Odin: you’re my sworn brother and best friend, I would do anything for you.

Loki: I want you to eat three meals a day, have a decent sleep schedule and not sacrifice yourself of part of you in exchange for wisdom.

Odin: Absolutely not.

The Oldest Thing I Own: A Reflection on Spirituality and Ancestral Leadership A philosophical reflection on leadership, resilience, and the human condition.
By D. L. Dantes | November 9th, 2025

current favorite bit is holding my phone over my cat’s and dog’s heads and making the Apple Pay sound (charging them for their thoughts). they are unamused bc they do not yet understand the burdens of capitalism

Bro ewwwww

I still think that “Twilight of the Gods” making Odin a triple-god was a crazy brilliant move.

Odin #1 by James Tynion IV, Marguerite Bennett, Letizia Cadonici and Jordie Bellaire. Cover by Alex Eckman-Lawn. Variant covers by (2) Cadonici, (3) Martin Simmonds, (4) Christian Ward and (5) Jae Lee. Out in May.

“Green Room meets Midsommar in JAMES TYNION’s most relentless Horror story yet! Adela will do anything for the perfect story. Including going undercover with Neo Nazi punks headed to the frozen forests of Norway under the misbegotten belief that they can summon Odin and achieve their promised white destiny. But what awaits them in the woods is far older and stranger than any of them can comprehend. And no gods are coming to answer their prayers for help.

Multiple Eisner Award-winning creator JAMES TYNION IV (Exquisite Corpses), no-holds-barred writer MARGUERITE BENNETT (Witchblade), rising star artist LETIZIA CADONICI (House of Slaughter), and Eisner Award-winning colorist JORDIE BELLAIRE (Redlands) conjure a hallucinogenic horror story that leaves absolutely no taboo unbroken.”

Things can always get better.

Odin: The head of Mimir has told me that Ragnarok, the end of the world, draws near. There have been signs of unrest among the Vinir of late. It seems that we, the Aesir, will not be able to avoid war with them.

From “Balder ‘The Brave’” in Journey into Mystery #106, July 1964. Stan Lee script, Jack Kirby pencils, Vince Colletta inks, Stan Goldberg (?) colors, Artie Simek letters.

Info from Grand Comics Database

From Journey into Mystery #106, July 1964. Stan Lee script, Jack Kirby pencils, Vince Colletta inks, Stan Goldberg (?) colors, Artie Simek letters.

Info from Grand Comics Database

I just realized that Wednesday Addams is technically named after Odin

The Wild Huntsman and His Wife
Mr and Mrs Santa Claus

Throughout northern Europe, an enormous mass of material in the way of popular tales, legends, folklore and superstitions, depict Odin and his wife leading a Wild Hunt or Furious Host, riding through the skies at year’s end. This host is typically called the wütende her, the furious host, but also Wuotunges her, Wodan’s host. In the howling wind of winter storms, people imagined that they heard the Wild Huntsman and his host, all mounted on snorting steeds and accompanied by baying hounds. In the southern parts of Germany, as well as on the borders of the Lower Rhine and in Thuringia, people believed that a host of damned souls wander restlessly until Judgement Day, swept along in the gales. But on the plains of Northern Germany and in Scandinavia, as well as in parts of England and Northern France, popular belief held that a spectral huntsman on horseback leads the pack.

Since the Middle Ages, this concept has played an important part in popular belief, where it is commonly known as the wilde jagd (Wild Hunt) in northern Germany, witthendet heer (the Furious Host) in southern Germany, and by other names, such as the Asgardreia (Asgard Ride) in Denmark, the Herlathing in England, and Mesnée d’Hellequin in northern France. In Thuringia, Hesse, Franconia, and Swabia, the traditional term is das wütende heer (the Furious Host). Despite seemingly wide variations, these stories are uniform in their essential traits. In districts where the custom of sacrificing the last sheaf of grass to Odin’s horse is practiced, the Wild Huntsman is commonly identified with the same god. Odin’s original role as the leader of the Wild Hunt is established from parallel phrases and folktales across the region. The root of the whole notion is easily discerned in the expression Wodejaget, that is, “Wodan hunts” —used in Pomerania and Holstein when a rumbling in the air is heard. On hearing a noise at night, as of horses and carts, the Swedes say Oden far förbi (“Odin passes nearby”) and in Skåne, the shrieking of seafowl on winter evenings is called Odens jagt, Odin’s Hunt.

While it cannot be maintained that all of this material hails from heathen times passed down to the modern era on the lips of common people, it is clear that the popular imagination further developed an existing idea, already widespread at the close of the heathen era. According to these legends, Odin hunts at the end of the year, especially in the time between Christmas and Twelfth-Night, when the winds blow their fiercest. As such, Júlnir or Jölnir, “Yule figure”, occurs among Odin’s names in Snorri’s Edda. The peasants were always careful to leave the last sheaf of grain out in the fields to serve as fodder for his horse, “for the pagans believed that this same diabolical huntsman made his presence known in the fields at harvest time,” according to Luthern clergyman Nicolaus Gryse, who first connected Odin’s name to the Wild Hunt in 1593.

In lower Germany, there are many such stories of one Hakkelberend, whose name points back to Odin, for Hakkelberend literally means “mantle-bearer” (from OHG hakhul; ON, häkull or hekla; AS hacele, drapery, mantle, armor; and bär, to bear). Grimm was disposed to pronounce the Westphalian form Hackelberend the most ancient and genuine, suggesting that hakolberand was Old Saxon for a man in armor, based on Old Saxon wâpanberand (armiger), AS helmberend, sweordberend. The Huntsman sometimes appears as a lone Schimmelreiter (“Ghostrider”) on a white horse. On occasion he appears in a car drawn by four horses, cracking his whip as hunting horns blare in the distance. In the Icelandic sagas, Odin is pictured as a rider, clad in a long, dark-blue cloak and a broad-rimmed hat which shades his face. Likewise the Wild Huntsman frequently appears on horseback, clad in a broad hat and cloak.

The Wild Huntsman is commonly accompanied by a train of spirits, consisting of both male and female apparitions, who are sometimes without heads or otherwise mutilated in some shocking manner. In the Norse myths, Odin himself is missing an eye (Völuspá 28). At Ragnarok, he rides into battle with a helmet on his head (cp. Sigurdrifumál 14), leading valkyries and a host of fallen warriors (Einherjar) to face the assembled forces of giants. In Gylfaginning 41, we are told that for entertainment, the great troop of Einherjar residing in Odin’s hall, “got dressed in war-gear every day and went out to the courtyard to fight each other and fall one upon the other,” no doubt inflicting many injuries and hacking off limbs in the process which were miraculously restored each night. On occasion, the horseman himself is headless. In the Harz, where the Wild Hunt thunders past the Eichelberg, the Wild Huntsman appears mounted on a headless black horse, carrying a riding crop in one hand and a bugle in the other. Between blasts of his horn, he cries “Hoho! Hoho!”

In heathen Lappland, similar beliefs about the Wild Hunt prevailed. There, a specific sacrifice to the Furious Host is described in 1673. As in many other locations, they are conceived of as a ghostly troop that rides through the air and forests at Yuletide:

“There are certain days which they regard with a great deal of superstition, especially the first day of Christmas, when the masters of families don’t care to come to church themselves, but send only their sons, daughters and maids. The reason they allege for it is, that they dread the apparition of spirits, which they say wander about the air in great numbers on this day, and which must be appeased by certain sacrifices, of which we shall speak hereafter. …These they call the Juhlafolket (Yule Folk), deriving their name from the word Juhli (Yule), which now signifies as much as the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, but in former Ages was used for the time of the New Year. But it being their opinion that more especially about this time the air is filled with spectres, they have given it this name. …The day before the feast of the Juhlian Company, being Christmas eve and on Christmas day itself, they offer superstitious sacrifices in honor of the Juhlian Company, the manner being thus: On Christmas eve they fast, or rather abstain from all sorts of meat; but of everything else they eat, they carefully preserve a small quantity. The same they perform on Christmas day, when they live very plentifully. All the bits they have preserved for these two days, they put in a small chest made of birch bark, in the shape of a boat, with its sails and oars; they pour also some of the fat of the broth upon it, and thus hang it on a tree, about a bowshot distant from the backside of their homes, for the use of the Juhlian Company, wandering at that time about the forests, mountains, and the air.”

The use of a boat sacrifice suggests a connection to the dead, often buried in ship-shaped mounds, interred within actual ships, or set adrift on such a vessel serving as a funeral pyre. Of Swedish peasants in 1870, Llewelyn Lloyd says: “the most singular and appalling superstition relating to ‘Jul-night’ is the belief—one pretty generally entertained—that the dead rise from their grave.” Jacob Grimm (ch. 29) observes:

“With the coming of Christianity the fable could not but undergo a change. For the solemn march of gods, there now appeared a pack of horrid spectres, dashed with dark and devilish ingredients. Very likely the heathens themselves had believed that spirits of departed heroes took part in the divine procession; the Christians put into the host the unchristened dead, the drunkard, the suicide, who come before us in frightful forms of mutilation. …Their ancient offerings too the people did not altogether drop, but limited them to the sheaf of oats for the celestial steed, as even Death (another hunter) has his bushel of oats.”

Whatever its original form, by the Middle Ages the northern people dreaded the on-coming storm, declaring that it was the Wild Hunt sweeping across the sky. The sound of the Wild Hunt was frequently considered a presage of misfortune, pestilence or war. Similarly, popular superstitions held that the baying of hounds heard on a stormy night was an infallible presage of death. On rare occasions, the Wild Huntsman showed kindness toward strangers; but generally he brought harm, especially to anyone foolish enough to address him or join in his hunting cry, of which there are many stories of drunken persons having done. People considered it especially dangerous to mock the wild “Ho! Ho!” of the Huntsman, and those who did were immediately snatched up and whisked away with the Furious Host, while the few who joined the cry in good faith were rewarded. Only those who stepped aside into a tilled field, remained in the middle of the road, or threw themselves on the ground and remained silent, escaped the danger. At times, they say, the Huntsman shows kindness. Once a farmer in Gadendorf near Panker, while working late at night, left his door open. Suddenly, the Wild Huntsman came riding through it and took a loaf from the bread-rack. He rode out the side door, where the astonished farmer met him. "Because I have received this bread in your home,” he said, “you shall never go without.” From then on, the farmer never went hungry.

Besides Woden, tradition also speaks of a woman riding at the head of the Furious Host. Holda, like Odin, can ride the wind clothed in terror. Like him, she belongs to the Wild Hunt. Sometimes she is portrayed as his wife, Frau Gode (Gauden, Wode, Woden), that is “Mrs. Odin.” During Yule, the only time that men can perceive her, Frau Gauden directs her chase toward human habitations. Most of all, she loves to drive through village streets on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, and wherever she finds an open door, she sends in a dog, who does the household no other harm than to disturb their sleep with its constant crying. It whimpers and whines the whole year through. Not until Yule comes around again is peace restored to the house. It cannot be pacified nor driven away. Those foolish enough to kill the dog bring disaster upon themselves.

Better luck befalls those who do Frau Gauden a service. It happens at times, that in the dark of night she loses her way and finds herself at a crossroads, which are a stumbling block to her. Every time she strays into one, her carriage breaks down and she cannot go on. Once, while in this plight, she came dressed as a stately dame to the bedside of a laborer at Boeck, woke him, and implored his help. The man rose and followed her to the crossroads, where he found one of her carriage wheels broken off. He soon fixed the wheel and as payment she told him to fill his pockets with her dogs’ dung, assuring him that his effort would not be in vain. Indignant but curious, the man reluctantly did as he was told and took some of the droppings with him. To his utter amazement, at sunrise his wages glittered and upon inspection had turned to gold. He now regretted not gathering up more and returned to the crossroads in haste, but could find no trace of her. For a man at Conow who put a new pole on her carriage and for a woman at Göhren who replaced the pivot that supports the bar, Frau Gauden repaid their kindness with wood-shavings which fell as they worked. To their surprise, they likewise discovered that the wood-chips had turned into gold. In this she resembles Frau Holda and Berchta, who drive at Yuletide and have their vehicles repaired in the same manner.

She is more generally a figure of reward and punishment to children. If their toys are not picked up and if they don’t do what they are told, then Frau Holle will come and punish them. Daily chores and routines are within her jurisdiction. Abiding by or neglecting the simple tasks she assigns will result in a due reward.

It is not yet forgotten in Hesse that Frau Holle visits villages during Christmas time, inspecting homes and handing out gifts from her garden and kitchen— the fruits of the earth, nuts and apples, and plenty of freshly baked cookies and cakes. For ill-behaved children, she brings coal and switches. Her annual appearance falls between the Twelves, the twelve nights between December 25th and January 6th —Christmas and Epiphany— Twelfth-Night being the last of these, followed by Twelfth-Day. The Twelves are considered the time between the old and the new year. The long, dreary nights and short, gray days of winter with their threatening storms and violent winds give the goddess mysterious qualities.

Odin’s Wife: Mother Earth in Germanic Mythology (2018)
by William P. Reaves

Wilhelm Wägner and Helene Guerber recorded a folkloric association of Odin’s eyes with the sun and moon, and the crescent moon, with the Gjallarhorn from which Mímir drinks the draught of wisdom from his well every morning.

“The eye of the god of heaven is the sun, which enlightens and penetrates all things; his other eye is the moon, whose reflection gazes out of the deep, and which at last, when setting, sinks into the ocean. It also appears like the crescent-shaped horn with which the Jotun drew the draught of wisdom.”
~Wilhelm Wägner

An important quiz for important people

What God of War Ragnarok character would crack you first?

Norse Mythology Story: Odin’s Journey to Mimir’s Well and the Eye He Gave Up

 You don’t become wise without losing something. Odin knew it. And when he descended toward Mimir’s Well, the debt was already written into his flesh.

Odin’s Thirst

In the halls of Asgard, the timber smelled of resin and smoke, yet Odin couldn’t breathe easy. The songs of heroes fell away from him like snow. Inside him, a single thought kept scraping.

It wasn’t fear. It was hunger.

From the throne he could decide fates, but he could not stop time. Every victory of the Aesir felt provisional, like a flame that flares and then leaves darkness behind. What he wanted was not dominion, but understanding.

By day he was king. By night he was a wanderer without moving an inch. Silence brought him questions heavier than a spear, and no one—not even among the gods—could answer them.

Beneath Yggdrasil, everyone knew it, there was water that did not lie. They called it Mimir’s Well, hidden among roots swollen with damp. Down there, the world keeps what it does not dare to say aloud.

Mist clung to those roots with the scent of wet bark and iron. A calm, stubborn cold hung in the air—one that slips under your skin without asking permission.

Mimir guarded that place, not like a warrior holding a gate, but the way memory guards a secret. Ancient and still, he seemed made from the same substance as the roots themselves.

His name, spoken softly, sounded like a warning. Not because it promised violence, but because it promised a price—and the price, they said, was never merely symbolic.

Odin chose long before he set out. Power without understanding, he knew, is a blade that cuts the hand that wields it. And when a god decides, the world takes note.

The Price of Mimir’s Well

Beyond Asgard the wind had teeth. Odin’s breath turned to vapor and crusted on his lashes like crystal; each step sank into hard ground, and the sound of his boots felt too human in that vastness.

Ahead, the light grew thin and the shadows had all the time in the world. His skin stung, his beard held onto frost. The cold was not an enemy—it was a companion that tested him

Vom wilden Heere und den drei Wanderern.

In den Stürmen der Winternacht erlebt der Germane das Wirken des allwaltenden Gottes. Darum ist Wode, der Führer des Totenheeres, auch der Herr der zwölf Nächte, in denen das Jahresrad stillsteht; der Nächte zwischen dem Sonnenwendtage und dem Tage der Perchten, an dem das Rad seine neue Drehung beginnt. In diesem Zwölften aber stockt das Weltenrad und mit ihm die Weltordnung, und so bricht das menschenfeindliche Utgard, die Welt der Unholde und der bösen Geister, unheildrohend in Mittgart, die Welt des Heiles und der menschlichen Geborgenheit hinein. Denn der Germane kennt Höhen und Tiefen, er ist vertraut mit Leben und Tod, und er macht sich selbst vertraut mit dem Kampfe gegen jene andere Welt, dessen Walstatt die stürmende Natur, aber auch das eigene Herz ist. So mag er um so tiefer jenen großen Umbruch erleben, der alljährlich die Lebenstüchtigkeit der Natur auf die Probe stellt; und wenn er aus voller Seele an diesem Entscheidungskampfe teilnimmt, so will er daran die Kräfte des eigenen Herzens heldenmütig erhöhen. Er weiß, wenn der Walvater auf schnaubendem Schimmel über weglose Wälder braust, an den Firsten zerrt und in das Herdfeuer bläst, daß dadurch erst das Feuer neue Kraft gewinnt, und daß der heilige Funken in der eigenen Brust höher entfacht wird, wenn er in der Finsternis leuchtet. So hat er einst mit todesmutigen Männern selbst ein wildes Heer gebildet, Wälder durchstreifend und bei lodernden Fackeln mit dröhnenden Trommeln und gellenden Hörnern sich ganz mit jenem ewigen Heere eins fühlend, das im Wintersturm mit den Wolken zieht, die schlafende Natur zu wecken und neues Feuer auf den Herden und in den Herzen kühner Männer zu entfachen. Und wo immer in unserer Geschichte eine todeskühne Kriegerschar sich zusammenschloß, unholde Feinde zu befehden, das Volk zu wecken und neues Feuer in den Herzen zu erwecken, da hat es sich dieser wilden, verwegenen Jagd verwandt gefühlt:

“Es zieht sich herunter in düsteren Reih'n, und gellende Hörner schallen darein und erfüllend die Seele mit Grausen!”

In den deutschen Alpen halten heute noch solche Scharen in den Zwölf Nächten ihre Umzüge. Wo sie aber über die toten Felder stampfen, da weiß der Bauer, daß diese im kommenden Jahre doppelte Frucht bringen werden. Denn der Wode, den sie auf schnaubendem Schimmel daherziehen hören, ist ihnen zugleich der gütige Geber des Wachstums und der Ernte. Aber dem Sturme folgt die große Stille. Das Licht, das in der Jahresnacht geboren wurde, hat im Sturme seine Kraft bewährt, und sein stilles Wachsen überwindet von innen her die Macht der unholden Welt. Der Volksbrauch, der treue Spiegel unseres Jahrerlebens, läßt auch hier das ewig Gültige erkennen. Drei Könige ziehen durch das Land, mit Stern und Krone; sie klopfen an die Türen und heischen Gaben, und wo sie ein Feld betreten oder einen Hain durchwandeln, da lohnen es Erde und Baum mit doppelten Gaben. Sie gelten als die Weisen aus dem Ostlande, von denen die Bibel uns berichtet: aber Könige sind sie erst bei uns geworden, und wenn sie dort dem neuen Herrn Gaben der Ehrfurcht bringen, so bringen sie bei uns das neue Leben selbst. Sie führen den Stern mit sich, aber bei uns ist dieser selbe Stern das uralte Jahreszeichen. An vielen Orten ist er gar selbst ein Rad, das von den drei Königen in kreisende Bewegung gesetzt wird - zum Zeichen, daß nun das Jahresrad seine Drehung wieder begonnen hat, und mit ihm die irdischen Räder, die in den Zwölften allesamt Stillstehen mußten, wollten sie nicht den Zorn des Schimmelreiters und der Frau Holle erregen. Unsere eigene Schriften aber, die Kunde aus heiliger Urzeit bringen, erzählen uns von den drei Göttern, die an der brandenden See aus Bäumen menschliches Leben und Schicksal schufen:
Zum Richtstuhl gingen die Rater alle, heilige Götter, und hielten Rat; bis drei Asen aus dieser Schar, stark und gnädig, zum Strande kamen: sie fanden am Land, ledig der Kraft, Esche und Ulme, ohne Schicksal. Nicht hatten sie Seele, nicht hatten sie Sinn, nicht Lebenswärme, noch lichte Farben: Seele gab Wodan, Sinn gab Hönir, Leben gab Lodur und lichte Farbe.
Noch ältere nordische Mythen, im fernen Indien aufgezeichnet, erzählen von den drei Götterbrüdern, die mit dem Jahre gehen, und die in den heiligen Nächten ihren „Jahrgang" beginnen. Am andern Ende der nordischen Welt, an den Felswänden Skandinaviens, sind diese drei noch in Stein geritzt zu sehen: sie halten das Jahresrad, so wie unsere drei Könige den Radstern des Jahres mit sich herumführen. Die drei heißen im Norden der Hohe, der Ebenhohe und der Dritte; in Indien aber der gehende, der leuchtende und der Dritte in den Wassern. Diese drei göttlichen Brüder hat auch unser Märchen treu bewahrt. Es sind die drei Brüder, die von ihrem Vater ausgesandt werden, um das Wasser des Lebens zu holen. Alle drei bestehen viele Abenteuer und Gefahren, aber nur der Dritte kommt zum Ziele und findet das Wasser des Lebens. Sie führen ja alle drei das kommende Jahr herauf, aber nur der Dritte führt es zum Ende; denn sie sind das kommende, das sich wendende und das sich neigende Jahr. Viele tausend Jahre hindurch haben diese drei Wanderer ihren Jahrgang gehalten, Licht und Leben bringend, seitdem sie zum erste Male am Rande des nördlichen Meeres das höhere Leben der Menschheit erweckten. Sie werden weiterschreiten durch die Jahrtausende, wenn wir mit ihnen das Erbe der Ahnen treu bewahren.

Aus: DAS ERBE DER AHNEN.
Germanische Feste und Bräuche im Jahresring.