Odin as the Devil @satsuti

ODIN AS THE DEVIL

Many people often dismiss the Odin-as-a-devil topic as simply a Christian demonization of the Norse trickster god and nothing more. In some traditional witchcraft circles the folkloric Devil’s association with Odin is somewhat acknowledged, but few seem to have any actual experience to talk about. That’s why I’m choosing to write this article and share the perspective of someone who’s both raised and currently living in Sweden, of someone who wasn’t actively looking to run into Devil-Odin but couldn’t avoid it in the end anyway.

”A late medieval trial for theft and apostasy in Stockholm charges the accused ’had served Odin for seven years.’ . . . Nor is this case an isolated one: some years later, another man is charged in Stockholm with similar crimes and a similar connection to the old heathen god. This man is sentenced to burn at the stake for apostasy, and again the accusation maintains that he served Odin. Evidence from the postmedieval period strongly suggests a continuous Swedish tradition in which people appealed to Odin for success, especially in financial matters.” - Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages, Stephen A. Mitchell

As a woman of color I’ve had an aversion against anything to do with nNorse gods and religion for a long time, thanks to white supremacist who have tainted these traditions with their bullshit. The thought of looking into anything Norse related never crossed my mind because of that sad fact, despite me living on Scandinavian land. I think that’s why the Witch Lord basically grabbed me by the scruff of my neck in order to get me to see. Usually, he’s talked about as an elusive spirit who drops clues for you to pick up and piece together like a big puzzle. But in this case he was as direct as can be; a pale man dressed in all black who told me his name - Odin - before making it clear that he was the mediator and gateway to my land and its spirits. A king of trolls, elves, the dead and the like.

I’ll start with clarifying that Oden, Odin, Wodan, or Wotan, who’s the norse-germanic folkloric Leader of the Wild Hunt, is not the same as the Norse god Odin. Not entirely. One of my earliest mistakes was to approach him as just another facet of the Norse god Odin and view him through a strictly Norse lens. It didn’t take long before I was twatted over the head and told that he in fact was the Old One, the Horned King, who uses Odin’s face when it’s convenient for him and is by no means restricted to this shape or name. Faces and names have different powers attached to them, and the Devil taking the guise of Odin does exactly that: he taps into a certain power of a powerful sorcerer. Moreover, the Hidden Folk are known to not be keen on revealing their true names and the folkloric Odin/Woden is the King of them, after all. A master shapeshifter.

Traditional Witchcraft is regional witchcraft..? (*)

So does that mean that Odin as the Devil is tied to Germanic land, then? The short answer to this is yes, in a way. I say this because the Devil in this shape ties into the cultures and practices of these countries (for me that includes runes, staves and álfáblot) You can clearly see that folk practices that are closer to each other on the map - with roughly the same flora and fauna (and sometimes seasonal changes) - are usually more similar to each other. Now, I’ll add that the Old One and his Lady are by no means small spirits, they have the same power as most deities. That means that Devil-Odin isn’t bound and shackled to a place, but can travel through and about the Otherworld. He can be invoked and present anywhere he is called. On the other hand, he isn’t the key to the land spirits everywhere. I wouldn’t approach the Odin I’ve met as an authoritative figure for African nature spirits (despite being part African myself, I might add) and neither would I invoke him for Japanese yokai. Yeah, you get the gist of it.

The difference in my case—compared to, let’s say, someone in India—is that I cannot really avoid working with this particular Devil figure, not if I want a relationship with the spirits of my land. Odin made that very clear when he first revealed himself to me. Non-Germanic places often have their own head spirits in their folklore that act as sort of authoritative figures on their land, and so while it’s most certainly possible to 8

work with Odin as the Devil anywhere, it’s also important to not forget to look into one’s local lore in parallel to that. Because, let’s admit, a big part of traditional witchcraft is about working and communing with the spirits that are right outside your window.

( * This doesn’t count for sabbatic witchcraft that works through an Abrahamic paradigm with Devil figures as Azazel and Tubal-Qayin. They don’t have a folkloric tie to a region and can be worked with everywhere. The same goes for Lucifer as a witch father. )