Odin's Hunger
Odin wanted to know everything. It was his vice, his drive, the hunger that could never be sated no matter how much he consumed. The other gods wanted gold or glory or love or battle. Odin wanted to know what happens when the world ends. He wanted to know what existed before it began. He wanted to know his enemies' thoughts and the secrets of the dead and the shape of things to come, and he was prepared to pay whatever it cost, which turned out to be quite a lot.
He had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory, and every morning he sent them out across the world, and every evening they came back and whispered in his ears everything they had seen. Odin said himself that he worried Huginn would not return, but that he worried even more about Muninn. A god who loses his thoughts can get new ones. A god who loses his memory loses himself.
He had two wolves, Geri and Freki, the greedy and the ravenous, and they lay at his feet in Valhöll and received all the food that was served. Odin himself ate nothing. He lived on wine, only wine. A god who filled his head instead of his stomach and never had enough of anything.
There was a well at one of Yggdrasil's roots, deep in the land of the giants. Mímir's well. In that well all the wisdom of the world lay gathered, and it was guarded by Mímir himself, whose head had been full of secrets since the beginning of time. Odin rode there on Sleipnir, alone, because you do not conduct such business with witnesses.
Mímir smiled, as though he had been waiting. An eye, he said. Not gold, not oaths, not promises. An eye. And Odin, the proud, the mighty, he who had killed Ymir and built the world from his corpse, did not even hesitate. Or if he did, no source tells of it. He stuck his fingers into his own eye socket, pressed his thumb in behind the globe, and tore it out. It sounded like pulling a cork from a bottle. The blood ran down his cheek and dripped onto the grass, and it must have hurt so bloody much there are no words for it, but Odin said nothing. The eye sank to the bottom of the well and lies there still, staring upward through the water, and Odin drank, and what he learned that day he has never told anyone.
But it was not enough. It was never enough for Odin. He went to Yggdrasil, the world-tree, and hanged himself from its branches. Nine nights he hung there, pierced by his own spear Gungnir, without food, without water, with the wind as his only company. The blood ran along the shaft and down into the bark, and his body swung back and forth like a pendulum in the dark. It was a sacrifice of himself, to himself, and you can puzzle over the logic of that, but Odin did not care about logic. He cared about results.
On the ninth night the runes revealed themselves. They fell from nowhere, signs of fire and ice, and Odin seized them with a scream that was heard through all nine worlds, a scream beyond pain and joy, something else that has no name. Then he fell down, and he could do things no one else could.
Eighteen charms he learned. The one that healed wounds. The one that broke fetters. The one that stopped arrows in mid-flight. The one that quenched fires. The one that stilled storms. The one that turned sorcery back on whoever cast it. The one that made the dead rise from the grave and speak, and that one you used seldom, because the dead rarely have pleasant things to tell. Each of them had a price, and Odin paid them all, and he never said what the price was.
He also knew seiðr, the magic the Vanir had taught him, and that was a knowledge that cost more than the eye and more than the blood. Seiðr was women's magic, magic practised on the heath with drums and trance and things a man should not do, things that made others call him a faggot, say he let himself be fucked like a woman, and those words followed him for the rest of his days. But Odin took it, because Odin wanted to know, and the shame was just another price in a long line of prices.
He did not stop there either. Odin could not stop digging. He disguised himself, took other names: Grímnir, Gangleri, Bölverkr, Hárjandr, hundreds of names, and wandered through the worlds as an old man in a tattered cloak and wide-brimmed hat and with a single eye that burned with a fire people could not meet. He asked questions that no one should ask. He entered houses where he was not welcome. He sat by fires to which he had not been invited.
He went to the giant Vafþrúðnir, known as the wisest of all giants, and challenged him to a contest of knowledge where the loser paid with his head. Vafþrúðnir received him, because giants are vain about their wisdom, and they sat down across from each other by the fire.
Vafþrúðnir asked what the horse is called that draws the day. Odin answered: Skinfaxi. Vafþrúðnir asked what the horse is called that draws the night. Odin answered: Hrímfaxi, and the dew falls from his bit. They asked and answered, asked and answered. What is the river called that divides the land of the giants from the gods? Ífing, and it never freezes. What is the plain called where Surtr and the gods will meet? Vígríðr, and it is a hundred leagues in every direction. Where does the wind come from? From the giant Hræsvelgr who sits at heaven's edge in eagle-shape and beats his wings.
Every question was harder than the last, and every answer showed they both knew more about the world's secrets than was healthy. Vafþrúðnir answered everything correctly. Odin answered everything correctly. They were evenly matched, and the night crept on, and the fire sank, and they sat on.
At last Odin asked the final question: what did Odin whisper in Baldr's ear at the pyre? Vafþrúðnir fell silent. It was a question only Odin himself could answer. And the giant understood who his guest was, and he understood he had lost, and his face went cold, and he said: "Against Odin himself I have matched my wits; you are the wisest of all." And his head was Odin's to take.
Odin walked away with his head on his shoulders and Vafþrúðnir's wisdom in his mind, and he was still not satisfied. There was one more thing, the greatest treasure of all, and it was locked inside a mountain far away in the land of the giants. The mead of poetry. Poetry itself, liquid in three vessels, and Odin meant to have it.