49 Fun Facts About Odin

Odin is usually described as having only one eye; what did he give the other one up for?

Wisdom. Odin wanted a single drink from Mímir's well, where wisdom and understanding are stored, and its keeper refused until he left an eye in the water as his pledge.

What are the names of the two ravens that bring Odin news of the world?

Huginn and Muninn. Odin taught the pair human speech, and they perch on his shoulders to murmur into his ear everything they have seen and heard on their flights.

Roughly what do the names of Odin's two ravens mean?

Thought and memory. In the poem Grímnismál a disguised Odin frets each day that Thought may not fly home, yet says he worries more for Memory.

What is the name of Odin's eight-legged horse?

Sleipnir. Odin lent him to Hermóðr for the ride to Hel to beg for the dead Baldr's release, and the horse cleared Hel's gate in a single leap.

Which god gave birth to Odin's eight-legged horse, having taken the form of a mare?

Loki. He became a mare to lure away the stallion Svaðilfari, so the giant building Asgard's wall would miss his deadline and lose his fee: Freyja, the sun and the moon.

Odin's wife is which goddess?

Frigg. She is said to know every fate yet never to prophesy, and when her son Baldr dreamed of his death she made fire, water, iron, stones and beasts swear not to harm him.

Odin and his brothers created the world by slaying which primordial being?

Ymir. From the frost giant's body they built the world: his blood became the sea, his flesh the land, his bones the crags and his skull the sky.

In which hall does Odin receive the warriors slain in battle?

Valhöll means hall of the slain, yet Odin gets only half of them: Freyja claims the other half of each day's battle-dead for her own field, Fólkvangr.

Chosen by the valkyries, the slain warriors who feast in Odin's hall are known as what?

Einherjar. Every morning they arm themselves, go out to the courtyard and cut one another down for sport, then ride back to the hall together and sit down to drink.

Odin's hall of the slain is described as having a roof thatched with what?

Shields. In the Prose Edda, King Gylfi finds the roof shingled with golden shields and, in the doorway, a man juggling seven short swords at once.

Odin's warriors feast every day on the flesh of Sæhrímnir, a beast that is said to be what?

Whole again each night. The Prose Edda makes Sæhrímnir a boar that the cook Andhrímnir boils every day, and says its meat will never run short however many warriors arrive.

The slain warriors in Odin's hall drink mead; which drink is said to be the only thing Odin himself consumes?

Wine. It is both food and drink to him, so he hands everything on his own table to his two wolves, Geri and Freki; the warriors' mead flows from the udders of the goat Heiðrún.

At the end of the world, which monstrous wolf swallows Odin?

Fenrir. The gods had tricked the wolf into a fetter as soft as a silk ribbon, and he bit off the god Týr's hand as the price; at the world's end he finally breaks free.

In the Prose Edda, Víðarr avenges his father Odin by stepping into the wolf's jaws, protected by what?

A thick shoe. It is said to be pieced together from every scrap of leather people have trimmed off their own shoes, so anyone who wants to help the gods should throw those trimmings away.

Odin's name derives from a Proto-Germanic word often translated as 'lord of' what?

Frenzy. The root covers rage, madness and inspiration alike, fitting a god of both warriors and magicians; the chronicler Adam of Bremen glossed the name bluntly as 'Wodan, id est furor'.

Which day of the week is named after Odin in English?

Wednesday began as Old English Wōdnesdæg, 'Woden's day', Woden being the Anglo-Saxon form of Odin; German has no such name, calling the day Mittwoch, simply 'mid-week'.

Roman writers passed over Jupiter and equated the wandering, cunning Odin with which of their own gods?

Mercury. Why is still debated, since both were said to guide the souls of the dead and both were gods of eloquence; the match is why Romans wrote that the Germans worshipped 'Mercury' above all.

Which Tolkien character did the author describe as an 'Odinic wanderer', echoing Odin's guise as a cloaked traveller?

Gandalf. Tolkien used the phrase in a 1946 letter complaining that an illustrator had made the wizard a figure of fun, and he took the name itself from the list of dwarfs in the Norse poem Völuspá.

In Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner calls Odin by what name?

Wotan. In the cycle's first opera he wins the ring by tricking the dwarf Alberich into turning himself into a toad, then seizing him and taking his gold as ransom.

The oldest known inscription naming Odin is on a gold disc found in Denmark in 2020 by whom?

A new detectorist. Ole Ginnerup Schytz was trying out a newly bought detector on an old classmate's field; the inscription, 'He is Odin's man', pushes the god's written record back at least 150 years.

In Lombard legend, what did Odin call the Winnili after seeing their women with hair tied around their faces?

Long-beards. His wife told the women to wear their hair like beards where he would look out at sunrise; when he asked who the 'long-beards' were, she said he now owed the people he had named a victory.

Adam of Bremen described a great temple with statues of Thor, Odin and Fricco at which Swedish site?

Uppsala. Adam wrote that Thor sat in the middle as the mightiest of the three, and that people sacrificed to him against plague and famine, to Odin before war and to Fricco for weddings.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Odin's English form Woden has an ancestor, Sceaf, said to have been born aboard what?

Noah's Ark. Christian scribes kept the pagan god in their kings' family trees by giving him a pedigree that led back to the Bible, so King Æthelwulf's line runs through Woden to Noah and on to Adam.

The Merseburg Charms, in which Wodan chants a cure over a foal's sprained foot, survive in which language?

Old High German. A cleric wrote the two spells down more than 1,000 years ago, and they lay unnoticed in Merseburg's cathedral library until 1841; Wodan's cure runs 'bone to bone, blood to blood'.

In Hávamál, Odin hangs himself on a windswept tree for nine nights to win knowledge of what?

The runes. Given no bread or drink, he calls himself 'offered to Odin, myself to myself', then seizes the runes with a scream and falls back to the ground.

In Hávamál, the sayings attributed to Odin, cattle die and kinsmen die, but what is said never to die?

A good reputation. Elsewhere the poem is drily practical: it tells guests not to outstay their welcome and warns that the more a man drinks, the less he is master of his own mind.

On which tree is Odin generally thought to hang himself for nine nights in the poem Hávamál?

Yggdrasil. The poem only says a windswept tree, but the name is usually read as 'Ygg's horse', Ygg being Odin and the horse a gallows, which the hanged were said to ride.

In the Prose Edda, Odin and his brothers shape the first humans, Ask and Embla, from what?

Two trees on the seashore. The brothers gave them breath, wits, speech and sight, then clothes and names; the older poem Völuspá credits Odin, Hœnir and Lóðurr instead.

In Völuspá, Odin opens the first war in the world, between the Æsir and the Vanir, by doing what?

Flinging his spear into the enemy host began a war neither side could win; it ended with an exchange of hostages, which is how Njörðr and his children Freyr and Freyja came to live among Odin's people.

After the Vanir beheaded the hostage Mímir, what did Odin do with the head?

Embalmed it for its counsel. He smeared the head with herbs so it would not rot and sang spells over it until it could speak, then carried it with him to learn hidden things.

Kvasir, made from the gods' spittle, was murdered and his blood brewed into a mead that granted what gift?

Poetry. Two dwarfs killed Kvasir, mixed his blood with honey and told the gods he had choked on his own cleverness; whoever drinks the mead is said to become a poet or a scholar.

After winning the mead from the giantess Gunnlöd, Odin escaped in what form?

An eagle. He had got in as a snake, sliding through a hole bored into the mountain, and drained all three vessels in three gulps before taking wing with the giant Suttungr close behind.

Odin's spear Gungnir was forged by dwarves as part of the amends for which act of mischief?

Cutting off Sif's hair. Thor threatened to break every bone in the culprit's body, so the dwarfs were set to spin new hair of real gold, and they made the spear and a folding ship as well.

Odin's gold ring Draupnir does what every ninth night?

Drips eight new rings, each as heavy as itself. Odin laid Draupnir on his son Baldr's funeral pyre, and Baldr sent it back from Hel as a keepsake.

In Ynglinga saga, Odin stayed away so long he was given up for lost; what did his brothers do?

Shared his wife between them, the saga says, while also dividing up his estate; when Odin finally came home he simply took her back.

According to Ynglinga saga, Odin's people believed he had what?

Never lost a battle. His men believed the luck could be passed on: before sending them out he laid his hands on their heads and blessed them, and in danger they called on his name.

Odin punished the valkyrie Sigrdrífa for felling a king he favoured by pricking her with what?

A sleeping-thorn. Odin also decreed she would never again win a battle and must marry, so she vowed to wed only a man who knew no fear; the hero Sigurd woke her.

Farmers in Blekinge, Sweden, were once said to leave what on the field for Odin's horses?

A sheaf of grain. The folklorist who recorded the custom in 1851 also told of a Småland mound said to be Odin's grave: when it was opened, fire reportedly burst out like a flash of lightning.

In later folklore Odin leads which ghostly nocturnal procession?

The Wild Hunt. An English chronicle reports one near Peterborough in 1127: huge huntsmen on black horses and black goats with wide-eyed black hounds, and monks hearing their horns through the night.

In the Prose Edda, Odin's son Baldr, whom all else had sworn to spare, dies by a dart of which plant?

Mistletoe. The gods had made a game of pelting the unharmable Baldr, and his blind brother Höðr was handed the one thing nobody had asked to swear, a sprig judged too young for an oath.

Which symbol, carved beside figures taken to be Odin on picture stones, has been read as his power to bind minds?

The valknut. Its Viking Age name is unknown, 'valknut' being a modern Norwegian word, and the scholar Hilda Ellis Davidson took its three interlocked triangles for Odin's knack of leaving warriors helpless in a fight.

In the Prose Edda, Odin's grandfather Búri is licked free of salty ice by what kind of animal?

A cow. Auðumbla licked the salty blocks for three days: by the second a man's head was showing, and on the third all of Búri stood free.

In Ynglinga saga, Odin is a mortal chieftain who leads his people to Scandinavia from where?

Asia. Snorri Sturluson leaned on the likeness of 'Asia' to Æsir, the gods' name: the saga calls Odin's homeland Asaland, and his Prose Edda speaks of 'men of Asia, who were called Æsir'.

Odin first appeared as a Marvel Comics character in which series in 1962?

Journey into Mystery. Thor had taken over the anthology comic a few months before his father arrived, and by 1966 it had dropped its old name and simply become Thor, keeping the issue numbers.

Which actor played Odin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Thor films?

Anthony Hopkins. His farewell in the third film was first shot with Odin homeless in a New York alley; director Taika Waititi decided a king deserved better and reshot it on the Norwegian coast.

In Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, which newly released prisoner goes to work for a disguised Odin?

Shadow Moon. Freed from prison to the news that his wife has died in a car crash, he meets the old god on the way to her funeral and, with nowhere else to go, accepts his offer of a job.

Odin is the primary antagonist of which 2022 video game?

God of War Ragnarök. Its Odin is no thundering warrior-king but a soft-spoken schemer who turns up at the heroes' door, played by Richard Schiff, Toby from The West Wing.

Which Roman historian described the Germanic tribes' chief god, taken to be Odin, under a Roman name?

Tacitus. In his Germania, the line that they worship this god above all others is copied almost word for word from Julius Caesar, who had written it about the Gauls a century and a half earlier.

An Ásatrú fellowship honouring Odin and the other Norse gods won official state recognition in 1973 in which country?

Iceland. The story goes that just after the group's leader, a farmer, left the justice ministry, a thunderstorm cut the capital's power, as if Thor were having his say; recognition came months later.