF CULT: Uppsala (Sweden).
ART REFERENCES: Various stone carvings
LITERARY SOURCES: Icelandic codices; Prose Edda (Snorri); Historia Danica (Saxo); votive inscriptions.
INFORMATION: Othin is the chief among the Viking Aesir sky gods, the lord of hosts and god of victory who lives in the Hall of Valhalla in Asgard. He rules over an army of warrior spirits, the Valkyries. Othin peoples Valhalla with chosen heroes, slain in battle on earth, who will defend the realm of the gods against the Frost Giants on the final day of reckoning, Ragnarok, the doom of the gods. Othin passes out magic weapons to his selected earthly heroes including Sigmund the Volsung (see also Baal). In spite of his eminence Othin is considered to be untrustworthy, a breaker of promises. He rides a winged eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, and is able to change shape at will, and indication that he derives from an older, shamanistic religion.
His symbol is the raven and his weapon is a spear carved with runes or treaties said, when hurled by the god, to influence the course of combat. He is also symbolized by a knotted device, the Valknut, probably representing his power to bind or unbind the minds of warriors and thus influence the outcome of battle. Othin is perceived as a shaman, his constant desire the pursuit of occult knowledge through communication with the dead. He wanders the earth disguised as a traveler, and once pierced himself with his own spear and hung himself from the World Tree, Yggdrasil, to this end. He gave an eye to the god Mimir as payment for permission to drink from the well of knowledge that rises from a spring beneath the tree.
Othin has links with the goddess Freyja in literature. The goddess Skadi, wife of Njord in some legends, was reputed also to have borne children to Othin, thus linking him with the Vanir gods. Adam of Bremen reports a special festival of the gods in Uppsala when men and animals were slaughtered and hung in trees. Followers of Othin were also burnt on funeral pyres. Othin is thought to have evolved from a syncretization of the Germanic war gods Wodan the Tiwaz. He was the patron god of a fanatical warrior cult, the Berserks.