Odin, the Yggdrasil Tree, and the Runes

[Celestial Tears]

I was wondering if anyone new where I could find the history of Odin, the Yggdrasil Tree, and the Runes. I'm really interested in them and we are studying them in my wicca group.
Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks!

)O( *Blessed Be* )O(

[MammaStar]

Try this thread:

http://www.mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10509

It's a start, I know it has links in there. You might want to use the search function and see what pops up as well. And maybe Freyja or Rick will come on and they can answer this as well.

[Rick]

http://www.northvegr.org/siteindex.html

And if you wade through everything there (Northvegr.com is a massive site), try here: http://www.irminsul.org/

[Mnemosyne]

This is a good site. This site has loads of links to Yggdrasil, Odin and the runes. Love it!

http://www.runeschool.org/links/

Also, check out the divination forum. There are loads of threads on the runes. :)

[MammaStar]

SEEEEEE!!! I KNEW Rick would know way better than I would. :D

[Rain Gnosis]

Originally posted by Rick

http://www.northvegr.org/siteindex.html


I was wading through this earlier as I knew it'd be the site you'd recommend. I couldn't find the story specifically though I found one article on a discussion between two people where one mentioned part of it. Then I gave up :)

[Rick]

Here is some info re: the "history" of Odin... http://www.northvegr.org/lore/othin/index.html

Here is some info re: the history of runes... http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/arts/j.h.looijenga/

Here are some of the Rune Poems... http://www.northvegr.org/lore/runes/index.html

As to Yggdrasil, try here... http://www.google.com/search?q=yggdrasil&sa=Google+Search&domains=www.northvegr.org&sitesearch=www.northvegr.org

[Rahul]

Rick has given almost everything, for the sake of Information on essential Norse lores.

Perhaps Stein Jarving's essay here could be equally enlightening.
http://www.eutopia.no/ymirsbody.html

[Flar's Freyja]

The permalink to this page in the Blogmanac doesn't work, so the info in this link will only be up for today.

August 17 - August 25 incl. | Odin’s Ordeal

In Norse mythology (Ásatrú), Odin (or Othin), Nordic (Icelandic) and Germanic, is the supreme god, and god of war and death, but also the god of poetry and wisdom. He was the patron of a fanatical warrior cult, the Berserks. He is thought to be a syncretisation of the Germanic War gods Wodan and Tiwaz. His role, like many of the Norse pantheon, is complex: he is both god of wisdom and war, roles not necessarily conceived of as being mutually sympathetic in contemporary society. His name has roots in the Old Norse word óðr, meaning ‘inspiration, madness, anger’.

Odin was head of the Aesir sky gods and the main god of battle victory, as well as god of the dead. He was worshipped in the Viking period (c 700 AD) through to Christianisation (c 1100 AD) and beyond, the centre of his cult being Uppsala, Sweden.

The Roman historian Tacitus refers to Odin as Mercury for the reason that, like Mercury, Odin was regarded as Psychopompos, ‘the leader of souls’. We know him from Snorri Sturluson’s Prose, or Younger, Edda, and the Historica Danica (by Saxo – the book that gave us Amleth, who Shakespeare turned into Hamlet), and other codices and inscriptions. He ruled over the Valkyries, warrior spirits, and lived in the Hall of Valhalla, which he populated with the spirits of slain heroes, who will defend the realm against the Frost Giants on the judgement day (Ragnarok).

Like Buddha and Jesus
Odin’s symbol is the raven, his weapon, a spear carved with runes or treaties. Odin is also symbolised by a knotted device, the valknut. He wanders the earth disguised as a traveller, and once pierced himself with his own spear, and hung on the world tree, Yggdrasil, in his pursuit of knowledge through communication with the dead. The nine days on which he hung on Yggdrasil are known as Odin’s ordeal (nine being a number deeply significant in Norse magical practice – there were, for example, nine realms of existence), thereby learning nine magical songs and eighteen magical runes. His ordeal of hanging on the tree until his enlightenment reminds one of the stories of both the Buddha and Jesus. Incidentally, one of Odin's alternative names is Ygg, and Yggdrasil therefore means "Ygg's (Odin's)horse". Another of Odin's names is Hangatyr, the god of the hanged.

There was a festival in Uppsala at this time in which men and animals were sacrificed and hung in trees; followers of Odin were also burnt on funeral pyres.

The final day of the nine days of his ordeal is the Festival of the Discovery of the Runes, when Odin fell screaming from the tree, having gained the knowledge he sought.

Wilson's Blogmanac (http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/)

More (http://jaywood.free.fr/Odin.html)

Yggdrasil (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil)

[Flar's Freyja]

Today is commemorated as the day that Odhinn received the wisdom of the runes. From The Havamal, The Words of the High One:

Odin's Quest after the Runes
137.
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.
138.
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.

139.
Nine mighty songs I learned from the great
son of Bale-thorn, Bestla's sire;
I drank a measure of the wondrous Mead,
with the Soulstirrer's drops I was showered.

140.
Ere long I bare fruit, and throve full well,
I grew and waxed in wisdom;
word following word, I found me words,
deed following deed, I wrought deeds.

141.
Hidden Runes shalt thou seek and interpreted signs,
many symbols of might and power,
by the great Singer painted, by the high Powers fashioned,
graved by the Utterer of gods.

142.
For gods graved Odin, for elves graved Daïn,
Dvalin the Dallier for dwarfs,
All-wise for Jötuns, and I, of myself,
graved some for the sons of men.

143.
Dost know how to write, dost know how to read,
dost know how to paint, dost know how to prove,
dost know how to ask, dost know how to offer,
dost know how to send, dost know how to spend?

144.
Better ask for too little than offer too much,
like the gift should be the boon;
better not to send than to overspend.
........
Thus Odin graved ere the world began;
Then he rose from the deep, and came again.

[Rain Gnosis]

http://www.irminsul.org/

Ah ha! Thanks for bumping this Freyja. :)