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Asatru - What Is The Origin Of Odin?



WHERE DID ODIN COME FROM? 


I am the first. 

To get an answer to this issue, we turn to historian Edward Gibbons, author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."


  • "Despite the Edda's mystical obscurity, we may clearly identify two individuals who were jumbled under the name of Odin, the God of War and the great legislator of Scandinavia.'

The indomitable bravery of Odin, his persuasive speech, and the reputation that he had earned as a highly skilled magician subjugated many tribes on either side of the Baltic. 


  • His faith, which he had instilled over the course of a long and successful life, was reinforced by his chosen death. 
  • He decided to die like a warrior, fearful of the ignominious approach of illness and weakness. 
  • He was wounded in nine fatal places in a solemn gathering of Swedes and Goths, hastening away (as he claimed with his last breath) to prepare the feast of heroes in the house of the God of War ". 

The descendants of Odin (whose race did not go extinct until 1060) are believed to have ruled Sweden for almost a thousand years, with the Temple of Upsal serving as the ancient center of religion and dominion. 


  • Cerdic, the Saxon first King of Wessex, was a descendant of Moden. 
  • His descendants became the Kins of England. 
  • (Odin's English name) The current royal line of Great Britain is Odin-born descendants of Cerdic and Odin, Gibbons footnote Adam of Bremen, via Matilda, Henry the First's Queen. 


The temple of Upsal was demolished by Ingo, King of Sweden, who started his reign in 1075, and a Christian church was built on its remains some fourscore years later. 


  • Gibbon's work "Upsal, the most important town of the Swedes and Goths, had a famous temple till the end of the 11th century. 
  • It was embellished with wealth from the Scandinavians' piratical exploits, and the crude depictions of the three main deities, the god of battle, the god of generation, and the god of thunder, were sanctified by conflict. 
  • Every ninth year, nine animals of all kinds (except humans) were sacrificed and their bleeding corpses were hung in the sacred grove next to the temple as part of the broader celebration. 

The Edda, a system of mythology composed in Iceland in the thirteenth century and studied by educated Denmark and Sweden as the most important remnants of their old traditions, contains the sole traces of this barbarous belief that exist today. 


  • The pleasant similarity of that name to As-burg or Asav, terms with comparable meanings, has given birth to a historical system with such a lovely contexture that we almost want to believe it is true. 
  • Odin is said to have led a band of barbarians who lived on the banks of Lake Maetois (on the Crimean coast) until Mithridates fell and Pompey's armies threatened the north with slavery. 


That Odin, indignant at a power he couldn't resist, led his tribe from Asiatic Samatia into Sweden, with the aim of forming a religion and a people in that inaccessible haven of freedom, which would be subservient to his immortal vengeance in some distant age, when his invincible Goths, armed with martial fanaticism, should issue in a nascent uprising.  


  • This magnificent Odin voyage, which could provide the foundation for an epic poem by deducing the enmity of the Goths and Romans from such a memorable reason, cannot be securely accepted as authentic fact. 
  • Instead of being a real city in Asiatic Sarmatia, Asgard is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of the Gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia, from which the prophet was said to descend when he announced his new religion to the Gothic nations who were already seated in the southern peninsula. 
  • If we accept Pytheas of Marseilles' navigations, we must acknowledge that the Goths crossed the Baltic into Germany at least three hundred years before Christ.


You may also want to read more about Asatru, Norse Paganism and Nordic Pagans here.


You may also want to read more about Paganism here.

Be sure to check out my writings on Religion here.



Online Resources


American Asatru Associations




Icelandic Asatru Association


Ásatrúarfelagi≥ (Asatru Fellowship of Iceland). At http://www.asatru.is.


Icelandic Photography



Statistical Information


  • Hagstofa Islands (Office of Statistics, Government of Iceland). 2004. “Ísland ítölum 2002–2003” (Iceland in Numbers). Reykjavík, Hagstofa Islands. At http://www.hagstofa.is.


Asatru Publications Available Online


  • “The Asatru Folk Assembly: Building Tribes and Waking the Spiritual Path of OurAncestors.” Available at http://www.runestone.org/