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Author Topic: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?  (Read 5746 times)

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Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« on: September 08, 2013, 05:10:38 am »
I'm keen to hear from people who have worked with Odin in the past.

I've heard some people consider all of the different names for the deity to be different aspects of him. I've heard people say that Odin is the dark form of the god, Wotan is more his war/warrior aspect, Woden and Wodan are his "peace loving wise old man" type aspects whilst Wodanaz is the more his poetic, primeval aspect.

Has that been your experience?

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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2013, 10:23:12 am »
Quote from: Geroth;121168
I'm keen to hear from people who have worked with Odin in the past.

I've heard some people consider all of the different names for the deity to be different aspects of him. I've heard people say that Odin is the dark form of the god, Wotan is more his war/warrior aspect, Woden and Wodan are his "peace loving wise old man" type aspects whilst Wodanaz is the more his poetic, primeval aspect.

Has that been your experience?


*waves* Hi there, I work with Odin (as well as Loki but this is an Odin thread, so...). I'm not sure if my experiences with him confirms the idea of all his names being aspects of him or not. Odin's a lot of things to me, after all.

He's kind and fatherly one minute, wise old man the next, harsh (and detached) father who absolutely will not sugar coat things and does not seem pleased with the I don't know's and then, finally, he's shaman or magician.

So, it kind of makes it difficult to say who or what aspect I'm working with (if it's true for one thing) when there's some mixture there. *shrug*

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Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2013, 01:07:58 pm »
Quote from: Lokadyne;121182
He's kind and fatherly one minute, wise old man the next, harsh (and detached) father who absolutely will not sugar coat things and does not seem pleased with the I don't know's and then, finally, he's shaman or magician.

This is my experience also - Odin is certainly capable of being all these things with me regardless of which name I use. (I do make it a point to use heiti that increase my chances of getting the one I want, but that's not quite the same thing as this question.)

The... narrative that I understand, for lack of a better word, is that Odin ruled in Scandinavia and wandered in the Anglo-Saxon lands, and so "Odin" is the All-Father and "Woden" is the wanderer.

I do think of them as the same god, in sort of the same way I still answer to my college nickname and it puts me in a certain mindset. YMMV of course and it's not the most complete metaphor. XD
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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2013, 02:26:33 pm »
Quote from: Geroth;121168
I'm keen to hear from people who have worked with Odin in the past.

I've heard some people consider all of the different names for the deity to be different aspects of him. I've heard people say that Odin is the dark form of the god, Wotan is more his war/warrior aspect, Woden and Wodan are his "peace loving wise old man" type aspects whilst Wodanaz is the more his poetic, primeval aspect.

Has that been your experience?

There is a simple answer. Yes.They are mere regional variations on the name of the same deity.
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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2013, 04:45:55 pm »
Quote from: Geroth;121168
I'm keen to hear from people who have worked with Odin in the past.

I've heard some people consider all of the different names for the deity to be different aspects of him. I've heard people say that Odin is the dark form of the god, Wotan is more his war/warrior aspect, Woden and Wodan are his "peace loving wise old man" type aspects whilst Wodanaz is the more his poetic, primeval aspect.

Has that been your experience?

 
To me, his aspects are a part of him, I don't use a different name for different parts of him.  I call him Odin, though I recognize the others as other names for him.  It was always my understanding that the different variations of spelling were from different languages or cultural groups.
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Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2013, 09:42:48 pm »
Quote from: Geroth;121168
I've heard some people consider all of the different names for the deity to be different aspects of him. I've heard people say that Odin is the dark form of the god, Wotan is more his war/warrior aspect, Woden and Wodan are his "peace loving wise old man" type aspects whilst Wodanaz is the more his poetic, primeval aspect.

My UPG is that Odin is definitely not the same as the others, though related, and I'm not clear how same/separate Woden/Wotan/Wodenaz are.. This is one reason I'm an over-medium polytheist instead of hard. I do not work with Odin, but do work with Woden as one of my primary deities.

Based on the lore there's not really any reason to split up the aspects to the different names, Woden as the wise old father, Wotan as the war aspect, etc. If you study the lore for each of them (by far most available is for Odin) they are associated with a lot of the same traits and roles - battle leader, psychopomp, magic, wisdom, poetry, wanderer, all father, leader of the Wild Hunt, etc.

Wiki's article on Wodanaz sums up the evolution of the names:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wōdanaz

There's a really good thread over at AsatruLore about just this matter, though it wasn't terribly conclusive it talks about different ways of viewing the issue and why http://www.asatrulore.org/index.php?page=Thread&postID=72005&highlight=Woden#post72005

On the same vein I don't believe Frig is the same as Frea. YMMV of course.

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Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2013, 09:53:30 pm »
Quote from: Adaire;121274
There's a really good thread over at AsatruLore about just this matter http://www.asatrulore.org/index.php?page=Thread&postID=72005&highlight=Woden#post72005

Speaking of that thread, I'm hoping Hyacinth will chime in with what her takeaway from it was.. :)

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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2013, 08:21:52 pm »
To my pantheon, Odin is a great aspect to one of the majorest deities I worship. There is one greater than Odin, is what I know, and it is an entity NOT including in ONLY one pantheon, but we all know that the gods are interwined with one another.

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Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2013, 08:46:55 pm »
Quote from: incendium;121692
To my pantheon, Odin is a great aspect to one of the majorest deities I worship. There is one greater than Odin, is what I know, and it is an entity NOT including in ONLY one pantheon, but we all know that the gods are interwined with one another.

Sorry, intertwined with one another?
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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2013, 09:47:13 pm »
Quote from: incendium;121692
To my pantheon, Odin is a great aspect to one of the majorest deities I worship. There is one greater than Odin, is what I know, and it is an entity NOT including in ONLY one pantheon, but we all know that the gods are interwined with one another.

 
Do WE?

Who is this WE you speak of?

And I will go ahead and ask, who is this deity that is greater than Odin, and how exactly is it greater?

Also I don't think majorest is actually a real word.
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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2013, 12:53:37 pm »
Quote from: Fireof9;121704
Do WE?

Who is this WE you speak of?

And I will go ahead and ask, who is this deity that is greater than Odin, and how exactly is it greater?

Also I don't think majorest is actually a real word.

I suppose many Norsewomen and- men a thousand years ago would say Thor, Frey, Freya or Ull were greater than Odin.;)
« Last Edit: September 15, 2013, 12:54:12 pm by yennork »
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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2013, 09:35:26 pm »
Quote from: Geroth;121168
I'm keen to hear from people who have worked with Odin in the past.

I've heard some people consider all of the different names for the deity to be different aspects of him. I've heard people say that Odin is the dark form of the god, Wotan is more his war/warrior aspect, Woden and Wodan are his "peace loving wise old man" type aspects whilst Wodanaz is the more his poetic, primeval aspect.

Has that been your experience?



 

I know that Shaw  (linguist) disagrees with the idea that the various names are various versions of the same god. He believes instead that that was an attempt by previous scholars to create a unified history for Germanic peoples by combining separate yet similar deities.

In my own experience-- and after having read The One-Eyed Man Against Rome, in which the author makes an inspiring case for the dual euhemerization of Odin and deification of Hannibal evolving into a larger lengend-- there's a death shaman deity that is much more powerful and complex and present outside of the boxes we put him in (warrior, poet, magician ). He is all of these things and more, depending on your situation and perspective.

That situation and perspective is unique to the individual and kindred, or, as in the past, unique to a tribe or cultic center. The Scandinavian skalds and warrior elite would be more interested in a "poet" death shaman because death and life were glorified and celebrated in that particular way. Another might have a more militant death shaman. However, Germanic tribes like the Harii would be more invested in a wolf warrior shaman because death and life were celebrated in more animalistic and primal means.

Put simply: the slaying warrior could find Death a friend and the dying warrior could find Death a foe. He is both and neither.  Gods are their own person, yet our relationships with them are defined by our own perspective.  Odin was defined by past cultures in particular ways but how we define him within our current culture (macro and micro) is also important. A warrior today may have a much more militant version of 'Odin' and a nurse a more mysterious version of Odin, with neither being more correct than the other. Just like in the past.

All in all, in my experience, I like to remember that any interaction or perspective of a god is colored by my own sense of self, my own perceptions, and my own strengths and weaknesses. Its nice to find commonalities with others and within the lore, but at the end of the day, how I chose to interpret my place and relationship with the universe can only be my truth, and not the truth of deity.

So Odin/Wodan, in my experience, was (and is) all and none.  But with every box containing specific opportunities to understand self, life and each other even more. And yet I do agree with Shaw that each tribe's identity defined who 'Odin' was to them and that that relationship became a unique being of worship and so that god was not universal across German/Norse cults nor universal across modern kindreds or individuals.
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Re: Odin/Wotan/Woden/Wodan/Wodanaz...All the same deity?
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2013, 11:02:24 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;121803

All in all, in my experience, I like to remember that any interaction or perspective of a god is colored by my own sense of self, my own perceptions, and my own strengths and weaknesses. Its nice to find commonalities with others and within the lore, but at the end of the day, how I chose to interpret my place and relationship with the universe can only be my truth, and not the truth of deity.


 
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