For (Old Norse) Óðinn vs. (Old English) Wōden, (Old High German) Wotan, etc., and the reason behind this difference, see this video: ua-cam.com/video/StXseekmxsw/v-deo.html
Maybe the name Óðinn is multilayered, so that it can mean both “the mad/furious one” aswell as “the Spirit/Mind” and also being connected to poetry. For instance, if Óðinns name is also connected to the concept of Mind you get a perfect explanation why his two ravens are named Huginn and Muninn, meaning “Thought” and “Memory”, and why he sacrifizes his one eye in the well of Mimir (“the one who remembers”).
you're probably right, all these "homonyms" have the same etymology, they're the same word, usage evolves and shifts over time but the term Óðr seems to just be semantically dense, it has multiple meanings because as a cultural concept it is responsible for multiple things,if i had to try and relate it to just one thing i would say the overall capacity for emotion and ecstatic experience as opposed to simple awareness or vital signs but that lacks specificity as well.. I respect Jackson Crawford greatly and usually don't disagree with much of what he says but this one i just cant get behind, i think its a bit too hasty to take one attestation of an outsider of the culture who probably was trying to shoehorn an approximate Latin translation of the term for his audience who didn't care about the subtleties of germanic belief and language and ipso facto use that as the one true lens through which to view the rest of the corpus, its throwing the baby out with the bath water especially when you look at the mythological nature of Odin("The Óðr") and realize that any and all of these terms can be equally applied to him in at-least some respect even if you assume that they are entirely separate words with coincidentally similar pronunciation such as the examples at the end of the video which although they sound similar in modern english have entirely different etymologies.
I can agree with this explanation. Especially since the name Wodan also comes from the same root as the word 'woede' in Dutch. 'Woede' is mostly used these days in the meaning of 'rage', but it can also mean 'madness'. 'Verwoed' is derived from that and can mean different things, but 'possessed' is the most important one. Or rather it might be closer to 'obsessed'.
Love the intro with the revolver bud. I am an avid consumer of your videos and I appreciate so much that you present so much knowledge freely for everyone. Thank you
That last meaning makes me wonder if the English word "oath" might've descended from this Old Norse word "othr" etymologically dissected here by Prof. Crawford
hello Prof, à côté de chez moi en Alsace, France, se trouve une micro région où la toponymie est axée sur la religion nordique/germanique. Il y a justement le Wuestenberg, ou "montagne de Wotan", qui est aussi appelée "montagne de la colère" ! le nom désigne aussi la "montagne des déserts" ou encore le "champ de bataille". Un endroit où alternent la vie et la mort, la colère et la réconciliation. hello Prof, next to my home in Alsace, France, is a micro region where the toponymy is based on the Nordic / Germanic religion. There is precisely the Wuestenberg, or "mountain of Wotan", which is also called "mountain of anger"! the name also designates the "mountain of deserts" or the "battlefield". A place where life and death alternate, anger and reconciliation.
Based on the lore behind Odin, is it possible that the two lesser homonyms could be poetic references to Odin since one has to do with the Mind and the other, Poetry? Both are associated with Odin's mythology.
That’s an interesting idea. Your idea of “The Mad One” being associated with “song/poem” makes some sense to me. I find it especially interesting that óðr as word for song is attested later than the Eddas (I think that’s what Dr Crawford said), in Christian literature. That might go along with the word being derived later from Óðin’s name.
@Jackson Craford Nice explanation, but from my perspective as a Russian learner, you may not know that the Russian word for "one" is "один" (odin> pronounced like "adin"). Modern Russian may not be that old, but from my point of view it has Greek and Germanic roots. The Russians actually came from a Germanic tribe called "Rus". This is very similar with the Vikings, who were actually also Northern Germans. If we think further, we find that another name of Odin was "Wodan" (sometimes called "Wotan"). Now I ask you, can you see the likely connection? If not, I'll try to make it clearer to you. First of all, what is the most essential thing for living beings? I would say it is water. In Russian it is "вода" (voda> spoken like wada) and in German "Waßer" (Wasser). How is water in the nature when you think of rivers or the sea, for example? It can be crazy, mad, sour, agressive, terrific, insane, raging, incensed or it can seem to be angry or furious. In Eddic poetry, Odin functions as the father of gods. He is considered the god of war and the god of the dead, but also the god of poetry and runes, as well as magic. So he is also creatively active because the word "magic" has a connection to the word. But he also has shamanic traits and if one has dealt with the oldest known magic, one recognizes the connection to the rainmaker, but also to the rain dance. This in turn explains why Odin is also often associated with ecstasy. Water also makes noise, which could explain the connection to the term "ode". However, I am assuming more connections, but I think that would go beyond the scope here.
I've often herd that the continental Saxon version of his name (Woden) meant madness, ecstasy, battle madness/fury. So it makes sense that the Norse version would have the same theme
Alone the topic about horned gods around the world as spiritual natural archetypes is extremely awesome. From Pan to Osiris over Cernunnos to Dionysos till Bacchus. They are ever related to the cycle of life and shown that death is also a needfull part of living, like living as itself. They are relicts from a time when people not was drilled to think in Dark against Bright, Good and Bad, Heavn and Hell and so on.
I totally understand why Thor was far more popular with most Norse people than Odin. His motivations are inscrutable, he lies all the time, and praying to him would be dicey at best - he's more likely to use you to further his own designs than to help you in any way.
It's always interesting to know who the king of gods is in a certain pantheon and to think of why, it helps a lot to understand the culture. Plus it's also interesting that this king of gods is also characterized by the power of his words or written language (runes).
If Odin means angry, mad, furious etc it would also explain the name of the more southern Wodan. 'Woeden' is the modern Dutch word for fury/furious. ""woeden" in English · anger · wrath · angriness · furor · fury."
God, this makes me miss Colorado. Had family in the Pueblo/Greenhorn area, and it was while going out there to explore with my cousins that we started writing a concept for a fantasy series that combined Norse mythology and the old west aesthetic.
The name can make the man. I named my malemute hybrid, Woden. He is massive, mad, fierce, and intelligent, yet beautiful and goofy. A very difficult animal. Grim, indeed. Thanks for the video, Alaskan from Colorado.
Interesting, and well explicated. There are some (particularly across the pond differences in common usage with 'mad'), even in English - but I suppose 'furor' pretty well clinches it.
I think that root lies at it's core, but from the PIE root I think it would have originally meant something more with mental or spiritual (even prophetic) stimulation than just "mad". Not many people seem to be aware of a loosely cognate theonym in Gaulish - Vatiounos - derived from the same PIE root and meaning something like "the prophet, the seer".
I remember encountering the Old English phrase "tha awedde he sona" ("then he became immediately enraged") and realizing it had the same root as Woden. A modern (but obsolete) English cognate, "wood" or "wode," means "crazy." In following up, I found what appeared to be a cognate to "Woden" in the Latin "vates," meaning both "seer" and "bard."
So being _wütend,_ "angry", is a verbification of _wöde,_ with umlaut? I'd think whatever etymology is correct for Odin also should pass the same test for Wotan. Now I'm wondering about the Norwegian adjectives _øyde_ and _øydelagt_ ("deserted" and "destroyed") having etymology connections to _óðr_ if their diphtong vowels can be explained as a development.
The OED lands about where Jackson does. It links odr, madness or fury, to the obsolete English adjective "wood" (not as in trees). This is cognate to German Wut (rage, feminine noun) and wuetend (raging). It also says the meaning of "poetry" is allied via a sense of poetic frenzy. Odin per se seems not to be attested till about the 8th century. Total speculation, but could he be a fairly late idea? The evolution of Nerthus (a Germanic goddess) to a male Norse god suggests things were fairly fluid.
Makes me wonder which came first, then, because I thought that Odin was also associated with poetry, speaking in poems, and this being associated with magic. Interestingly enough, that bears resemblance to the "madness" of the Dionysus cult, doesn't it? I thought that there was also the mysteries in there, and so it's almost like all of these things are kind of rolled together subconsciously, being linked in the language, probably from an early root that had all of them in common, and may be related to divinization (which, in the ancient times, was pretty much THE magic that people did, but was done by drugs or drinking intoxicating mixtures).
So wouldn't Óð+inn be just an epithet. What would be the actual name in the folklore? I remember in a poem it said that his name was Yggr before that or something of the sort.
I see it, as I said in a recent comment, Hugr is to Huginn as Odhr is to Odhinn...one is a faculty and the other is the identity of the action the faculty performs. Mind is to Thought as Sense is to Sensation.
No, it's a name, and one seemingly derived from Proto-Germanic at that as it shows up in multiple language families. It would not be uncommon for a name at the time to mean 'the raging one'. Harold, for example, literally means 'army-ruler' recognisably in its Old English form (Hereweald, from here 'army' and weald 'ruler'), and is definitely a name. English speakers have this bizarre idea that names are mostly gibberish or abstractions, when for millennia people had names with recognisable literal meanings in their own languages, such as 'king over men' (Uerkingetorix), 'world-ruler' (Vladimir), 'glorious' (Vladislav), 'son of lions' (Leonidas), 'most perfect' (Aristotle) and so on.
@@therat1117 I mean that sounds fair, but I looked it up and this is a translation of one of the last stanzas of Grímnismál: "Now am I Othin, | Ygg was I once, Ere that did they call me Thund; Vak and Skilfing, | Vofuth and Hroptatyr, Gaut and Jalk midst the gods; Ofnir and Svafnir, | and all, methinks, Are names for none but me." All those other names that come after "Óðinn" in the stanza are said to have been used by him before well, "Óðinn", and when looking at the meaning of the names. They all look like epithets too.
@@jacobandrews2663 I mean, yes, that's one of those 'Odin lists his names' poetry segments. The thing is that we have names equivalent to Odinn in other Germanic languages (Woden, Wotan, Wuodan, Godan), where he is not given other names. Given that some of these attestations refer to events predating Old Norse as a language (particularly the foundation myth of the Langobards from the Origo Gentis Langobardorum), we're pretty sure that is the name of the god is Odinn.
It's pretty well understood that Odin sought knowledge. So wouldn't that make the rare usage of it meaning "mind" (persona of thought or thinking) more likely?
Speaking of Occam's razor, we should keep in mind that the simplest answer might actually be that Odr always meant "mind," and as always happens with language, it gained other connotations over time. Madness, anger, and fury come from the mind, as does poetry (and early poetry involved a bit of performative madness and inspiration). Odr could mean all 3 because they are all associated with each other similar to how the word "Smart" has it's origins in just meaning "sharp," but that meaning of sharpness came to be associated with intelligence (which also means "sharpness" lol) and something hurts (ouch, that smarts!). Or how "sharp" can also mean good looking. I mean, language always gives more depth and meaning to words over time (or takes some meaning away), so it makes sense. Plus, Old Norse has several sets of completely different words for the same things (like how the gods each have multiple names), so surely one word and name could have several meanings.
Hey, philosopher here. Question: I have a general sense that though language itself has had ebbs and flows of sophistication based on context of the utility of certain words, is it possible that these other homophones of odr are actually just more obscured uses of the general umberella of the "madness" use we see within the odin characterization? my thoughts here derive from how we see Mana used within hawaii culture. there seems to be this thing where people will have broad ideas of "mental traits" like how we can say someone is sharp (sharp tongue, sharp mind) and that we have this associated kind of "ontological" grouping of how the mind/soul works. Mana within hawaii culture seems to refer to personality and intellect, and so when I am hearing "madness, mind, poetry" all having homophonic words, that the qualitative disctinction may be a modern lens, since we have more utility from making these more distinct concepts. Hopefully this is an interesting question and isn't just coming off as ignorant. If you read this, thank you for your time.
Dear Jackson, I think it might be related to the roaring frenzy of Rudra/Shiva (Rudra meaning 'roar'), since Odinn more or less is Rudra/Shiva, who in the Vedic tradition is seen as the first breath, the first manifestation - i.e. Big Bang. When he manifests and creates matter he does that with the first roaring and raging breath. The breath that blows life into everything.
@@hartwarg3051 Actually don't see your point here. Why would one exclude the other? When it all comes down to it they're just different names on the original (Proto)Indo-European deities. Tor/Indra/Perun and so on.
@farorin I disagree, without unfortunately having the time to elaborate. And concerning Shiva - yes, that's why I also mention the Vedic Rudra. All gods develop, or rather, the human perspective of the divine develops.
That's so interesting. I know your specialty is Old Norse, but do you know if the same connection between mad/crazy and Ođinn exists in Proto-Germanic Wodanaz?
Yea I noticed the alikenings between those words too. Almost for sure cognates. *looks it up on Wiktionary* Yea, they’re cognate. The Middle English word was apparently “Wood”, and if the word was still used nowadays, it would be “Wood” (pronounced the same as wood in the sense of a wooden house.).
Makes sence to me. In Dutch a furious rage is called 'woedend' or 'woest' (although woest can mean barren as well). In Old Dutch (same period as Old English, and where both related) the name Wuodan was known, but that could also have been a matter of grammar.
Not necessarily Viking or Old Norse related, but my sister’s German Shepherd and Great Pyrenees are having accidental puppies over in Conifer. If you could give one (or more) a really cool Viking name, what would it be?
I wonder how well this fits in with the name Woden from the Anglo-Saxons. I thought Woden was the cognate of Odin in early English. Edit: just saw the link.
Dr. Crawford, I have a question concerning your translation of the Poetic Edda: Does it only come in your english translation or does it also have the original text you translated it from? It seems like it only has the english version, but I figured asking won't do any harm.
Dr. Crawford's translation only contains the English-- however, his "The Poetic Edda in Old Norse" playlist has many of the poems in Old Norse with Dr. Crawford's commentary ( ua-cam.com/play/PLATNGYBQ-Tjp2rLtaIKzrMFcWGComaiVN.html ) and his video called "Finding the Poetic Edda in Old Norse" ( ua-cam.com/video/k6FT9IW6rhw/v-deo.html ) explains where to find the text of the Poetic Edda in Old Norse and some of the differences between available sources (links should be in the pinned comment)
Thanks a lot :) I was hoping to find a good version that has both the original text as well as a good version in a language I understand. For german that has shown to be quite hard. The only one, I could find, that is both islandic and german is quite unreadable. The "author" also seems to be rather far right winged, maybe even extremely so, so I don't really want to support him. For English I have yet not really searched, but I had hoped that his version would have the original in it, because it seems to be quite clear and a good translation by a competent guy.
I know, I know, germanic languages and their differences... but the germanic word for the norse god odin is wotan or woudan/woudanaz - the same word that the modern german wut (fury, anger) comes from, also in medieval german wuot/wût/woud/wout
Here's a new one: Taking into account Snorri's and Saxo's descripton of the man's career, he could have been a slaver, procuring and processing (esp. Slavic ) slaves for the Romans. In that case, his name might have been based on Slavic *wod- "lead" (or *woji "army"}, *wod-in- "leader" (Russian 'vozhd''; Benveniste mentions a suffix *- inos "leader" in Latin dom-inus and tribu-nus, Gothic kind-ins, *druht-ins, thiuda-ns). I could assume also that both Proto-Slavic *woj- and *wod- might have been borrowed from some parallel language with *woð-.
Today we still say. ,,Ertu óður! or óðir menn!, konan er óð!". So Are you crazy/mad, then crazy (mad) men, and finally the woman is mad or crazy but more used for very angry.
I’m surprised by this because it wasn’t a word created for the Norse. There is already the theoretical PIE word - Wodanaz. While some might argue that it is hypothesized and thus proves nothing, I would be remiss to not argue it was made because older cultures also have the same god minus the already known sound changes. So Wodan certainly predates The Norse variant. I would assume the other uses derive from the gods name poetically, not the other way around.
Odin - Othan - wothan - hvodan - hvadan - Vadan - Vaddern (still used till today in nrth.Germany) - Vatter/Vater ger. - Father engl. Paddern (still used in sth.Germany; a mix of Patre lat. and Vaddern ger.) All in all the main meaning of all the names is "where from; whom from".
Why not all three? They're all associated with him and they're all part of a similar complex of ideas. Poetry is a skill that has to be developed, like smithing or carpentry, but it's also mead, an intoxicant that comes in from outside. Óðrerir can be the vessel that contains the mead or the mead itself. The mind has to be cultivated to create poetry or to enter madness, but those activities are also their own states of mind, which nonetheless come in from the outside, given by the god who rules them, Óðinn. The people who worshipped this god, who were often poets, would have of course been sensitive to this sort of layered meaning, as you suggest in the case of the name Hár, "one-eyed" or "high."
Sorry, have to say this, forgive me, but still trying to figure out what the study of bugs has to do with the evolution of a god's name. (for those who do not comprehend this pun joke, here's a hint: Entomology)
Like Freyr and Freyja. It might be a matter of fear (you don't call a supernatural entity by their name) or of origin. Many deities were collective and without name (think of the nymphs, the nereids, the dryads and their equivalents in other religions. Or about Roman Lares and Penates) before they were personified.
It quickly reminds people of their traits/backstory, but also it's pretty powerful if someone says "the lady" and everyone knows exactly which lady you mean.
@@amyjones2119 I think with Greek it's the other way around. There is the name of the god Zeus, then all the others are "little Zeuses". So her name "Lady" could come 1st then using it as a title for people could come 2nd. So that Lady Amy literally means Freyr's Amy or Amy the little Freyr, or Freyr-ette Amy.
Interesting topic, but you could have went into more detail on the suffix -inn, which might be correspondent with -en OEng Woden, and -an in OHG Wuotan. I have read about some correspondances in the names of other Indo-European god names, such as -on in Poseidon, if I remember correctly, though that could be completely unrelated. Nevertheless it could be interesting to hear more about it.
@@Galenus1234 While that is true for the definite article 'inn,' as Crawford alluded to in the video, the '-inn' in 'Óðinn' is of a different etymology. This '-inn' comes from Proto-Germanic '-anaz,' which is related to the Indo-European suffix discussed above.
There's a Russian historian-blogger - Klim Zhukov. He has a playlist on his youtube channel on "History of Germanic Paganism" where he researches aspects of mostly Scandinavian religion. He sites a lot of other researchers like Tacitus and Caesar and Hilda Ellis Davidson. He comes to conclusion that ancient Germanic religion and later Scandinavian religion are just branches of Proto-Indo-European religion, and that Tyr was initially the sort of "main" (sky-father) god in the Scandinavian mythology and that Odin is a much later mythologem that has supplanted Tyr as the most important god. He also hypothesizes that Odin initially was a "demon of death" (the wild hunt as a reference) whose name we'll never know because it was replaced by kenning Od/Odr (analogically how in Russian Proto-Indo-Eropean root for bear was replaced with honey-eater, because you shouldn't call bear by name or bear will come and find you). I find this very fascinating and wondering if there's any support for this idea from a linguist who studies the topic professionally or that sounds more like a fun fiction?
The Furor interpretation also fits with the old Germanic name Wotan. Even in modern German the word for Fury or Rage is Wut. Back in the day Julius Caesar described the Germans as worshippers of Mercury. As in, Wotan has a mercurial character.
Dont forget that Odin was the main god in England when populated by Saxons and Angleans (and Scandinavians) after the Roman departure. For 250 years until christian monks came from Ireland. It was ruled by Woden and people used runes for writing in english.
the poem meaning has the derivate KVÄDE - am I right? On another angle ENTIRE the real deal I suppose is mysticism of all of this ODD means the edge (of a spear) but ALSO the oppositional to THOR (i.e even numbers as opposed to 'odd' numbers of Odin) - this is ONLY revealed through material culture Great insight!!!! What mote be the relation to HÖDER by the way? (rabbit warren of ideas is ODIN) HÖDER -BALDER the ying_yang of Old Norse thinking (cf. Dioscurii)
hmmm.... is it not just as ilkely that the name Odin became used for these three terms? Thunor became the english word Thunder, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxons renaming their god "Mr Storm", so that does happen.
For (Old Norse) Óðinn vs. (Old English) Wōden, (Old High German) Wotan, etc., and the reason behind this difference, see this video: ua-cam.com/video/StXseekmxsw/v-deo.html
Dr. Crawford, could you tell us what the Pre-Germanic form of Óðinn would have been? Thank you.
Maybe the name Óðinn is multilayered, so that it can mean both “the mad/furious one” aswell as “the Spirit/Mind” and also being connected to poetry. For instance, if Óðinns name is also connected to the concept of Mind you get a perfect explanation why his two ravens are named Huginn and Muninn, meaning “Thought” and “Memory”, and why he sacrifizes his one eye in the well of Mimir (“the one who remembers”).
I agree... It is more connected to the concept of mind... A very good explanation... Thanks.
He was also the god of poetry...was that is his name or did the term derive from his name. Anyway, all of the above works for me.
@@suzettehenderson9278 One of the meanimgs of the name ‘oðr’ is “poetry’, yes.
you're probably right, all these "homonyms" have the same etymology, they're the same word, usage evolves and shifts over time but the term Óðr seems to just be semantically dense, it has multiple meanings because as a cultural concept it is responsible for multiple things,if i had to try and relate it to just one thing i would say the overall capacity for emotion and ecstatic experience as opposed to simple awareness or vital signs but that lacks specificity as well.. I respect Jackson Crawford greatly and usually don't disagree with much of what he says but this one i just cant get behind, i think its a bit too hasty to take one attestation of an outsider of the culture who probably was trying to shoehorn an approximate Latin translation of the term for his audience who didn't care about the subtleties of germanic belief and language and ipso facto use that as the one true lens through which to view the rest of the corpus, its throwing the baby out with the bath water especially when you look at the mythological nature of Odin("The Óðr") and realize that any and all of these terms can be equally applied to him in at-least some respect even if you assume that they are entirely separate words with coincidentally similar pronunciation such as the examples at the end of the video which although they sound similar in modern english have entirely different etymologies.
Where would we be without Prof Jackson wishing us all the best
Posted on Odin’s day too. Nice
I wonder if he meant to do that, or if it's a coincidence.
Thinking about 'American Gods'. Today's my...
as the intro plays Jackson points a revolver at us, lol, never change man, never change
I noticed that too lol. Cool as hel!
He is pretty good. Hopefully someone gets this reference....
I did indeed laugh out loud
I can agree with this explanation. Especially since the name Wodan also comes from the same root as the word 'woede' in Dutch. 'Woede' is mostly used these days in the meaning of 'rage', but it can also mean 'madness'.
'Verwoed' is derived from that and can mean different things, but 'possessed' is the most important one. Or rather it might be closer to 'obsessed'.
Wisdom is a kind of madness!
It's a fine line between wisdom and madness...classic!
I'm glad that my idle thoughts and questions can be another man's profession.
I have a ton of respect for the work you do and have slowly been chipping away at your content. I've learned so much.
As far as Norse specialists go you don't look all that old ...
He's just being clever. This way he doesn't have to re-record the videos once he's actually old. ;)
A golden apple a day keeps the ageing away
Ol' Norse
Love the intro with the revolver bud. I am an avid consumer of your videos and I appreciate so much that you present so much knowledge freely for everyone. Thank you
That last meaning makes me wonder if the English word "oath" might've descended from this Old Norse word "othr" etymologically dissected here by Prof. Crawford
Stumbling on your channel has been very informative, especially for research for my upcoming novel! Thank you Jackson!
hello Prof, à côté de chez moi en Alsace, France, se trouve une micro région où la toponymie est axée sur la religion nordique/germanique. Il y a justement le Wuestenberg, ou "montagne de Wotan", qui est aussi appelée "montagne de la colère" ! le nom désigne aussi la "montagne des déserts" ou encore le "champ de bataille". Un endroit où alternent la vie et la mort, la colère et la réconciliation.
hello Prof, next to my home in Alsace, France, is a micro region where the toponymy is based on the Nordic / Germanic religion. There is precisely the Wuestenberg, or "mountain of Wotan", which is also called "mountain of anger"! the name also designates the "mountain of deserts" or the "battlefield". A place where life and death alternate, anger and reconciliation.
I cannot get enough of this content. I really appreciate that this is a channel!
Based on the lore behind Odin, is it possible that the two lesser homonyms could be poetic references to Odin since one has to do with the Mind and the other, Poetry? Both are associated with Odin's mythology.
That’s an interesting idea.
Your idea of “The Mad One” being associated with “song/poem” makes some sense to me. I find it especially interesting that óðr as word for song is attested later than the Eddas (I think that’s what Dr Crawford said), in Christian literature. That might go along with the word being derived later from Óðin’s name.
@@Tina06019 Additionally, Odin's Mead is reported to give the gift of poetry
It could even be a later attempt or variation of a poetic kenning.
I love the new intro... Your the best Dr Crawford
@Jackson Craford Nice explanation, but from my perspective as a Russian learner, you may not know that the Russian word for "one" is "один" (odin> pronounced like "adin").
Modern Russian may not be that old, but from my point of view it has Greek and Germanic roots. The Russians actually came from a Germanic tribe called "Rus". This is very similar with the Vikings, who were actually also Northern Germans. If we think further, we find that another name of Odin was "Wodan" (sometimes called "Wotan").
Now I ask you, can you see the likely connection?
If not, I'll try to make it clearer to you. First of all, what is the most essential thing for living beings?
I would say it is water. In Russian it is "вода" (voda> spoken like wada) and in German "Waßer" (Wasser). How is water in the nature when you think of rivers or the sea, for example?
It can be crazy, mad, sour, agressive, terrific, insane, raging, incensed or it can seem to be angry or furious.
In Eddic poetry, Odin functions as the father of gods. He is considered the god of war and the god of the dead, but also the god of poetry and runes, as well as magic. So he is also creatively active because the word "magic" has a connection to the word. But he also has shamanic traits and if one has dealt with the oldest known magic, one recognizes the connection to the rainmaker, but also to the rain dance. This in turn explains why Odin is also often associated with ecstasy. Water also makes noise, which could explain the connection to the term "ode".
However, I am assuming more connections, but I think that would go beyond the scope here.
I've often herd that the continental Saxon version of his name (Woden) meant madness, ecstasy, battle madness/fury. So it makes sense that the Norse version would have the same theme
One of the first explanations I ever heard was "the Horned god of divine madness and The Wild Hunt." So this was really interesting.
Alone the topic about horned gods around the world as spiritual natural archetypes is extremely awesome. From Pan to Osiris over Cernunnos to Dionysos till Bacchus. They are ever related to the cycle of life and shown that death is also a needfull part of living, like living as itself. They are relicts from a time when people not was drilled to think in Dark against Bright, Good and Bad, Heavn and Hell and so on.
0:57 smooth as silk!
When you hear galloping, assuming it's horses, not zebras.
Unless you're in southern or eastern Africa.
This is madness!
♩ ♬ Our house... ♪ ♫
Haha! I was waiting for this! :)
All the best to you sir!
I totally understand why Thor was far more popular with most Norse people than Odin.
His motivations are inscrutable, he lies all the time, and praying to him would be dicey at best - he's more likely to use you to further his own designs than to help you in any way.
Just like real kings!
It's always interesting to know who the king of gods is in a certain pantheon and to think of why, it helps a lot to understand the culture.
Plus it's also interesting that this king of gods is also characterized by the power of his words or written language (runes).
If Odin means angry, mad, furious etc it would also explain the name of the more southern Wodan. 'Woeden' is the modern Dutch word for fury/furious.
""woeden" in English · anger · wrath · angriness · furor · fury."
I can believe this. I always thought of Odin as the god of wisdom and magic. So he was like the mad scientist type in the old Norse days.
I only discovered the word "wether" in the past week and I'm probably as old as the guy who commented below with lyrics from Madness.
God, this makes me miss Colorado. Had family in the Pueblo/Greenhorn area, and it was while going out there to explore with my cousins that we started writing a concept for a fantasy series that combined Norse mythology and the old west aesthetic.
The name can make the man. I named my malemute hybrid, Woden. He is massive, mad, fierce, and intelligent, yet beautiful and goofy. A very difficult animal. Grim, indeed. Thanks for the video, Alaskan from Colorado.
Interesting, and well explicated. There are some (particularly across the pond differences in common usage with 'mad'), even in English - but I suppose 'furor' pretty well clinches it.
I think that root lies at it's core, but from the PIE root I think it would have originally meant something more with mental or spiritual (even prophetic) stimulation than just "mad". Not many people seem to be aware of a loosely cognate theonym in Gaulish - Vatiounos - derived from the same PIE root and meaning something like "the prophet, the seer".
Note the German Wotan and Wut "anger"
Or Dutch Wodan and woede (anger/rage)
Very good vid Jackson! Always fun to see your work!
In Dutch, the name Woden (Odin) and the noun Woede (anger, fury, rage) are thought to have the same root.
Wednesday, in this case is Woensdag in Dutch, and that also points towards Woen, or de 'Woedende'. The Angy one
The background music takes these videos to a whole new level.
No, really, how's your wether doing?
Good clarification of terms. Thanks.
He’s recovering rn, the castration took a toll on his body. But overall not bad.
I remember encountering the Old English phrase "tha awedde he sona" ("then he became immediately enraged") and realizing it had the same root as Woden. A modern (but obsolete) English cognate, "wood" or "wode," means "crazy." In following up, I found what appeared to be a cognate to "Woden" in the Latin "vates," meaning both "seer" and "bard."
In Dutch, 'woede' [wóóh-duh] means fury or anger.
So being _wütend,_ "angry", is a verbification of _wöde,_ with umlaut?
I'd think whatever etymology is correct for Odin also should pass the same test for Wotan.
Now I'm wondering about the Norwegian adjectives _øyde_ and _øydelagt_ ("deserted" and "destroyed") having etymology connections to _óðr_ if their diphtong vowels can be explained as a development.
I am here from the wisdom of Odin channel, this is my first video and I am already in love. I'll be hanging out here more.
You've got a sizeable library to watch and enjoy now!
Interesting...Thanks Jackson!
The OED lands about where Jackson does. It links odr, madness or fury, to the obsolete English adjective "wood" (not as in trees). This is cognate to German Wut (rage, feminine noun) and wuetend (raging). It also says the meaning of "poetry" is allied via a sense of poetic frenzy. Odin per se seems not to be attested till about the 8th century. Total speculation, but could he be a fairly late idea? The evolution of Nerthus (a Germanic goddess) to a male Norse god suggests things were fairly fluid.
Great video. Short and to the point.
Makes me wonder which came first, then, because I thought that Odin was also associated with poetry, speaking in poems, and this being associated with magic.
Interestingly enough, that bears resemblance to the "madness" of the Dionysus cult, doesn't it? I thought that there was also the mysteries in there, and so it's almost like all of these things are kind of rolled together subconsciously, being linked in the language, probably from an early root that had all of them in common, and may be related to divinization (which, in the ancient times, was pretty much THE magic that people did, but was done by drugs or drinking intoxicating mixtures).
So wouldn't Óð+inn be just an epithet. What would be the actual name in the folklore? I remember in a poem it said that his name was Yggr before that or something of the sort.
I see it, as I said in a recent comment, Hugr is to Huginn as Odhr is to Odhinn...one is a faculty and the other is the identity of the action the faculty performs. Mind is to Thought as Sense is to Sensation.
No, it's a name, and one seemingly derived from Proto-Germanic at that as it shows up in multiple language families. It would not be uncommon for a name at the time to mean 'the raging one'. Harold, for example, literally means 'army-ruler' recognisably in its Old English form (Hereweald, from here 'army' and weald 'ruler'), and is definitely a name. English speakers have this bizarre idea that names are mostly gibberish or abstractions, when for millennia people had names with recognisable literal meanings in their own languages, such as 'king over men' (Uerkingetorix), 'world-ruler' (Vladimir), 'glorious' (Vladislav), 'son of lions' (Leonidas), 'most perfect' (Aristotle) and so on.
@@therat1117 I mean that sounds fair, but I looked it up and this is a translation of one of the last stanzas of Grímnismál: "Now am I Othin, | Ygg was I once,
Ere that did they call me Thund;
Vak and Skilfing, | Vofuth and Hroptatyr,
Gaut and Jalk midst the gods;
Ofnir and Svafnir, | and all, methinks,
Are names for none but me." All those other names that come after "Óðinn" in the stanza are said to have been used by him before well, "Óðinn", and when looking at the meaning of the names. They all look like epithets too.
@@jacobandrews2663 I mean, yes, that's one of those 'Odin lists his names' poetry segments. The thing is that we have names equivalent to Odinn in other Germanic languages (Woden, Wotan, Wuodan, Godan), where he is not given other names. Given that some of these attestations refer to events predating Old Norse as a language (particularly the foundation myth of the Langobards from the Origo Gentis Langobardorum), we're pretty sure that is the name of the god is Odinn.
@@therat1117 Yeah dude, I'm familiar. The reconstructed form "Woðanaz" (also meaning "the mad") still seems like an epithet to me.
It's pretty well understood that Odin sought knowledge. So wouldn't that make the rare usage of it meaning "mind" (persona of thought or thinking) more likely?
Speaking of Occam's razor, we should keep in mind that the simplest answer might actually be that Odr always meant "mind," and as always happens with language, it gained other connotations over time. Madness, anger, and fury come from the mind, as does poetry (and early poetry involved a bit of performative madness and inspiration). Odr could mean all 3 because they are all associated with each other similar to how the word "Smart" has it's origins in just meaning "sharp," but that meaning of sharpness came to be associated with intelligence (which also means "sharpness" lol) and something hurts (ouch, that smarts!). Or how "sharp" can also mean good looking. I mean, language always gives more depth and meaning to words over time (or takes some meaning away), so it makes sense. Plus, Old Norse has several sets of completely different words for the same things (like how the gods each have multiple names), so surely one word and name could have several meanings.
Going back to what you said in your video about Frigg and Freyja, if Óðinn’s name means “mad one”, what does Freyja’s husband Oðr’s name mean?
Hey, philosopher here.
Question: I have a general sense that though language itself has had ebbs and flows of sophistication based on context of the utility of certain words, is it possible that these other homophones of odr are actually just more obscured uses of the general umberella of the "madness" use we see within the odin characterization?
my thoughts here derive from how we see Mana used within hawaii culture. there seems to be this thing where people will have broad ideas of "mental traits" like how we can say someone is sharp (sharp tongue, sharp mind) and that we have this associated kind of "ontological" grouping of how the mind/soul works. Mana within hawaii culture seems to refer to personality and intellect, and so when I am hearing "madness, mind, poetry" all having homophonic words, that the qualitative disctinction may be a modern lens, since we have more utility from making these more distinct concepts.
Hopefully this is an interesting question and isn't just coming off as ignorant. If you read this, thank you for your time.
Dear Jackson, I think it might be related to the roaring frenzy of Rudra/Shiva (Rudra meaning 'roar'), since Odinn more or less is Rudra/Shiva, who in the Vedic tradition is seen as the first breath, the first manifestation - i.e. Big Bang. When he manifests and creates matter he does that with the first roaring and raging breath. The breath that blows life into everything.
@@hartwarg3051 Actually don't see your point here. Why would one exclude the other? When it all comes down to it they're just different names on the original (Proto)Indo-European deities. Tor/Indra/Perun and so on.
@farorin I disagree, without unfortunately having the time to elaborate. And concerning Shiva - yes, that's why I also mention the Vedic Rudra. All gods develop, or rather, the human perspective of the divine develops.
That's so interesting. I know your specialty is Old Norse, but do you know if the same connection between mad/crazy and Ođinn exists in Proto-Germanic Wodanaz?
If I'm not mistaken, in Middle English the word Wode(n) means mad or crazed. Perhaps this is a hint to the meaning Óđinn, as you describe.
Yea I noticed the alikenings between those words too. Almost for sure cognates.
*looks it up on Wiktionary* Yea, they’re cognate. The Middle English word was apparently “Wood”, and if the word was still used nowadays, it would be “Wood” (pronounced the same as wood in the sense of a wooden house.).
Like in Dutch 'Woede' or German 'Wut'.
@@waterdrager93 Indeed, those too are cognates.
Makes sence to me.
In Dutch a furious rage is called 'woedend' or 'woest' (although woest can mean barren as well).
In Old Dutch (same period as Old English, and where both related) the name Wuodan was known, but that could also have been a matter of grammar.
@@stormstaunch6692 Still monday is more like a day for rage than an ordinary 'wodansdag/woendag'.
I wonder which one is more important, whether it's the weather or the wether?
I appreciate the Jew's harp in your intro music- do you have any info on old variants?
Not necessarily Viking or Old Norse related, but my sister’s German Shepherd and Great Pyrenees are having accidental puppies over in Conifer. If you could give one (or more) a really cool Viking name, what would it be?
Considering what kind of god Odin is, meanings of his name fits him really well. That revolver shot in the intro is great.
What do you think of John Colarusso's idea that the name is somehow related to the hero "Wadana" from the Nart sagas?
great video! if you would do one for loki maybe you could see osp's video on loki just to hear what they bring to the table
I wonder how well this fits in with the name Woden from the Anglo-Saxons. I thought Woden was the cognate of Odin in early English.
Edit: just saw the link.
Is there a connection between Odin and один in Russian?
Dr. Crawford, I have a question concerning your translation of the Poetic Edda: Does it only come in your english translation or does it also have the original text you translated it from?
It seems like it only has the english version, but I figured asking won't do any harm.
Dr. Crawford's translation only contains the English-- however, his "The Poetic Edda in Old Norse" playlist has many of the poems in Old Norse with Dr. Crawford's commentary ( ua-cam.com/play/PLATNGYBQ-Tjp2rLtaIKzrMFcWGComaiVN.html ) and his video called "Finding the Poetic Edda in Old Norse" ( ua-cam.com/video/k6FT9IW6rhw/v-deo.html ) explains where to find the text of the Poetic Edda in Old Norse and some of the differences between available sources (links should be in the pinned comment)
Thanks a lot :)
I was hoping to find a good version that has both the original text as well as a good version in a language I understand.
For german that has shown to be quite hard. The only one, I could find, that is both islandic and german is quite unreadable. The "author" also seems to be rather far right winged, maybe even extremely so, so I don't really want to support him.
For English I have yet not really searched, but I had hoped that his version would have the original in it, because it seems to be quite clear and a good translation by a competent guy.
Maybe german Wotan and Wut suggests this too?
Indeed, not to mention Adam of Bremen's "Wodan, id est furor."
Thanks that's really interesting !
I wonder if the Old Norse word "Odr" for "madness" comes from the same proto-Indo-European root as Latin "Odium", "hatred"?
I know, I know, germanic languages and their differences... but the germanic word for the norse god odin is wotan or woudan/woudanaz - the same word that the modern german wut (fury, anger) comes from, also in medieval german wuot/wût/woud/wout
Big iron. Thank you for the information.
Are you not teaching in CO anymore?
So anyway, how is the castrated ram??
Óþr meaning mad related to the word "odd"?
Very cool 😎
I have a question? How do you combine two words into one for example Ice storm. How would you write it or pronoun it.
Here's a new one:
Taking into account Snorri's and Saxo's descripton of the man's career, he could have been a slaver, procuring and processing (esp. Slavic ) slaves for the Romans. In that case, his name might have been based on Slavic *wod- "lead" (or *woji "army"}, *wod-in- "leader" (Russian 'vozhd''; Benveniste mentions a suffix *- inos "leader" in Latin dom-inus and tribu-nus, Gothic kind-ins, *druht-ins, thiuda-ns). I could assume also that both Proto-Slavic *woj- and *wod- might have been borrowed from some parallel language with *woð-.
Adam of Bremen might be calling him "Furor" to condemn him from a Christian perspective, in which wrath is sinful and anger is decried.
All of them seem to fit the character of the God though.
Today we still say. ,,Ertu óður! or óðir menn!, konan er óð!". So Are you crazy/mad, then crazy (mad) men, and finally the woman is mad or crazy but more used for very angry.
I wonder how this relates to Wotan, Woden and the earlier Wothanaz?
Hey, am I the only one who thinks that a guy who knows runes is in scenic mountains wearing a wide brim hat giving knowledge is a bit suspicious?
Outside Norse, in Western Germanic mythology this god is known as Wodan, which still sounds like anger (Dutch: woede, German: Wut).
I’m surprised by this because it wasn’t a word created for the Norse. There is already the theoretical PIE word - Wodanaz. While some might argue that it is hypothesized and thus proves nothing, I would be remiss to not argue it was made because older cultures also have the same god minus the already known sound changes. So Wodan certainly predates The Norse variant. I would assume the other uses derive from the gods name poetically, not the other way around.
I thought the same
Odin - Othan - wothan - hvodan - hvadan - Vadan - Vaddern (still used till today in nrth.Germany) - Vatter/Vater ger. - Father engl.
Paddern (still used in sth.Germany; a mix of Patre lat. and Vaddern ger.)
All in all the main meaning of all the names is "where from; whom from".
Why not all three? They're all associated with him and they're all part of a similar complex of ideas. Poetry is a skill that has to be developed, like smithing or carpentry, but it's also mead, an intoxicant that comes in from outside. Óðrerir can be the vessel that contains the mead or the mead itself. The mind has to be cultivated to create poetry or to enter madness, but those activities are also their own states of mind, which nonetheless come in from the outside, given by the god who rules them, Óðinn. The people who worshipped this god, who were often poets, would have of course been sensitive to this sort of layered meaning, as you suggest in the case of the name Hár, "one-eyed" or "high."
psycho - crazy
psyche - human spirit
psychobabble - poetry
i seem to have missed that you arent teaching at universities anymore..... end of contract i suppose?
Doesn't it come from Wotan / Woden?
I think it's great that Odin should be a bit mad! lol, free spirited and mad!
Sorry, have to say this, forgive me, but still trying to figure out what the study of bugs has to do with the evolution of a god's name.
(for those who do not comprehend this pun joke, here's a hint: Entomology)
Why are most divine names, when you investigate, really just titles or epithets?
Like Freyr and Freyja.
It might be a matter of fear (you don't call a supernatural entity by their name) or of origin. Many deities were collective and without name (think of the nymphs, the nereids, the dryads and their equivalents in other religions. Or about Roman Lares and Penates) before they were personified.
It quickly reminds people of their traits/backstory, but also it's pretty powerful if someone says "the lady" and everyone knows exactly which lady you mean.
@@amyjones2119 I think with Greek it's the other way around. There is the name of the god Zeus, then all the others are "little Zeuses". So her name "Lady" could come 1st then using it as a title for people could come 2nd. So that Lady Amy literally means Freyr's Amy or Amy the little Freyr, or Freyr-ette Amy.
@@branlatebarie8383 I really like that
Interesting topic, but you could have went into more detail on the suffix -inn, which might be correspondent with -en OEng Woden, and -an in OHG Wuotan. I have read about some correspondances in the names of other Indo-European god names, such as -on in Poseidon, if I remember correctly, though that could be completely unrelated. Nevertheless it could be interesting to hear more about it.
@@Galenus1234 While that is true for the definite article 'inn,' as Crawford alluded to in the video, the '-inn' in 'Óðinn' is of a different etymology. This '-inn' comes from Proto-Germanic '-anaz,' which is related to the Indo-European suffix discussed above.
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Curious. Odin means one in russian. And Odin is the one, the big boss of gods.
Adin or othin not really close nor is Woden the words might sometimes be transliterated to the same spelling but don’t sound the same at all.
There's a Russian historian-blogger - Klim Zhukov. He has a playlist on his youtube channel on "History of Germanic Paganism" where he researches aspects of mostly Scandinavian religion. He sites a lot of other researchers like Tacitus and Caesar and Hilda Ellis Davidson. He comes to conclusion that ancient Germanic religion and later Scandinavian religion are just branches of Proto-Indo-European religion, and that Tyr was initially the sort of "main" (sky-father) god in the Scandinavian mythology and that Odin is a much later mythologem that has supplanted Tyr as the most important god. He also hypothesizes that Odin initially was a "demon of death" (the wild hunt as a reference) whose name we'll never know because it was replaced by kenning Od/Odr (analogically how in Russian Proto-Indo-Eropean root for bear was replaced with honey-eater, because you shouldn't call bear by name or bear will come and find you). I find this very fascinating and wondering if there's any support for this idea from a linguist who studies the topic professionally or that sounds more like a fun fiction?
The Furor interpretation also fits with the old Germanic name Wotan. Even in modern German the word for Fury or Rage is Wut.
Back in the day Julius Caesar described the Germans as worshippers of Mercury. As in, Wotan has a mercurial character.
Dont forget that Odin was the main god in England when populated by Saxons and Angleans (and Scandinavians) after the Roman departure. For 250 years until christian monks came from Ireland. It was ruled by Woden and people used runes for writing in english.
the poem meaning has the derivate KVÄDE - am I right? On another angle ENTIRE the real deal I suppose is mysticism of all of this ODD means the edge (of a spear) but ALSO the oppositional to THOR (i.e even numbers as opposed to 'odd' numbers of Odin) - this is ONLY revealed through material culture Great insight!!!! What mote be the relation to HÖDER by the way? (rabbit warren of ideas is ODIN) HÖDER -BALDER the ying_yang of Old Norse thinking (cf. Dioscurii)
hmmm.... is it not just as ilkely that the name Odin became used for these three terms? Thunor became the english word Thunder, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxons renaming their god "Mr Storm", so that does happen.
So if hes Mad-Crazy, only drinks and doesn't eat, and is afraid of losing memory more than thought...hes a God of dementia and alzhimers? Lol
I'm a trans guy and I chose the name Odin, and I find it kinda funny that it can straight up mean The mad one
"Один " in slavic language is 1 !
Russia is ancient celtic arhepilage .
He thinks he is god, he has gone mad. correlation?
Watch where you are pointing that thing, partner.
(Lol. Muzzle control, man.)