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An episode from 5/15/23: What can the Poetic and Prose Eddas, the Icelandic sagas, and skaldic poetry tell us about the most important god in the Norse pantheon, Odin? Tonight, I devote an entire episode to Odin\u2019s many masks: as poet and shaman, as god of death and war, and as the perfect embodiment of the world as the Norse knew it, filled with brutality and betrayal. The episode is divided into three sections:

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• (about 5:37) On Odin and poetry; a reading of the most famous stanzas from the Havamal, and the story of Odin\u2019s theft of the Mead of Poetry
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• (about 58:07) On Odin and warfare, death
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• (about 1:22:06) What archeology, and classical and medieval historians, can tell us about Odin
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The nonfiction books I rely on for most of this episode are E. O. G. Turville-Petre\u2019s Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, Rudolf Simek\u2019s \u2060Dictionary of Northern Mythology\u2060, and John Lindow\u2019s \u2060Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals & Beliefs\u2060.

The translations I read from are: \u2060\u2060Andy Orchard\u2019s translation of the Poetic Edda, \u2060Anthony Faulkes\u2060\u2019s and \u2060Jesse Byock\u2060\u2019s translations of the Prose Edda, and Lee M. Hollander\u2019s translation of the Heimskringla.

Don\u2019t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us\xa0on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books:\xa0Notes from the Grid,\xa0To the House of the Sun,\xa0The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and\xa0Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to\xa0humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.