30 Days of Devotion: Day 5

Members of the family – genealogical connections

 Ah, the family of Odin. Well, Odin's consort is Frigg, though both deities have hard their share of sexual relations outside of that relationship. There are really only three children that are attested to Odin and that would be Thor(obviously), Baldr, and Váli.  Snori Sturluson does claim that Vidar is a son of Odin by way of the giantess Gríd. He also places Heimdalr, Bragi, Tyr, and Hod as sons of Odin, but these are only mentioned once.  So the only ones we are sure of, in the sense of literature, is Thor, Baldr, and Vali.

There are no daughters of Odin mentioned and I have never seen a claim to it.

Odin did have two brothers, Vili and Ve, whom helped Odin slay Ymir and create Midgard, all born from the same parents: Borr and Bestla.

As far as I can tell, other than the usual claims of kings being descendents from Odin, the relation to other deities ends there.

30 Days of Devotion- Day 2

How did you become first aware of this deity?


 I'm not sure if this question is referring to how I became aware of Odin in general or as a deity that I was going to follow.  I suppose I could cover both.

Growing up I was always interested in mythology. It was mainly the Greek/Roman stories and some Hawai'ian tales but I had a healthy appetite for it.  At some point I did come across Norse myths but I can't remember exactly when. Thinking back on it, it seems like the Norse deities have always been in my mind but I know that isn't necessarily true.  I guess I just can't think of a time when they weren't there.  Even through college the Norse myths weren't much of a big thing to anyone.  I took a religions of the world course and they were just barely mentioned.  Though I do take pride in being the only one to pick up on the instructor's vague description of Loki.  He was rather shocked as well.

Odin did approach me early in high school but I don't think I was ready for it.  I believe I mentioned this in a previous post but I'll give a quick summary here.  While sitting on the back porch chatting on the phone, two LARGE black birds settled into the yard.  They were two big to crows and I knew just enough about hawks and the like to know that these two weren't that.  They walked together, not bothering to peck at the ground, and came towards me.  Halfway through the yard I freaked out and went back inside.  At that point in my life I hadn't thought about deities choosing a person or anything other than the basic Triple Goddess and Hunter God in Wicca.

It's been within in the last two years that I've embraced the Norse deities.  I had, I believe, confused Thor with another deity that dealt with lightning and thunder but things were soon set straight.  When searching for a deity to connect with I honestly didn't bother with Odin.  I wanted someone else.  Maybe Thor, Heimdalr, or Sif.  I even wore Mjolnir for some time, but Thor wasn't the fit for me it seemed.  Odin, though, began to send more and more signs my way.  Crows constantly being seen and heard on my walks to work was the biggest thing.

I suppose what really solidified EVERYTHING was finding two crow feathers.  Not at the same time but in the same spot days apart.  Out of the many weeks of walking the same path over the course of a year I had never seen any bird feathers laying across the sidewalk.  On these occasions I found a single black feather.  It was just sitting there.  Honestly I continued to walk past it, both times, but something made me stop and retrieve it.  They were placed on my altar and I think that was the beginning of my wandering with Odin.

The altar is for all but he has images of himself and Huginn and Muninn.  He is the one that brought me home.