Odin is the Allfather, chief of the Æsir, and lord of Asgard, but he is less a settled king than a restless seeker of knowledge. He gave up one eye at Mímir’s well for a draught of wisdom, and learned the secret of the runes only by hanging, self-wounded, on the World Tree Yggdrasil for nine nights — a sacrifice of himself to himself. Two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, fly out over the nine worlds each day and return to whisper what they have seen into his ears; wolves lie at his feet. He rides the eight-legged horse Sleipnir and carries the unerring spear Gungnir, and in his hall Valhalla he gathers the einherjar, warriors slain in battle, to fight at his side when the end comes.
Veit ek, at ek hekk vindga meiði á nætr allar níu, geiri undaðr ok gefinn Óðni, sjalfr sjalfum mér, á þeim meiði, er manngi veit hvers af rótum renn
“I ween that I hung on the windy tree, / Hung there for nights full nine; / With the spear I was wounded, and offered I was / To Othin, myself to myself, / On the tree that none may ever know / What root beneath it runs.” — Hávamál 139, tr. Bellows
That end is fixed: at Ragnarök, Odin leads the einherjar against the wolf Fenrir and is swallowed by him, though his son Víðarr avenges him at once. Odin’s dual nature — patron of poets and kings, but also of gallows and the slain — runs through every tale told of him.
