Shownotes Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss Odin: how he constantly endeavored to expand his knowledge, deepened his wisdom, and develop his magical mastery; how he alone of the gods bore the burden of the future, knowing that Ragnarok, the great conflict that would end the current age, was not long in coming; and how one of Odin's primary motivations that catalyzed his travels and trials, the culmination of which was to enhance his knowledge, wisdom, and magic, was to discover a means of either forestalling Ragnarok or of mitigating the events of Ragnarok so that they played out with less loss on the part of the gods. Through this discussion, we will learn of the story in which Odin cuts out his own eye - why he did it and what he gained.Let's get into it.Odin was the most important Norse god. In the primordial past, he tore apart the proto-giant, Ymir, and, with the corpse, fashioned the world from blood, flesh, and bone. In the mythic present, he's the head of the pantheon, the king of the gods. And in the apocalyptic future, during the time in which the events of Ragnarok, the ever-looming cataclysmic conflict, will transpire, he will lead the gods and the heroic dead claimed by the Valkyrie against the hosts and monsters that rise up to assail Asgard, the divine dwelling of the gods.His sphere of influence is extensive and eclectic, including: poetry, wisdom, war, ecstasy, knowledge, mystic arts and trances, hosts, magic, runes, and the dead. His names were more numerous than the voices of the wind, and he was an unpredictable force, fickle and capricious. Even those most favored by him, kings, nobels, outlaws, warriors, and poets, could see their fortunes change in the blink of an eye, their chances for success, victory, or survival suddenly snatched away, abruptly crumbling underneath them like the undermined edge of a ravine.Of all his his deeds, past, present, and future, of his power and purview, one of the characteristics that defines Odin's personality and pursuits is his insatiable need to enhance his knowledge, wisdom, and magic; indeed, this need is catalyst for many of the best known stories comprised by the constellation of myths that is Norse mythology.