The Psychological and Mythic Unity of the God, Ódinn

Abstract

The picture presented to us of the god 05inn by Snorri Sturluson,l) The Poetic Edda,2) and Saxo Grammaticus3) is complex and manysided to an extreme degree. He is simultaneously god of magic, poetry, and death with affinities to fertility deities, god of war and father of the gods and man, with a reputation for a highly capricious nature. It is little wonder then that he has received a variety of treatments by modern scholarship and that a unified interpretation which does justice to all of his wide range of functions and characteristics is lacking. Davidson4) discusses him primarily in terms of his function as god of war and god of the dead. Turville-Petres) discusses various facets separately, and then states: O'inn took over the names and functions of other gods.6) Dumezil7) has 05inn share his first function, the position of priest/king with Tyr, emphasizing 65inn's magico-religious aspects at the expense of others, specifically his position as god of war and his affinities with the fertility deities. However, O0inn's position as a war god in the source material is quite clear, and supporting evidence for Dumezil's tripartite social structure is sufficiently lacking