ok, i do mutter about the old man at times, somedays he can be a sour puss, but, he can also be, caring, loving, thoughtful, protective, compassionate, even helpfull, (though i am sometimes suspicous of it) todays challenge say nice things about the old man, ;-)
I see my personal blog is still somewhat a secret. Excellent.
Anyway. As I suppose you at least know, we sat on this one for a bit– half because it’s been busy, and we do hate to rush answers, and also because, well, as usual it’s an interesting topic. Interesting in a few ways: namely, that from this and just kind of loosely scrolling through the blog, we don’t much flat out compliment the guy, at least overtly, and also because in just some years of general observation, that… somewhat seems to be an unspoken requirement across the board for Norse deities/venerated figures in general.
To start out, it’s not a bad thing, if one wanted to use qualifiers like that. Hell, it’s pretty logical; why venerate a deity if you don’t find anything good or appealing about them? The only answer that really comes to mind is “fear”, and despite the whole “terror” thing he’s got going on, there are clearly many people not moved to Odin veneration that do okay for themselves. Even back in the day, as we’ve mentioned, there weren’t a lot of people latching on to him, and when they did there was often a functional reason (warriors, poetry, kingship, the usual). Not that I think that should have a whole ton of bearing on whether someone does today, and it’s pretty probable that a lot of people historically at least, I dunno, tipped their hat at him or occasionally asked for boons without being too latched on. The amount of Thor jewelry and apparel artifacts that we’ve found, along with some of the written works like the Hárbarðsljóð, point out that there may have been some henotheism going on, or at least something similar. But it is interesting to the point that in my non-professional, somewhat cursory analysis here, the functional portion of that relationship seemed to be a big part of things, and that’s something that generally gets slightly maligned or warned against in the modern Norse, I dunno, pagansphere and beyond, for reasons of it being insulting or otherwise inappropriate. And there is, one supposes, a point to which this can be true– but here’s Hávamál 44-45, which have some interesting thoughts.
[44] If you have a good friend, and really trust him, and want good to come of your friendship, you should speak your mind with him, exchange gifts, visit him often. [45] But if you have another friend, and you mistrust him but want to benefit from him, nonetheless— you should speak to him kindly, flatter him, and repay his treachery with your own. (tr. Jackson Crawford)
From the Old Bastard’s mouth. In fact, most of the poem reads that way, and as such usually gets a cynical reputation, which may be fair– but anon, I’m not so sure it’s not just a functional, no bullshit guide on relationship maintenance, sometimes. There’s not a lot of moral judgement going on here, other than the connotations of “good” and “treachery”. It’s just telling you what to expect from certain folks, and how to deal with it, and you’ll notice that “speaking your mind” falls under trust, whereas “flattery” falls under mistrust. Interesting.
But going back to point one– no, of course I don’t think it’s bad to say legitimately nice things about him. We’d be guilty even if it was. And certainly there are some simple, usual “nice” things that come to mind. His pain over Baldr’s death may have been worse due to him knowing what it meant for the entirety of the world, but it was on top of pain, and every creature minus Þökk cried to attempt to bring him back– that includes him. We won’t blow smoke up your ass and call him Allfather of the Year, but one must assume he cared a little bit. He’s wise as hell (maybe Hel), cunning, tenacious, charismatic, confident. All these things are true.
But we’ll say from experience, and what the Hávamál and other poems, especially the Sonatorrek seem to us to support– you will mumble. You will grumble, you will wander, you will sometimes absolutely not think you can do or say the thing or to get real personal, make the webpage. He will be an asshole, and you may repay it in kind, or vice versa. He will help you, but he will probably not swoop in to save you. It might well be the opposite.
But we’re honest about that on here, anon, because he is. The texts are not unclear on his pros and cons, to be extremely reductive. And beyond wanting people to be prepared, as you should give your friends gifts that will be useful to them, and “generous mutual giving is the key to lifelong friendship” (Hávamál 41, Crawford tr.)– we like to think that if you look back up at Hávamál 44, it might reveal that we’ve learned something, or are trying, and in our opinion, the greatest compliment you can give a teacher is putting what you’ve learned into practice.
In the end, the nicest thing we could say and do about him isn’t exactly overt, anon, but we have been writing him an extended work of praise for the last few months, here and elsewhere before and after.
You’ve all been reading it, since mid-June 2018.
Thanks for that, by the way. And happy October.
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