Viking Lore Articles — Odin

Wolves are known for their keen intelligence, graceful strength, and their unbreakable bond to their family - their pack mates. Wolves live in challenging environments, but still, succeed as apex predators. What qualities do you think are admirable in this animal? Ancient Vikings respected wolves for these enduring qualities and relied on this animal as a sacred totem. Just as wolves hunt in packs and use their intellect to trap much larger prey, Vikings would use clever hunting methods to trap larger prey for their family group. Sometimes ancient Vikings even had encounters with wolves which would have been a...

Ansuz: (A: The As, ancestral god, i.e. Odin.) A revealing message or insight, communication. Signals, inspiration, enthusiasm, speech, true vision, power of words and naming. Blessings, the taking of advice. Good health, harmony, truth, wisdom. Ansuz Reversed or Merkstave: Misunderstanding, delusion, manipulation by others, boredom. Vanity and grandiloquence. (Odin is a mighty, but duplicitous god. He always has his own agenda.) Ansuz in the A of the Nordic runic alphabet, and stands for Odin, the ancestral god, who is said to give first humans the gifts of life and intelligence (this is why Ansuz is sometimes called Odin’s breath). This...