THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 3

A THOUGHT ON HUGINN AND MUNINN, ODIN’S RAVENS

It has long been known that Huginn means ‘Thought’, while Muginn means, perhaps, ‘of the Mind’.  According to Rudolf Simek, ‘Attempts have been made to interpret Odin’s ravens as a personification of the god’s intellectual powers…”  Yet as Simek also points out, Odin is shown accompanied by birds as early as the 6th and 7th centuries (Vendel Age).

Not much work has been done to seriously consider K. Hauck’s idea that the ravens “are bird-shaped valkyries”.  Simek concludes that “this claim seems to be somewhat extreme.”  It would not appear to be safe to compare such birds of the battlefield, eaters of the slain, with Irish goddesses who are known to take the form of crows or ravens, e.g. Badb, 'Crow'.

Yet I would refer readers to the wonderful Greek mythology Website Theoi, for the following discussion of the goddess Athena’s birth:

http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/AthenaMyths.html#Birth

To quote but one version of the birth-tale:

Hesiod, Theogony 929a ff :

"Zeus lay with the fair-cheeked daughter of Okeanos and Tethys apart from Hera ((lacuna)) … deceiving Metis (Thought) although she was full wise. But he seized her with his hands and put her in his belly, for fear that she might bring forth something stronger than his thunderbolt: therefore did Zeus, who sits on high and dwells in the aether, swallow her down suddenly. But she straightway conceived Pallas Athene: and the father of men and gods gave her birth by way of his head on the banks of the river Trito. And she remained hidden beneath the inward parts of Zeus, even Metis, Athena's mother, worker of righteousness, who was wiser than gods and mortal men. There the goddess (Athena) received that [her arms] whereby she excelled in strength all the deathless ones who dwell in Olympos, she who made the host-scaring weapon of Athena. And with it [Zeus) gave her birth, arrayed in arms of war."

Knowing as we do the enduring power of certain Indo-European mythological motifs, is it unreasonable to suggest that just as Athena the war goddess, whose sacred bird was the owl, was born from the head of the sky-father Zeus, so, too, were the valkyries as ravens born from the head of Odin?

Odin's head, being the womb of 'Thought', of things 'of the Mind', could thus be viewed as giving birth to the Choosers of the Slain.