Odin in Folklore | The Faeries and Folklore Podcast

ByRonel Janse van Vuuren
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Episode 176: Irascible Immortals: Odin

The folklore of Odin in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing.

Transcript

You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.

I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With nearly a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.

This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.

Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.

This episode is brought to you by my Irascible Immortals series, available in ebook, paperback, hardback and audiobook. They’ve been alive forever. They’ve been bored for some time. And now they’re showing it. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/my-books/the-irascible-immortals-series for more.

We’re continuing our exploration of the Immortals.

Today’s immortal: Odin

Folklore in a nutshell by Ronel

In Germanic mythology, he is known as Woden. In Norse mythology, he is known as Odin. We’ll stick to Odin, though it’s worth mentioning that “Wednesday” is named after him: Woden’s day.

He is associated with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet. Jack of all trades, by the sound of it.

His wife is Frigg, he has many sons, most notably Thor and Baldr, he has two ravens, Huginn and Muninn who go around the nine worlds collecting new information for him, he is usually accompanied by his two wolves, Geri and Freki, and he has a magical, eight-legged horse named Sleipnir which he rides across the sky, water and underworld. His pets might be the best aspect of him, seeing as his many sons are by women who aren’t his wife.

Odin is usually portrayed as a one-eyed, long-bearded, old man wearing a cloak and broad rim hat. He is in charge of Valhalla, where fallen warriors go, and the Valkyries work for him. Berserkers are closely affiliated with him. In some folklore, he is the leader of the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession of the dead through the winter sky.

Whether Germanic or Norse, this is one eclectic guy.

Origin of the fae: Odin

Odin is the ruler of what mortals know as the Norse Pantheon. He holds more knowledge than any of the other deities, and continuously gathers more through his two ravens who travel the worlds. His Realm runs parallel to Faerie. For the longest time he has been bored with life.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode of the faeries and folklore podcast and that you’ve learned something new about faeries.

Remember that you can get a transcript of this episode in the description. If you’re new to the podcast, why not go and grab your free copy of Unseen, the second book in the Faery Tales series, on my website ronelthemythmaker.com? Loads of folklore, magic and danger await! Take care!

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