Slow Havamal: 157

In verse 157, Odin says he knows a twelfth spell: If he sees a dead man hanging from a tree, he carves and paints certain runes and the dead man will walk and talk with him.

Jackson Crawford notes that Odin is the Lord of the Noose, owing perhaps to his hanging from Yggdrasil, and he has an affinity with all hanged men. To hang is an Odinic death, and perhaps one that earns favor in the High One’s eyes. That said, I think it’s misleading to assume that what’s going on here is Odin paying some favor to someone who died in a preferred manner. I don’t discount the possibility that he brings these men back as some consolation, or for some higher purpose of his, but I believe what this verse refers to is something more ordinary in the world of magic: the evocation of spirits.( Read more... )