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Forward On Odin’s Havamal:

John Frederick Beckmann, PhD.

For All Fathers

My Interest in the Havamal.

I have studied the Havamal quite intensively over the last year. The Havamal is a collection of proverbs attributed to Odin. My interest in the Havamal was driven by receiving genetic ancestry data, which showed me to be 75% Scandinavian. This was a bit of a shock to me, as I knew my ancestry was in part Scandinavian, but I did not understand I was majority Scandinavian.

My interest in the Havamal is not an endorsement of paganism. However, like the writings of Homer, it is within the western cannon and has survived the test of time – i.e., its Lindy. Beowulf, Wagner, and J.R.R. Tolkien literally copied from these collected Sagas/Eddas. Even the English days of the week derive from the Norse gods. Wednesday is Wōdnesdæg (Odin’s day). Tuesday is Tyr’s day. Thursday is Thor’s day. Friday is Frigg’s day.

Viking history and mythology needs to be understood within the context of Viking society and culture. An important point is that the Viking society was driven by values that include physical power; and the necessity of friendship with extreme loyalty in extreme cold environments. In this realm, one could be killed by a warrior, a rogue, the cold, a disease, or starvation at any time. Life was often short and brutish… as Hobbes would say. These cultures would obviously believe in fate and could not help but feel that they were often at the mercy of cruel unseen forces (Gods who didn’t love them outright). The Havamal is cynical and presents wise strategies that assist survival within this landscape. The Vikings not only survived but expanded during an age of mixed paganism and Christianity where these cultural/memetic systems were under direct competition with each other. When Vikings encountered Christianity, most eventually opted into this system in lieu of the pagan one; it seems clear that long term, the peaceful Christian system leads to one of positive cultural growth, peace, and forgiveness, rather than the cruel Viking world of pagan survivalism and honor killings.

The Saga of Grettir the Strong.

The Saga of Grettir the Strong contains an exemplary tale detailing life within this culture and exhibits the struggles of a warrior poet during these times. One particular side quest is exemplary, a family was separated during Christmas time when the head of the house traveled to the Christmas mass; leaving behind his family at their rural farm house. Grettir, a pagan warrior of mixed allegiance was wintering with this family at this time and opted to stay at the farm. Simultaneously, a large raiding band of about 12 Viking berserks sailed and landed at the beachhead near the farmhouse. Viking berserks were essentially armored gangs of raiders that wandered wherever they wanted and did whatever they wanted, simply because they had the power to do so – No one could stop them, in an age where the “riddle of steel” got you whatever you wanted… Grettir saw the berserks and realized they were coming to raid the rural farmhouse. In this moment, he made a karmic good choice and decided to defend the family that had given him winter shelter. Being a large warrior himself, he approached the raiding band. Using trickery, he suggested that he would join them and swear allegiance to their gang – that he would lead them to the farm house – and party hard with them there… The berserkers accepted his offer. He led the raucous raiding party to the house and encouraged them to begin their fun, demanding the women of the house open up casks of mead. The women were obviously highly disturbed, many crying and fearing for their lives, yet they could do nothing against a band of 12 + 1 armored berserker giants… Grettir kept the party going getting everyone as drunk as possible – later in the evening the band inquired about the bathrooms and Grettir showed them the way. For some reason, the 12 berserks were now naked at this point (it’s not clear to me why…) and Grettir ushered them into the bathroom or perhaps some sort of sauna. When the last berserk went into the bathroom, Grettir closed the door, locked the party inside, ran to the house and donned armor and a spear and returned to the door. When the berserks realized they had been tricked they immediately started breaking down the door. With the door broken they rushed out, armed with anything they could grab, and a battle of naked men ensued. Grettir impaled the first four to come out through the guts with a spear, then killed four more in direct hand to hand combat, while the other four ran away. After killing eight berserks, he chased down the other four who fled, killing two, and finding the last 2 frozen to death in the cold. This made Grettir famous in Scandinavia and his tales spread far and wide, being a hero in this case, and often an anti-hero in later blood feuds. His Saga is emblematic of the culture that ancestral Scandinavians lived under for probably thousands of years. It was not a pleasant system of governance, by violent power and religious worship of death in battle – which is probably why most Scandinavians opted into Christianity or outright atheism over time. I present this summary for one to understand the context under which the Havamal arose. Surviving in these times would often be a combination of guile, power, and luck…

On the Viking Empire and its Descendants.

The Viking culture, system, and thought led to an expansive sea faring warrior empire that reached westward all the way to the America’s (Vineland – see Sagas of the Greenlanders) and eastward into Ukraine and Russia (see later sections of the Saga of Grettir the Strong). Westward, the Vikings conquered, settled, and interbred with the Europeans, British, Irish, and French. As such, most Europeans encode Viking DNA, in part. In France, Normandy was owned and settled by Vikings, whose later descendants would move eastward as Frankish leaders of the Crusades. In America, the Native Americans attacked and pushed out the two earliest attempted colonies. The Vikings called the Native American warriors, “the screamers”. These early battles, encounters, and tragic settlement attempts are described in “the Sagas of the Greenlanders.” Rumors suggest that Vikings might have even settled the Midwest, though these seem only to be legends with slim fact based evidence; but I wouldn’t rule it out given that one can reach the Midwest quite easily by navigating rivers and the great lakes. Later in the 1800’s Viking descendants would in fact colonize the Midwest, in the early American westward expansion. Eastward, many Vikings traveled to Constantinople to fight in the Varangian Guard. The Varangian Guards were hired bodyguards of the Byzantine Christian emperors who found great utility in these warriors known for their loyalty and ferocity. Furthermore, my understanding is that the modern nations of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are essentially founded, in part, by Viking Varangians. Vladimir Svyatoslavich (Vladimir the Great) was a Viking convert to Christianity and direct descendant of Vikings. Thus the Viking ancestry covers the globe and the writings in the Havamal and the Sagas are part of our shared world heritage.

On the Mythology of the Vikings.

The Sagas make clear that the Vikings believed in a full spectrum mythological bestiary including but not limited to giants, dwarfs, witches, sorcerers, magic, ghosts, devils, and beasts. Today, we are quick to cast shade on this mythology. On the other hand, a wise reader will note that dwarves are real, giants are real (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), hobbits are real (Homo floresiensis), and magic (collective will) has some truth to it; ghosts and werewolves were probably real in the sense of evil nocturnal humans dressing up as these creatures to commit crimes. Finally, beasts (bears and wolves) are undoubtedly real and undoubtedly killed many Scandinavians over the course of evolutionary history. My point is that to a Scandinavian living in medieval times – these concepts were in fact truth – though people could not always understand the mechanisms underneath. Looking back into the minds and writings of these ancient peoples can often be quite illuminating to our more “advanced” society.

On Odin.

My best hypothesis is that the mythological pantheon of gods, like the Viking gods, the Greek gods, the Roman gods etc… are personalities derived from patriarchal figures that emerged in history. Odin, or at least the idea of Odin, and the writings of Odin, probably source to a real man, who really existed, founded a family and/or society and passed on his stories through oral tradition. Stories that led to his rise and survival in that environment. After many years, the identity of this person would essentially be masked/forgotten by time, and the founding father (so to speak) would simply be epitomized as a god. So essentially, the hypothesis is that pantheon mythological pagan gods were probably real men -> who led impactful lives making them demigods -> who transcribed or dictated their memes -> whose true identities were forgotten over time -> thus becoming pagan gods. Camille Paglia argues that pagan gods essentially allow humans to opt into ideological systems held by those various folk heroes – in order to test the merits of their memetic systems under different contexts – for better or worse. The Catholic and also broadly Christian notion of the Communion of Saints isn’t too far from this concept – though they would not like me to describe it as such.

I have no doubt the Vikings found Christianity particularly appealing because there is actually much overlap with Norse mythology. Odin (self sacrificially) hung himself on a tree and endured suffering to gain wisdom, similar to how Christ was crucified on a tree/cross. Odin was called the “All-Father” – essentially a fatherly ethos, which no doubt connected in at least some ways to “God the Father”. Both systems envision God as a Father – and so in some sense there is overlap with what might be called fatherly patriarchal wisdom. Imagine an ancient priest translating Christianity to a Viking pagan, given the similarities it would probably actually feel confirmatory and clarifying to them – “~You worship the Father? Yes we also worship the Father.~” – leaving nuances and minor differences conveniently lost in translation – but confirming where they agreed. The Vikings also worshiped the Logos/Holy Spirit (see later sections below); and so Vikings actually already worshiped 2/3 Trinitarian concepts when they first encountered Christianity. It probably didn’t require much additional convincing to add an additional concept of the Son, to complete their conversion.

I don’t view Odin as a God. In reality, Odin was likely a barbarian king who won power by the sword and later gave up the sword to learn how to read and write, understanding that words and memes hold commanding power. Odin’s quest to read and write the runes is central to his mythology; To Odin, writing was so highly valued that he cut out his eye as the price to learn it. Whether or not he really did that is unclear to me, though it’s possible to imagine a scenario of a secret rune cult exacting a hefty price, in exchange for teaching how to read and write runes, which would indeed be a sort of secret wizardry power in a world of illiterate men. Furthermore, the concept of divine memetics (which is roughly the same concept as divine words i.e., the Logos/Holy Spirit) overlaps with not only the Gospel of John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God”, but also with the Sefer Yetzirah; One really interesting Scandinavian variant on Logos implied by Odin’s Havamal seems to be that technical skills like drawing, painting, and engraving fit within the Logos; Thus, Odin’s Havamal expounds upon symbolic Logos, or memetic Logos, not necessarily just “the words” per se, but the inherent memetic meaning and symbol logic of images/runes. Thus, many religions essentially worship the power of the written meme to become reality and one of the big 3 Abrahamic religions explicitly forbids the Scandinavian/Orthodox variant of it (at least in the context of image/icon production)… and I think I know why…

Odin’s Havamal is disconnected from us because we live in an age where most people read, but again, imagine living a thousand years ago when most people could not read. Reading would be magic, it would be people speaking to you from afar seeding words directly into your head. This is why Odin’s words seem strangely foreign – we have lost our awe of this magic. An interesting tangent is that in the American South, the African slaves were forbidden to learn to read. Both Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington understood that this was fundamentally how the Black populations were controlled and so to break slavery, they had to learn to read (see their biographies). Like Odin, Booker T. endured horrible suffering, working as a slave underground in the mines during graveyard shifts – so that he could go to school during the day and learn to read – because he understood this Power. Reading runes IS divine magic. Nowadays, the situation is most closely analogous to understanding computer code. Most of the world is computer illiterate and so understanding computer runes is now the closest thing to magic, and not speaking that language positions one as illiterate and un-magical.

Conversion of the Vikings.

Overall, my point is that the many overlaps between Old Norse and Christianity, probably allowed the Scandinavians to convert without much trouble, for the better – as Christianity puts a guard on the barbarian culture that leads to constant blood feuds, revenge killing, and power struggles. Christ allows one to opt out of these systems for one more focused on positive mercy and forgiveness – an effective counter to blood feuds – which often destroyed Viking societies…(at least one American colony in the Saga of the Greenlanders actually exterminated itself by blood feud).

Translating the Havamal into Comics.

To restate, replicating the Havamal as meme is not an endorsement of Paganism. Though I learned a lot in the process as the Havamal does truly contain wise cynical proverbs on a plethora of topics including hospitality, friendship, loyalty, defense, and yes – power – that provide context onto the history of the Viking age and the culture of the Scandinavians, their memes, and the selective regimes that applied forces shaping their genetics and those memes. These words are part of my cultural heritage and I argue that not all words, especially wise runes transcribed from what was likely some ancient paternal ancestor, should be thrown out with the bathwater of paganism. This is my humble opinion and I suspect that most Scandinavians would feel similar. My mother used to read and play these stories to me. They’re deep inside my training sets and its my honor to now share these memes – and read the original runes myself.

FYI

Some of the numbered passages in Memetic Havamal get off about half-way through. Some translations swap the passages or bifurcate and so the numbers herein aren’t perfectly correct. I personally had to split one or two memes myself to make it work or to emphasize what I thought was a stand alone meme. To reference/consult other translations you need to locate the direct words, not the number. A few memes have extrapolated translations, interpreting what I think Odin really means or what I think the inherent joke is – but you can consult the runes yourself if you doubt, Brother.

Wisdom for Wanderers and Counsel to Guests (001 – 080)

Maxims for All Men (081-088):

Lessons for Lovers 089-094:

Odin’s Love Quests (095 – 101)

Odin’s Quest for the Song Mead (102 – 109)

The Counseling of the Wandering Bard (110-137)

Odin’s Quest After Runes (138-146)

The Song of Spells (147-XXX)

//

Aftermath:

Notes on Translation to Meme.

“Buy a sword ’tis rusty (83).” Here Odin speaks of the Lindy effect (referenced above). Things that are crafted well tend to last longer and longer. Poorly crafted objects break quickly and are thus disappeared from the set of world memes. So buying a rusty sword implies that you are acquiring unseen value and that the inherent metallurgy of the old sword is true – an old sword will not break when you need it – if it has already survived many years and many battles. This law obviously also applies to memes. Rusty was the state of the Havamal when I picked up the translation task. Rust and chips had accumulated over top the English translations. I am very grateful to the translators who came before and preserved Odin’s words, but reading and comparing the translations often made clear that translators left out or missed the inherent joke at the core of the meme. Perhaps, it took a comic artist to re-sharpen the Havamal’s edge (5). Translating jokes is arduous, and it requires an innate identity similar to the original jokester. I wouldn’t have taken on the task if I didn’t at first glance find the Havamal inherently funny. I have sought to rekindle that spice, as someone who understands Odin’s jokes, finds him deeply and darkly humorous, and feels innate kinship with his thinking.

Odin, the Powerful.

Perhaps it is speculation, but personally, I have no doubt Odin’s words source to a king (15, 36, 53, 144, 147). Many of his memes only a manager or commander can truly understand (1, 8, 9, 18, 22, 24-26, 38, 60, 66, 136, 143, 144, 147 etc). Over and over, Odin stumbles upon multiple laws of power: Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies (24, 25, 45, 65, 73). Law 3: Conceal your intentions (46, 63). Law 4: Always say less than necessary (29, 115). Law 5: Guard your reputation with your life (49). Law 9: Win through actions not argument (26). Law 11: Keep people dependent on you (67). Law 14: Pose as a friend, work as a spy (17, 46, 73). Law 15: Crush your enemies completely (127). Law 19: Know who you are dealing with, do not offend the wrong person (30, 31, 133). Law 25: Re-create yourself (see Odin’s Quest after Runes 138-146). Law 27: Create a cult (needs no proof). Law 34: Be royal in your fashion (49). Law 37: Create compelling spectacles (see Odin’s Quest for the Song Mead 102-109); and there are other examples – I could go on and on. This is actually extremely funny to me – the fact that the Viking’s worshiped Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power as a holy text for thousands of years before his coming. He would be like a high priest of Odinism. In addition to laws of power Odin discusses tactics of persuasion (120), seduction (90-91, 102-109, 118, see Odin’s Love Quests: 95-101), skill stacks (54), reframes (11), affirmations (141), and even Dale Carnegie tricks (52, 120, 123).

Needless to say, all this is clear evidence that Odin was a great wizard or sorcerer – one who commands others by words to reprogram the world (146). In the Sagas, Odin is a collector of warriors; the warrior class and the Valkyries directly report Odin. Odin was invoked to gain victory over enemies – interesting that his teachings are so closely associated with power laws… Power should not be feared, but rather should be understood and used in measure (64) to control the forces of chaos that war against the forces of order and civilization. This was the designated job of Allfather, chief of Æsir clan – a counter to forces of chaos, the Jötnar clan. Odin is descended from both Æsir and Jötnar and understands both. To me its clear, Odin was a white hat wizard, not a dark sorcerer. In this sense, his ethics are clearly white hat – but just at the edge of grey. In contrast to Odin, there are many actual dark sorcerers biographed in the Sagas, and their deeds/actions are very evil when compared to Odin’s; and often these dark sorcerers are specifically labeled as individuals that bear “ill-will”, unlike Allfather (see Saga of King Hrolf Kraki).

Odin, the Programmer – Archmage of Scandinavia.

Archmages are rare individuals who have mastered at least five magics (54). I presume Odin had mastered metallurgy (83), war (129), memetics (110, 111, 138-146), lightning/programming (142), alchemy (137), and practical biology/agriculture (70, 88, 137). This mastery obviously helped him achieve status as king of ancient Scandinavia. Programming and wizardry are sister disciplines. Both utilize runes to cast spells over networks. Power networks that effectively achieve a goal create what the Scandinavians believed to be magic. Thus magic is a network effect, not encoded at lower levels, whereby some action or change occurs at scale beyond the individual power of the caster. This phenomenon is well documented in machine learning, human brains, and human networks (tacit collusion in game theory). I argue that Scandinavians (and anyone who believes in the power of prayer) essentially worship the divine nature of network effects. Yggdrasil, the great world tree, is a network with roots unknown (138). Imagine living in a word where most people could not read; now imagine sending runic messages over a slow but steady network, traversed by humans (34). Sending orders with the power that they would come true (be enforced) would feel like magic (141). This is what Odin and Norse mythology mean by Yggdrasil (the world tree; the world network) and what they imply by belief in the divine nature of words to construct a new reality, the Logos (80, 146). This is why Scandinavians believed in free speech (28, 45, 57, 110, 111, 120, 124) and they believed in equality amongst free men (Drengir) who could back up their free speech (not slaves); the freedom to speak was acknowledged, but needed to be earned by some merit of power or learning (27, 48, 124). Weaklings, slaves, and idiots were not permitted to speak freely (27). Moreover, people lacking understanding and limited vocabulary would likely just obey orders, and so it would feel as if the wizard simply controlled them by stronger will – and so sorcery/wizardry isn’t far from truth. Its worth pointing out that we (as Americans) in reality, live more closely to this Old Norse concept of free speech than we do to the Constitution’s idealized version of free speech. None of us really have free speech. You only have as much free speech as you can burden and back up with your own power and reputation. This is the reality of the world we live in – and so again, it brings back the relevance and utility of studying the Old Norse Sagas. Perhaps they understood real human nature and how the world actually works, far better than we do.

Within the context of Odin the Archmage, its worth discussing the concept of necromancy (raising the dead). Odin claims to have this power directly (158) and the Sagas are full of stories mythologizing this ability. Examples include speaking to Mimir’s pickled head and multiple accounts of raising a few people from the dead. In these cases, Odin uses this capability to speak to the dead in order to learn wisdom. Most of these necromancy myths were probably added on long after the life of the original Odin. In 158, Odin associates this necromancy capability as being intricately linked to rune magic. Its reasonable to assume that Odin had collected and studied many writings (110, 111, 134, 143), obviously many of these writings were attributed to dead people whose words had been preserved long after their deaths. Is it not a sort of necromancy to read words of the dead? Sometimes, reading old words feels as if the writer is speaking to us directly – sometimes (perhaps through kinship) we feel that the author is close to us or maybe even was like us, in a past life – sometimes a bit of wisdom or prophecy inscribed hundreds of years prior feels particularly pertinent to our own current situation – and this is what causes memes to persist. This would be my best hypothesis to explain this necromancy capability. I think its a bit shallow to simply cast Odin as a dark sorcerer, because he is associated with necromancy. Necromancy, viewed from the alternative vantage point, could simply be reading words of the dead and/or also might be a form of healing, as in the case of Lazarus. Healing miracles are attributed to Odin in the Sagas and he speaks of this craft directly in Havamal (120, 148). “You shall know them by their fruits” – Matthew 7:16.

Thus Odin’s memes crafted a Scandinavian world centered around powerful men and also actually powerful sorceresses, who commanded and controlled weaker men (87, 114, and see Saga of the Greenlanders). It was a governing system capable of focusing the energies of agrarian barbarians. As an interesting tangent, in Njal’s Saga, its made clear that the Scandinavian law always permitted someone to duel an opponent to death, in lieu of legal trial. This prevented excessive lawfare and countered the worst impulses of crafty and intelligent beta males (62). No one brought a lawsuit, unless it was worthy of fighting to the death for. Perhaps our society needs to bring this back? Dueling was legal in early America.

Odin, the Primordial Catholic Saint.

History has cast Odin in shadow, as some sort of dark sorcerer. But its very hard for me to think of Odin as anything other than a good Catholic. Honestly, he should probably be canonized (he wouldn’t be the first canonized Viking) – or at least he should be considered within the realm of Aristotle and Plato, as just philosophers who operated before The Message. Odin preaches: goodness of creation (47); never kill yourself (70, 71); final judgement (77); the mark of Cain (87); go forth and multiply (72, 91); contra witchcraft and evil sorcery (85, 87, 113, 114, 118, 156); thou shalt not commit adultery (81, 86, 109, 115); thou shalt not bear false witness (62, 118); blessed are the peacemakers (121, 154); ~prayer of Saint Michael the Archangel (127); goodness (128); just war (1, 16, 129); monogamy, to some extent, understanding that women are sorceresses that can steal your power (79, 81, 84, 92, 101, 109, 130); temperance (11, 12, 68, 131, 156); belief in supernatural spirits (132); honor your father and mother – extended to elders (134); gentle compassion (135); charity (39, 40, 67, 136); pick up your cross and a call to self sacrifice (138); salvation by faith which manifests works (141); the power of prayer (147); heal the sick (120, 148), the Logos and God the Holy Spirit (76, 80, 110, 111, 146), God the Father (111, 146); and even a resurrection, ~of sorts (138, 139, 146).

Response to Jung’s Essay on Odin.

One fool who cast needless shade on Odin was Jung. I don’t think Jung understood Odin, nor do I think he got Odin’s jokes. Did he even read them? Jung wrote an essay on Odin that was a response to cultish pagan revitalization efforts in early 20th century Germany. The essay is interesting and worth reading, but I don’t trust Jung on Odin whatsoever. Jung drafted this essay in 1936 after witnessing the apocalypse that was WWI and while foreseeing the coming annihilation in WWII. Needless to say, this context contaminates his thoughts on Odin. In addition, many aspects of Odin he simply gets flat wrong. Though he does get a few things correct.

Correctly he posits that Odin is essentially the patriarchal ethos of Northern Europeans – and this ethos encodes a sort of – “storm and frenzy” – that lies dormant in Europeans to periodically awake when angered or pushed to the brink. Here is a worthy Jungian excerpt that is profoundly true:

“It was not in Wotan’s nature to linger on and show signs of old age. He simply disappeared when the times turned against him, and remained invisible for more than a thousand years, working anonymously and indirectly. Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return to its old bed. The life of the individual as a member of society and particularly as a part of the State may be regulated like a canal, but the life of nations is a great rushing river which is utterly beyond human control”

What he really means to say here, but lacks the knowledge and vocabulary to word, is that Odin personifies a sort of genetically inherited persona amongst Scandinavian bloodlines that waxes and wanes but never disappears because it is deeply encoded and selected for in the genetics. In the same way that dog breed personality is consistent and genetic (anyone who loves purebreds inherently understands this truth and Darwin points this out in Origins), human ethos is genetic at scale – and Odin’s personality, humor, and memes are a product of harsh selective forces that carved the genetics of Scandinavian men.

Secondly, Jung correctly understands that Odin “is a superlative magician and artist in illusion who is versed in all secrets of an occult nature.” Thus, Jung understands and gets correct what I described above in the section Odin, the Programmer and Archmage of Scandinavia. Though to reemphasize, when you actually read the “deepest darkest occult secrets” of Odin (see The Song of Spells 147-165)… they are simple prayers like “help” (147) and “heal the sick” (148). Hardly occultist, in my view. That is the joke… The spell ~”that no men know, and women certainly don’t know,” is to simply ask for help… These are prayers, not spells – but Scandinavians viewed words and prayers effectively as spells, that cast and cause the world to change. Perhaps they were right.

Then Jung gets everything else about Odin completely wrong. Jung calls Odin, “a restless wanderer who creates unrest and stirs up strife“. Not much in the Havamal discusses “wandering” beyond offering advice to “wandering bards” (which itself is an extrapolated translation), and Odin cautions against stirring up strife (64, 121). Perhaps (57) could be interpreted as stirring up strife, but I view it more as an argument in favor of free speech. Jung goes on to carelessly scapegoat the fate of Germany (and its trajectory toward 1945) on Odinism. Like minded idiots, lacking an ability to read, would later do the same to Nietzsche. Specifically, Jung incorrectly describes Odin as an “unleasher of the lust for battle.” More close to reality is that Odin cautions against battle (64, 72, 77, 121, 154), warns against its profound negative impacts on psychology of veterans (70-72, 77), and yet is not afraid of it, recognizing war as a necessity of self preservation (16, 38, 56, 127, 129, 157, 159). Moreover Jung replicates falsehoods, going on a tangent about how Nietzsche did not understand or read Germanic literature. To oppose, as someone who has deeply studied ALL Nietzsche, I can attest that Nietzsche profoundly understood Scandinavian mythology, alludes to it in many books, and even discusses the concept of Ragnarok (the conceptual idea that God’s can die and can even be killed) – which is a foundational core in Nietzsche’s jaded quest to reinvent all values and slay Gods, in Thus Spake Zarathustra. Again, this is all the more reason to not trust Jung on a single word about Odinism, Nietzsche, or honestly anything for that matter… It seems to me, from this essay, that Jung discusses things out of his grasp, with only a cursory surface level of understanding.

After reading the Havamal, its pretty obvious that Odin was a deeply humorous philosopher king who liked writing jokes and telling stories. He shouldn’t be denigrated by people who lack even the most basic ability to comprehend his one-liners.

Final Thoughts and the Core of Odin, Lord of Wisdom.

Odin has many names, the Old Norse scholars suggest that Odin’s name translates most closely to something like “madness” – with all the connotations that word implies. Odin is insatiable hunger for knowledge, wisdom, and command line poetry (or meme). The names of his pet ravens are “thought” and “memory”, who fly the world over each day collecting first hand empirical information which Odin consumes. One of Odin’s greatest fears is to lose his thoughts – a concept that those who carry notebooks obviously relate to. People who strive after wisdom often appear mad to the average person – as they are operating at a higher level that cannot easily be understood or explained without significant context.

ᚺᚨᚹᚨᛗᚨᛚ

The elder Futhark runes that entitle my copy of HAVAMAL are:

ᚺ – Hagalaz (Frozen Hail)

ᚨ – Ansuz (God)

ᚹ – Wunjo (Happiness)

ᚨ – Ansuz (God)

ᛗ – Mannaz (Man)

ᚨ – Ansuz (God)

ᛚ – Laguz (Sea)

Perhaps this is a prayer something like ~ Frozen Harshness God of Happiness, God of Man, God of Sea… though the scholars debate the meaning of these symbols… I plan to investigate this more.

Don’t let the words die, Brother.

-JFB

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