[This part and the forthcoming sequels are an elaborated version of the original article entitled “The Norse Goddesses behind the Asir Veil: The Vanir Mothers in Continental Scandinavia—a late Shamanistic Branch of the Old European Civilization?” by Märta-Lena Bergstedt & Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen, included in Goddesses in Myth, History and Culture (Mago Books, 2018) Edited by Mary Ann Beavis and Helen Hye-Sook Hwang.]
The Mythic Vanir Mothers becoming Goddesses in the Asir Pantheon
Universally, the transition into patriarchy is constituted by new laws, divine and secular, which admitted elite males to own land, including its riches and the people living there and working it, and to own biological children/sons, who were now given sur- or family names after their fathers. Their all-encompassing rights were claimed to rest on divine sanction, which further furnished males with lawful rights also to defend their privileges with violence. The spiritual world was now put exclusive into male hands. The take-over of the Asir chieftain, Odin followed the world-wide, traditional PIE-scheme. Odin set up his divine pantheon Asgård, a parallel, but invisible realm above the Earth, and Odin became its sovereign top-figure and master. For this new epoch, Carlsson argues; ”The new house-carl-ideology (400-550CE) demanded new gods; and the creation of Odin-cult and Asir-belief need to be seen in this context.” (Our translation from Swedish).[1] Using the Odin figure as metaphor for the patriarchal take-over in which the Vanir Mothers, after over a thousand of years as mythic icons in the Old society, now became goddesses in Odin’s Asgård, and subordinated as wives to the Asir gods, we will re-tell the story of the transition as a narrative, based on the mythological references in the Icelandic sagas.
The Asirs coming up from Asia (Troy),[2] if not literally then at least true for the patriarchal ideas that he intended to implant, Odin had his strategy clear to put into action. In order to succeed in establishing a warfare society and religion, he first of all needed the full control over the local Vanir females, the mythical and the physical human. Alternately using tricks or violence, he intended to wrest out of their hands all rights to their inherited land, their natural rights to their children, their sexual freedom, as also their shamanism and spiritual world. To be able fully to control them, Odin wanted the Vanir female entities literally interwoven, and totally integrated and absorbed into his new mythology. Hoping for a minimum of resistance, he wished to create an illusion and to make believe that the new order of society was nothing but a natural continuation of the old – and no conflict there between them.
For these reasons, Odin, renowned for never losing a war, for once refrained from demanding the enemies into his hands by swinging his spear, Gungner over the battlefield.[3] On purpose, he let this first war in Scandinavia, the Vanir-Asir war, end in a draw. The peace agreement, and the exchange of hostages that followed, allowed him to select the most venerated mythological Vanir entities for his Asgård;[4] and thus, and not by free will, the Vanir mothers with their children made their final walk into Asgård.[5]
The next step for Odin was to stage a mass-wedding in which the Vanir females were quickly married off to the gang of Asir gods. Patriarchy world-wide introduced the institution of marriage. It was a perfect tool in their hands. In an instant, they could gain a total right to rule a woman’s land and property, and later to inherit her land to his sons. Also marriage gave men a full control over women´s sexuality, and child-bearing. Wedding the Vanir mothers, the Asir gods completely ignored the fact that already, due to Vanir tradition, the females were firmly committed to their brothers in sibling parental pairs, and had dear lovers of their own. For once, the Asir gods also completely shut their eyes to the fact that they all married mothers-with-children, not virgins. Thus tied up in what all too soon proved to be unharmonious and miserable marriages, the lives of the Vanir mothers had suddenly been placed under the will of their masters in Asgård. As Odin´s plan was to introduce the idea of the two-world system – Gods and Humans, Sky and Earth, Heaven and Hell etc. – his next goal was to transformed the mythical Vanir mothers into goddesses in the divine Asir pantheon. Finishing off this part, he would soon be ready for the grand final, when declaring himself godly ruler of it all. But to get there, he needed just one last thing; the female’s shamanism, the sejd.
The snag in every new religion is its ability to produce arguments, sufficiently convincing on its unlimited access to the spiritual world, and control of its mysteries. Odin, highest drott (druid) must have been fully skilled in the druidic art of illusions himself already.[6] Druids themselves were never found fighting within the chaotic battlefields; instead, from high locations and hills surrounding the battlefields, they performed their uncanny illusory techniques, e.g. they could make their own armies invisible, scream like raging wild animals; blind and deafen their enemies with veils of smoke, clamor and clangor etc.[7] Druidic tricks were first of all designed to scare their enemies, and to support their own army. Celtic Druids had decennials long trainings to obtain the baffling expertise in playing magnificent tricks.[8] Today’s illusionists and fairytale magicians like Gandalf are heirs of the druidic magicians. Transmitted legends and medieval recordings of stunning techniques performed in battlefield are reported also to have been carried out by Germanic/Nordic drotts, which hint to the fact that a similar druidic know-how and skill did exist in Scandinavia. But except for the existence of the title, drott (druid), and mythological references to Odin´s other names as Blinde (Blinder), meaning he, who blinds the enemy army in battlefield; or Svafner; he, who lulls the enemy to sleep; or make their weapons not bite – not much is known about any secret drott-trainings in Scandinavia.[9] When christened, British Druids and Norse Drotts often became the new appointed bishops. Two very early (around 950-1050CE) and powerful Danish bishops bore the name; Odinkar (Dear-to-Odin or maybe Odin´s-men).[10]
However, tricks and duplicitous techniques are not a path leading into the spiritual sphere. To achieve and maintain political authority in the new land, for a thousand years inhabited by Vanir Valas, Odin acutely needed to control their spirituality, their shamanism, and their Sejd.[11] He got to realize his total dependence on Fröja, the Vanir High-Völva. More than anything Odin had to make sure of her coming to Asgård. And arriving there, he would not leave her alone, nagging and demanding her to teach him the sejd. But Fröja refused. Sejd was practiced by Vanir females only; it was not a warrior´s matter! But Odin persisted, even standing up also to the scorn of the other Asir gods for being ergi[12] desiring a woman’s craft so badly. But, becoming divine himself was an indisputable part of Odin´s plan. To persuade Fröja, he decided to demonstrate to her his determination and solid will, by deliberately hanging himself onto a tree, the Yggdrasil.[13] At the same time, Odin was fully aware and also intending a parallel to the Christian Jesus. Within the Roman Empire, Christianity was, since 385CE established as state religion, and Odin saw how Christianity was problematically spreading within Germanic areas north of the Alps, so Jesus now became Odin´s first rival in contemporary time – and not only that, Odin wanted to be sure to beat him in every field for the sake of winning the southern Germanic tribes to his side. Therefore, not only to persuade Fröja, but also to demonstrate his superiority versus Jesus, Odin volunteered to hang himself on the Yggdrasil-tree for no less than three times three days, after which he could claim the desired spiritual knowledge.[14] If Fröja was impressed or not the scriptures do not say, but at least she gave in in the end, and taught Odin the sejd; but only to see him run off to use it for his own murky businesses. The use of sejd for selfish goals is tabooed and forbidden practice, completely disqualifying any shaman.[15] But what Odin does first thing, having learned to sejd, is to sejd the goddess Rind insane and rape her. Rind was the glittering child of the Sun-set-elven Billing, a male elder of the Vanirs.[16] The scope of his continued destructive use of shamanistic skills is made fully clear in The Ynglinga Saga, chapter 7, stating that with his sejd, Odin would take peoples wit and strength, bring death, ill-luck, and bad health…[17]
Somewhat bewildering, Hedeager concludes that the inclusion of legends in the Icelandic Eddas about Odin, engaging in sejd, attests a strong and long-lived shamanic tradition in the North.[18] However, having picked up sejd–techniques from the völvas, does not link Odin into the long line of female based shamanic practitioners in Old Scandinavia. As little as the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter were shamans originally, and despite their claiming to be Heads of Oracle after they had stolen the shamanic skill from the female predecessors, as little was Odin a true shaman. Zeus, Jupiter, and Odin all originated from the dualistic model of PIE-sky gods. Archeologist Neil S. Price concludes and characterizes the Scandinavian late Iron Age form of shamanism, as a sort of “battle magic”, in other words, masters of tricks and techniques, as discussed above.[19] In the Asir world, sejd was distorted. Sejd and shamanism belong to the one-world animistic perception of the world, and any true shamanistic parallels in dualistic, hierarchical religions do not exist.
But from Odin´s point of view, having won the sejd, he possessed the desired high-way to the spiritual world. The token of the völva, the Staff, Odin now converted into his own emblem of his wandering stick or/and the spear, Gungner. Other visible emblems underlining his new spiritual status as shaman, was his eight-legged horse, Sleipner (Fig. 4) that travelled equally good over land and sea, and his two ravens, bringers of tidings from every corner of the world.[20]
His plan completed so far, he now walks off to the Well of Wisdom, guarded by Mimer´s old, wise head and demanded his spiritual wisdom, too. Peacefully though, Mimer starts to waffle about One Eye. Mimer may have lectured Odin about the one-eye-of-intuition-in-your-forehead, the Third Eye, but Odin, having no time for small-talk, resolutely tore out his right eye and plunges it into the water of the Wisdom Well – in reality just to end up one-eyed for ever after.
Odin´s last move was to take over the Vala-skjalf (the Vala´s mountain-shelf/settlement), the very dwellings of the völva. There he mounted his new throne, the Lidskjalf, the very High Seat of the Völva,[21] and from here and from now on, he could overlook and rule the world in divine majesty.[22]
He was finally a god.
It has been suggested that the Odin-figure may stem from an earlier layer of religion; and his name, Odin, in different Germanic spellings, to be rooted in a god associated primarily with wind (and rage). Early texts are suggested to show a slightly more complex picture of the late straight-out warrior god.[23] By the act of interweaving Vanir figures and their shamanic animal symbolism, vibrating a strong air of familiarity, Odin attempted to create an illusion of continuity and make the whole thing easier to swallow. He intended to signal that this, only slight change of society that had granted him the exclusive ownership of all land, spiritual contacts, and wisdom, should look like a result of natural evolution. To the rising aristocracy, Odin´s divinity claims sanctioned its ideological superiority and their legal rights to dominate.[24]
(To be Continued)
(Meet Mago Contributor) Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen.
[1] Carlsson, Tankar Torsten, 169
[2] Johansson, Prolog, Cap. 9. Johansson, Skáldskaparmál, Cap. 1.
[3] Jónsson, Ynglingesaga, Cap. 2. Gjellerup, ed. Ældre Eddas, (Völuspá), 10-11, 24.
[4] The Vanirs had Höner in exchange, thinking he would make a good chieftain, but he was of no use, and eventually the Vanirs sent him back.
[5] The legend parallel the Roman legend on how the band of robbers lead by Romulus, founder of Rome (IE), tricked the Sabinian women (OE/Pre-Roman) into their court, murdered their relatives, and made a peace agreement and mass-wedding, soon after which the Sabinian women fell in love with their men, the legend tells. The mythic Romulus is succeeded by human chieftains, lending legacy to their legislation, order of society etc. The legend is known from common IE (Vedic, Celtic and Norse) tradition, and is a good example how legends are purposely turned into history. Näsström, Forntida, 176-7. Similarities between PIE material and Asir-belief was recognized already in the 30´s by Jan de Vries and Gabriel Turville-Petre.
[6] Goder, patriarchal priests and drotts (druids) were magicians. Nornor, on the contrary, do not engage in magical illusions, but in fate. Eddas are full of stories built on illusory tricks. Bek-Pedersen, Norns, 147. Gilhus and Thomassen, Antikens religioner, 114, 143, 160.
[7] Hansen, Ældre Edda. (Den Højes Taler), (Havamál), Stanza: XII 148, 150, 156. In Lokesenna 22, Odin is scorned for being passive in fight, which points to the fact that he was not engaged in fighting, but working with magic of the drotts.
[8] Anne Ross and Don Robins. The Life and Death of a Druid Prince (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 154f. Anne Ross, Preachers of Immortality, 1999. Rydberg, Viktor. Undersökningar i germansk mytologi. Del 1. (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. 1886). Bek-Pedersen. Norns. 140. Jónsson, Ynglingesaga, Cap.6.
[9] The legend about the receiving of the Danish flag, the Dannebrog in Estonia is a good example. Saxo Krønike, I:80, 224, 268, 385; II:211, 232, 236. Neil S. Price, The Viking Way. Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, (Uppsala: Dept. of Archaeology and Ancient History [Institutionen för arkeologi och antik historia], Univ., Aun, 0284-1347; 31, 2002), 312-328. Näsström, Fornskandinavisk, 56, 58.
Price characterizes the late Iron Age shamanism as a kind of “battle magic,” see also Kaliff, Sundqvist, Oden Mithras, 17.
[10] Odin´s man (karl) or Dear (kär) to Odin. Lönborg, Sven E, ed. Adam af Bremen och hans skildring af Nordeuropas länder och folk. (Descriptio insularum Aquilonis). (Akademisk avhandling. Uppsala. 1897), Note: Cap 87.
[11] Sjöö, Norse Goddess, 37. Hedeager, Iron Age Myth, 2011.
[12] ergi – a Viking Age concept of domination manifested by means of the three penetration tools: sword, phallus and defaming words. Hedeager, Iron Age Myth, 108ff.
[13] Most tree-hangings are understood as initiations. The postulated Germanic pendent to Jesus´ tree-hanging was picked up already by Sophus Bugge in Studier over de nordiske Gude- og Heltesagns oprindelse, (Christiania: Forlaget af Gammermeyer, 1881-89), 291. Hansen, Ældre Edda. (Den Højes Taler), (Havamál), XII, Stanza: 139-142.
[14] Bek-Pedersen, Norns, 82.
Significant numbers, the three and the nine and the twenty-seven (3×3, 9×3, 27), associated to the female. Recalling, the nine worlds in Völuspá; the nine daughters of När and Ran; the nine greatest magic songs that Odin learns; nine days of Odin hanging in the tree; nine days of Hermod travelling to Hel.
[15] Pentikäinen, Shamanism, 81
[16] Saxo, krønike, III, 76. Hansen, Ældre Edda. (Den Højes Taler), (Havamál), II,8. VI,16. Johansson, Skáldskaparmál, Cap. 2, 12. (Ygg (Odin) sejded against Rind – using sejd to deprive others their vit or power, ).
[17] Jónsson, Ynglingesaga, Cap. 7.
[18] Hedeager, Skuggor, 126.
[19] Price, Viking Way, 312-328. Kaliff and Sundqvist, Oden Mithras, 17.
[20] Johansson, Skáldskaparmál, Cap. 17, Jónsson, Gudelære (Gylfaginning), Cap. 14, 40, 48.
[21] The Sejdhjäll of the Völva is not to be confused with Chieftains High-Seat at the table´s end.
[22] Kiil suggests Odin´s Lidskjalf to be the former stationary High Völva Hjäll. (fvn. seiðhjallr, hjallr). Vilhelm Kiil, Hliðskjalf og sejðhjallr (Lund: Arkiv for nordisk filologi 75, 1960), 49. Jónsson, Gudelære (Gylfaginning), Cap 8, 16.
[23] Kaliff and Sundqvist, Oden Mithras, 22, 69-70
[24] Hedeager, Skuggor, 136. Gilhus and Thomassen, Antikens religioner, 23, 88-90. Ari-stocracy, Ares from Indian/Persian: arya – the nobles.