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The nine days on which Odin hung on Yggdrasil, the world ash tree, at the end of which he fell screaming from the tree, having gained the knowledge he sought.

There was a tree that spread its branches through all the worlds and that had its roots in three of the worlds. That tree was named Yggdrasil. One of its roots was in Asgarth, one was in Jotunheim, and one was in Niflheim that was the World of the Dead. The root that was in Niflheim was beside a well. Therein was the dreadful serpent, Nithogg: Nithogg gnawed for ever at the root of the World Tree, wanting to destroy it. And Ratatosk, the squirrel, ran up and down Yggdrasil making trouble between the eagle that was at the top of the tree and the serpent that was below. He went to tell the serpent how the eagle was bent upon tearing him to pieces, and he went back to tell the eagle how the serpent planned to devour him. Beside the root of the tree in Jotunheim was a well guarded by old Mimir the Wise. Whoever drank out of this well would know all of the things that are to come to pass. And beside the root that was in Asgarth was another well: the three sisters who are the Norns guarded it, and their names were Urth, Verthandi, and Skuld – Past, Present, and Future; they took the water of the well and watered Yggdrasil with it that the Tree of the World might be kept green and strong. This well was called Urda's well. Two swans were on the water of it; they made music that the Dwellers in Asgarth often heard. On the branches of the tree four stags grazed; they shook from their horns the water that fell as rain in Mithgarth. And on the topmost branch of Yggdrasil, the branch that was so high that the Gods themselves could hardly see it, was perched the eagle that the serpent was made to fear. Upon the beak of the eagle a hawk perched, a hawk that saw what the eyes of the eagle could not see.
Padraic Colum, Orpheus, Myths of the World, 1930   Source

August 17 - 25 | Odin and his Ordeal

In Norse mythology (Ásatrú), Odin (Woden; Wuotan; Wodhanaz; Óðinnp; Oden; Wodan; Othin), Nordic (Icelandic) and Germanic, is the supreme god, and god of war and death, but also the god of poetry and wisdom. He was the patron of a fanatical warrior cult, the Berserks. He is thought to be a syncretisation of the Germanic War gods Wodan and Tiwaz. His role, like many of the Norse pantheon, is complex: he is both god of wisdom and war, roles not necessarily conceived of as being mutually sympathetic in contemporary society. His name has roots in the Old Norse word óðr, meaning ‘inspiration, madness, anger’.

Odin was head of the Aesir sky gods and the main god of battle victory, as well as god of the dead. He was worshipped in the Viking period (c. 700 CE) through to Christianization (c. 1100 CE) and beyond, the centre of his cult being Uppsala, Sweden.

The Roman historian Tacitus refers to Odin as Mercury for the reason that, like Mercury, Odin was regarded as Psychopompos, ‘the leader of souls’. We know him from Snorri Sturluson’s Prose, or Younger, Edda, and the Historica Danica (by Saxo – the book that gave us Amleth, who Shakespeare turned into Hamlet), and other codices and inscriptions. He ruled over the Valkyries, warrior spirits, and lived in the Hall of Valhalla, which he populated with the spirits of slain heroes, who will defend the realm against the Frost Giants on the judgement day (Ragnarok).

Odin’s symbol is the raven (he had two ravens, named Hugin and Munin, or Huginn and Muninn), his weapon, a spear carved with runes or treaties. Odin is also symbolised by a knotted device, the valknut. He wanders the earth disguised as a traveller, and once pierced himself with his own spear, and hung on the world tree, Yggdrasil, in his pursuit of knowledge through communication with the dead. The nine days on which he hung on Yggdrasil are known as Odin’s ordeal (nine being a number deeply significant in Norse magical practice – there were, for example, nine realms of existence), thereby learning nine magical songs and eighteen magical runes. His ordeal of hanging on the tree until his enlightenment reminds one of the stories of both the Buddha and Jesus. Incidentally, one of Odin's alternative names is Ygg, and Yggdrasil therefore means 'Ygg's (Odin's) horse'. Another of Odin's names is Hangatyr, the god of the hanged.

There was a festival in Uppsala at this time in which men and animals were sacrificed and hung in trees; followers of Odin were also burnt on funeral pyres.

The final day of the nine days of his ordeal is the Festival of the Discovery of the Runes, when Odin fell screaming from the tree, having gained the knowledge he sought.

But the Occult reason why the Norse Yggdrasil, the Hindu Aswatha, the Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, and the Tibetan Zampun, are one with the Kabalistic Sephirothal Tree, and even with the Holy Tree made by Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden – who among the western scholars can tell? Nevertheless, the fruits of all those "Trees," whether Pippala or Haoma or yet the more prosaic apple, are the "plants of life," in fact and verity. The prototypes of our races were all enclosed in the microcosmic tree, which grew and developed within and under the great mundane macrocosmic tree; and the mystery is half revealed in the Dirghotamas, where it is said: "Pippala, the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come spirits who love the science, and where the gods produce all marvels." As in the Gogard, among the luxuriant branches of all those mundane trees, the "Serpent" dwells. But while the Macroscosmic tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic tree are the Serpents of the manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others are its reflected parts. The "tree" is man himself, of course, and the Serpents dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth.
HP Blavatsky; The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2, Part 1, Stanza IV

Index of articles on folklore and other topics

Viking treasure at the Wilson’s Almanac Scriptorium

Vikings and the origins of England's Hocktide games

Feast day of Loki the Trickster

Sleipnir, Odin's magical horse

Hel, Hodda and Skadi, the Viking Three Fates

The Burning of the Clavie

Wayland the Smith

Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Tynwald Day

Folklore, customs, pre-Christian origins of: 

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