Unfortunately, the myth connected with this curious poem is not preserved; but we can gather so much from it, that Odin was said to have immolated himself to himself by hanging in the world-tree, and that thenceforth he claimed all men who had been hung as members of his band.
In one of the early Norse sagas we have a story about a king called Vikarr, who desired to dedicate himself to the god, and so he had a gallows erected before his palace, and got a friend to fasten a halter round his neck and hang him on the gallows. Another tells of a woman who, to gain her husband’s love, hung her son to the god to obtain his assistance so as to brew a good vat of ale. At Lethra, in Denmark, every nine years ninety-nine men, and as many horses, were hung in honour of the god; and at Upsala numerous human victims swung by the neck about the image of Odin. After their great victory over the Romans the Cymbri and Teutons hung all their captives as a thank-offering to their gods; and after the slaughter of the legions of Varus the horses of the Romans were found hung on the trees on the scene of defeat.
Indeed, one of the names of Odin was the Hanging God, either because he hung himself, or because he had victims hung to him.
The world-tree, the great tree in which he hung, the tree which supports heaven and earth, was called Yggdrasil, which means Ogre’s horse, for one of the names of Odin was Yggr or Ogre, to express his love of human sacrifices; and all the old nursery tales and rhymes concerning ogres have reference to this great god of the English people. Jack mounts the beanstalk, and above the clouds enters the land of the Ogre, with his one eye, who devours men. Jack the Giant Killer, who lives in Cornwall, represents the British Christian fighting against the Pagan Saxon, impersonated as the great man-eating ogre.
“Fee-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Whether he be alive, or whether he be dead,
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”
In this again we have a reference to Woden or Odin, who was also called the Miller; for the mutter or roll of the thunder was supposed to be the working of his quern, grinding up his human victims for his meal.
Originally, victims were either freewill offerings, or were chosen from among the best in the land. So we hear of a Norse king every ten years sacrificing one of his sons, and of the Swedes, in time of famine, sacrificing their king, but it became general to offer the prisoners taken in war, and when these lacked, to sacrifice those who lay in prison condemned for crimes.
In one of the Norse sagas, we are told of a king’s daughter that, on hearing of the death of her father in battle, she went to the valley dedicated to the gods and there hung herself. Her father, having died in battle, went to Walhalla to Odin, and her only chance of being with him in the spirit world was to hang herself to the honour of Odin, who would then receive her among his elect, and so associate her with her father. If she were to die in her bed, she would go down to the nether world of Hela.