Banishment of Odin

The banishment of Oðinn is a Scandinavian myth from which three versions distinct reached us.

According to Snorri Sturluson

In its Ynglingasaga (3), Snorri Sturluson very briefly tells that Odin having left for very a long voyage, the Ases believed that it would not return. Vili and Vé divided its heritage then, like his wife Frigg. Odin returned shortly after and took again his wife.

It is referred to this episode in the Lokasenna (26), poem of the poetic Edda , when Loki reproach with Frigg to have misled Odin with the brothers of this one.

According to Grammaticus Sax

In its Gesture of the Danes , Saxo Grammaticus makes two accounts which it is possible to bring closer to the myth told at Snorri.

The exile of Othinus

Saxo Grammaticus tells initially the voluntary exile of Odin, which it names Othinus ( Geste of Danes , I, 7).

Regarded as a god in all Europe, Othinus accepted in present on behalf of the kings of North a statue to its image, out of gold and charged with bracelets. Jealous, Frigg made remove the gold of the statue by goldsmiths. Othinus made them hang and, by a magic spell, it made the statue able to speak if a man touched it. But Frigg renonça not and gave itself to the one its servants so that it helps it to seize gold. Ashamed, Othinus then decided to leave in exile.

During his absence, a magician, Mithothyn, usurped his capacity. Being made pass for a god, it was made venerate like such, and instituted a change in the pertaining to worship procedures. On its return, Othinus recovered its capacity, expelling country all the magicians who had been made pass for gods.

The banishment of Othinus

One second version evokes a banishment with the clean direction of the term ( Geste of Danes , III, 4).

After the death of Balderus, Othinus learned from a soothsayer whom his son would be avenged by the child that it would have of Rinda, girl of the king of Ruthènes. But its various attempts to allure the young girl having failed, it is by an infamous trick that he arrived to his ends. Having learned, and fearing that the infamy of Othinus does not fall down on them, the gods made the decision to déchoir it and to banish it, and it is certain a Ollerus which was selected to replace it. At the end of ten years, the gods judged that Othinus had been sufficiently punished and returned its place to him.

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