Note 142.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Finally, not to lengthen the list, if we may trust the Ynglinga-saga, Odin was the author of those crafts which men have long since plied, and among them of magic. He “was wise in that craft wherewith went most might, which is called spell-craft; and this he himself followed. Wherefore he had might to know the fate of men and things not yet come to pass; yea, or how to work for men bane or illhap or ill-heal, and to take wit or strength from men and give them unto others.” He was a notorious shape-shifter. “He knew how by words alone to slake the fire or still the sea, and how to turn the wind to whichso way he would.” He could “wake up dead men from the earth.” He “knew of all buried treasures where they were hidden; and he knew lays whereby the earth opened before him, and mountains and rocks and mounds, and how to bind with words alone whoso might be found dwelling therein; and he would go in and take thence what he would. From all this craft he became exceeding famed, and his foes dreaded him, but his friends put their trust in him, and had faith in his craft and himself; but he taught the more part of his cunning to the temple-priests, and they were next to him in all wisdom and cunning: albeit many others got to them much knowledge thereof, and thence sorcery spread far and wide and endured long.”142.1 Although the opening chapters of the Ynglinga-saga, from which I have extracted these particulars, are a late and euhemerized version of the Scandinavian mythology, the account of Odin’s magical powers contains little that does not appear in the early poems, or cannot be inferred from them. Whatever may have been the primitive form of this renowned god, there can be no doubt that he was before the close of the pagan age regarded as a god of magic and sorcery. His reputation as god of poetry, and probably as war-god, is bound up with this. The magical value attached to verse is very common among peoples in an archaic stage of culture; and it was shared to the full by the ancient Norsemen. Many of them—at least in Viking days, and it is by no means unlikely much earlier—combined in their own persons the warrior with the poet and the sorcerer. Nor shall we go far astray if we conclude that these various strands had been long interwoven to form the character of the Lord of the Anses. The intimate relation existing among the Norse between religion and magic is further indicated by the superior magical knowledge and powers ascribed to them and stated to be originally derived from Odin.