Tag Archives: Odin

Mythology

Mythology from a Very Rambling Pagan Perspective

Mythology from a Very Rambling Pagan Perspective

So, you want to talk about the nature of mythology. Unfortunately, in my case, that means talking about Paganism, since mythology is the source of my personal belief system. And I apologize for the rambling tone, but its hard to put into a straight up narrative. My personal take is somewhat along the lines of Jung, that mythology is basically the dream of humanity. Much like our dreams serve to work through the complexities and conflicts in our subconscious, myth serves to do the same for the collective unconsciousness. In the Pagan community, there is a lot of debate about the nature of the gods. Beliefs run from almost a secular humanist attitude, to what we refer to as “sock puppeting”, where people believe their personal relationship with a god to be so personal, they almost treat them like they are an imaginary friend. Seriously, I have heard people talk about hanging out and watching tv with Loki. It’s… sad, to say the least. I think this puts me and others like me in an unusual category, since for most people this class would be little more than an academic exercise, and they could freely speculate on the purpose mythology serves on a literary, historical, or psychological level. For those of us who actually believe and celebrate these stories, the question is about the issue my personal faith. Talk about a can of worms! While I am no stranger to the “woo woo” of the universe (show me a Pagan who hasn’t had a mystical experience of some kind and I will show you a Catholic), I can’t say that I (or most Pagans I associate with personally) take these stories as literal events, nor do I think most of us believe there is a group of immortal people living in the sky looking down at humanity with a judgmental eye. However, we still believe these things to be quite real, even though we understand this to be contradictory. The best I can describe it is that is is sort of like when you have a very vivid dream that you can’t get out of your head. It seems real, and even if you know that it isn’t, it haunts your reality, changes the way you look at things. There are levels to reality, mythology serves to wipe some of the dust off the windows between worlds. We tend to think of mythology as being only the stories of ancient religions and tribal beliefs. We forget that Christianity is mythology as well. Mythology does not mean some dusty old story with little relevance to modern life. Mythology is alive and adaptable. Pagans tend to be people who have found solace in a different world view than the Abrahamic religions and Eastern philosophies offered on the census sheet. Mythology provides a mirror to our world and ourselves, a way of looking outward as well as inward. It informs our life decisions, or modes of behavior. We model ourselves after figures in myth. Christians ask themselves “what would Jesus do?”. Likewise, Pagans tend to take the values set forth in their mythology to imitate. In modern Heathenry (you asked if Heathenry was a Pagan movement. It is a blanket term for the followers of the Norse and Germanic Pagan movement, which is actually quite varied and comes in many flavors), you tend to see people who value bravery, adventure, hospitality, kinship, and self-reliance. In followers of the Hellenic traditions, there tends to be an emphasis on intellectualism, mysticism, or artistry. The followers of the Celtic traditions tend to be a little more female-centric and nature oriented, and so on. Mythology is a blueprint to these ways of living. It provides characters who are archetypes for the people we would like to be (or avoid being in some cases). Whether you are the Hero, the Earth Mother, the Trickster, the Sheildmaiden, or the Shaman, mythology has it. Contrary to how many people view Pagans, this isn’t an elaborate game of make-believe or some Ren Faire fantasy. Maybe I feel this way because I tend to see people as their archetypes (of which we each have many), and I tend to see the world in mythic terms. Everything in life has significance, we are all stars of our own epics, we all possess the ability to become something more transcendent than the person who pays the bills, needs to get the car fixed, and gets heartburn every time they eat raw onion. Paganism is about recognizing these qualities within yourself and others and living your life in celebration of that. We are all Odin, Freyja, Medb, Cu Chulainn, and Peredur, and our world is filled with magic. That is the purpose mythology serves for me.

Mythology

Odin is the Fickle Finger of Fate

Odin is the Fickle Finger of Fate

To bring the Norse Mythology portion of this class to an end, let’s talk about Odin and his strangely fickle nature. Odin gives his favor as easily as he takes it away again. I don’t know that many people notice that in the Norse tales, Odin tends to be the only god who actually intercedes in mortal affairs (sometimes it’s Frigg, but she seems to do so with Odin’s involvement). If you want a baby, want to win in battle, whatever, ask Odin. I also love how Odin usually doesn’t show up with great pomp and circumstance. I almost picture a bunch of guys arguing and yelling, when this old dude just sort of saunters in, stabs a sword in a tree, nonchalantly says “pull this out and it’s yours” and then meanders off into the night. The scene where he shows up as Sigurd is preparing to kill Fafnir cracks me up. It’s like that slightly annoying elderly neighbor who shows up anytime you are working on a project in the garage. John Deere hat (with an eight legged deer) over the crew cut he’s had since “dubya dubya two”, plaid shirt, red suspenders, eyepatch, chewing on a toothpick, rocking back on his heels, hands (with one missing finger) shoved in his pockets and squinting up at the sky, “Hullo der! Sooo… whatcha got going on der? I remember back in tha’ day when we’d kill a dragon, we’d dig TWO trenches. But dat’s just me…. I hear da fishin’s good up at da lake dis year…” (My grandparents were old school rural Washingtonians, I couldn’t help casting my grandfather as Odin. As a completely tangential side note, many of my grandparents friends were loggers, farmers, etc and were missing body parts either from the war or hazardous work. When I was a little girl I thought that as you got older parts of you fell off like leaves on a tree.).

Odin’s favor is fleeting. I firmly believe that this is due to his knowledge of future events. He manipulates events like Bobby Fischer with a chess board. He stacks the deck by filling his hall with the best einherjar he can, but not before he has ensured they have done as much to further the plot here on earth. Odin doesn’t take away his favor because you have failed him, he does so because it’s time to do so.

I am still convinced that Brynhild’s continued sorrows are due to her defiance of Odin. She chooses to kill the king that Odin has promised victory to, and he puts her in a state of suspended animation on a mountain top surrounded by flame. This seems like an odd punishment, aside from the fact that inactivity would be hell for a shieldmaiden. In reality, I believe he is punishing her by setting up a lifetime of having break to every oath she has ever made to herself. She broke her oath to Odin, there for all her oaths will be broken. He has taken her free will from her, and forced her to give up the one thing that means anything to her; being a shieldmaiden. Brynhild/Brunhilde has always been my favorite character, and one that I can personally relate to. As someone who was, in a very literal way, raised by my mother to be a “sheildmaiden” (she made sure I knew how to fight, that I was tough, that I was unafraid to compete with men, that I had a sense of honor, etc. She was like the Great Santini in a Maidenform bra), I know how hard it is to lay down your arms. I always joked that I married my husband because he was the first man I ever met who could best me in a fair fight, not to mention he really did ride through the fire for me early in our courtship (the first year we were dating I ended up unemployed, both my grandparents died, and I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The fact that he didn’t run for the hills still amazes me.). She is a woman who trusted her own judgment over Odin’s and paid by always having her heart’s desire dangled just out of reach. This may seem like a particularly cruel act on Odin’s part, but when you think about it the message is that you don NOT mess with Odin’s plans. Because Odin’s plans are Fate’s plans, and you can not change fate in the world of the Norse. The warp is set, the weft must follow. If Odin were to go easy on someone who meddled with the order, there would be chaos. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria! (I have now quoted Ghostbusters in my English class. Good night, Bellingham!)