Odin’s Ways

Book excerpt: This book is about the Old Norse god Odin. It includes references to all occurrences of Odin in the Old Norse/Icelandic texts, including Saxo’s Gesta Danorum, the eddic poems, Snorri’s Edda, and Ynglinga saga and analyses the high medieval reception and literary representations of Odin rather than the religious character of the god. This is the only existing study of Odin in all the Old Norse/Icelandic texts and applies a contextual method: the different guises of Odin are studied on the basis of the various textual contexts and on their background in the literary and Christian intellectual milieu of the time. Contrary to existing studies, this method is non-reductive in that it does not aim at providing a synthesis about Odin’s original nature on the basis of the differing textual uses of Odin in the Middle Ages. The book argues that the perceived complexity of Odin, often highlighted in research, is first and foremost a function of the complex textual material spanning a wide variety of genres each with its particular literary conventions and of the reception of Odin in early modern and modern mythological studies.