Odin

Odin Europe
In Germanic mythology, the one-eyed deity of battle, magic, inspiration, and the dead. The elder son of Bor by the giantess Bestla, Odin was ‘supreme as well as being the oldest of the gods’. Writing in the thirteenth century, Snorri Sturluson, the outstanding Icelandic scholar and statesman, thus endeavoured to account for the rise of Odin during the Viking period (750–1050), when the war god took over many of the functions of the sky god. ‘He had his way in all things. Mighty as the other gods may be, yet they all serve him as children do their father.’ Odin was Alfodr, ‘father of the gods’; Valfodr, ‘father of the slain’; Veratyr, ‘lord of men’; Bileygr and Baleygr, ‘shifty-eyed’ and ‘flaming-eyed’; Glapsvidir, ‘swift in deceit’, Fjolsvidr, ‘wide in wisdom’; Farmatyr ‘god of cargoes’; Oski, ‘wish giver’; Sidfodr, ‘father of victories’; and many more ekenames, nicknames, given to Odin ‘for...

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