Some of you must be unaware Odin's children.

If you think it could be, just be patient and take your time to read the following very very long post

I think time has come to tell someone else my family story. That's something I seldom say, just to the few ones that know me well and can understand. Yet, I hope there are many more Odin's children that could listen and be interested in knowing it, other brothers and sisters waiting for stories alike their own which they haven't been able to ever tell before now. There must be some, I'm sure. That's why I'm going to write it here and spread among even unknown people.

I come from a Swedish father who has always been very proud of his Viking origin. Well, the oral traditional story in my family tells that, on my father's side, we come from the god Odin and one of his human lovers, a Viking warrior woman from South-Eastern Swedish coast, whose name is uncertain (likely Hrafnhild or Hallfrid or Thjodhild). My family name Odin is our original one (it's not just an alias, like some people out of Sweden believe), it comes from the god's Norse name Óðinn (Wōdin, Wōden, Wôdan, Wôtan in other lands), that then has become Oden in nowadays Swedish, although there are in Sweden a few that have as family name both Odin and Oden. Odin, in Swedish, is pronounced a bit differently than in English. My father was very proud of it and also proudly defined himself a modern Viking, which means he believed in equal rights and duties (most in duties than in rights, I must say) for both female and male children, as a modern person. My father was the first one to tell me about the many warrior Viking women that could use sword and axe and could fight like men, although not many people knew it then. His oral tradition spoke about fierce women in his family, who sailed and rode and fought like men. 

That means we children were all brought up as young modern Vikings, according to my father's idea of what a modern Viking has to be. Among other, you must be brave and loyal, always ready to fight with no fear. I was taught to defense myself physically, but specially I was expected to show a great moral strength. I learnt to never cry and was taught all what made (and still should make) me be -and shown- as a strong person. I had to learn to behave well as a girl, in certain occasions, and we all children of both sex had also to be able to do all what is needed at home, but I had more weapons than dolls among my toys, I was trained a bit to defend myself and to shoot as well. I got also used to beat other children any time I thought they deserved it (I'm not sure it was due to my education or to my natural temper, I think it was for them both). When once I said to some young schoolmates that I came from the god Odin, I had been teased, something like “Oh you believe you're a semi goddess, or you believe you are like Jesus Christ, God's son, here you are God's daughter, haha...”. I beat them all, and was satisfied with it, but I was also disappointed for they hadn't understood anything. It was not that I thought myself being something special. At the contrary, I was a bit confused, disoriented and in search of answers. Anyway I stopped telling others about my family story.

What I had learnt was fine, reassuring and useful to me, by all means, but I had many doubts about gods.

It sounded a bit odd that my father, who often repeated we were children of Odin, was a complete atheist.

When asking more to my father, he explained there is a theory according to which Odin had been a great man, a guide for people of his entourage, a wise and strong man, loved from his people so much that he was almost worshipped like a god and, after some time, likely after his death, he was considered just a god. This theory well explained that he was one of our ancestors. Not a god, but just a man, although a great one.

Yet, there was one more thing I couldn't understand so well. My family said Odin is our father, not the usual way he's called Allfather, but that he was REALLY father to us. My father called him “father”, my grandfather called him “father” too , and it was “father” to me and my siblings as well. I asked how can anyone be father to me, and also to my father, and to my grandfather and to any other kin in my family. I was answered a god can do many things that a human can't. Thus, was Odin a god or a human? My father said it doesn't matter much. What is important is to be related to someone who was great, so we had to be worthy of our ancestor, no matter whether he was a god or a man.

I decided that Odin was just a man. Nevertheless, one of my father's relatives, who had also the same ancestor on her mother's side, and was very proud to be able to say she came from a real god, explained the following to me, as sort of family secret: every time a woman coming from Odin in our family is going to conceive a child, Odin takes the place of her husband (or lover). So we all in our family are really conceived by the same god, who is our real father.

Everyone can imagine it did upset me a bit. Where is the woman's husband, then, when Odin takes his place? How can it be? And may it be true that Odin comes every time that in our family a new child is going to be conceived, or does it happen just now an then, once in each and every generation? Well, I ended not to believe her.

Nevertheless, there was something more, a simple yet special and almost secret rite each of us had to make every nine years. We renewed our knowledge of us as being Odin's real children, by a rite a bit alike what Vikings made to become blood brothers, involving some drops of our blood. So I asked myself why we do that if Odin is not a god?

I must add that my first father left me with another father, who was kin to him, related to him by the same origin and same family, who lived South, and sailed away (my first father, I mean, sailed away). It was quite a spread use among Vikings to send children to other families, not so strange for us neither, I thought, by all means. My second father had the same rules and family story of my first one, but after some time he and all in the family took some distance from all that.

Since I had also heard that real Vikings (let's say the “most Vikings of all”:)) were mostly rebels, intolerant of some laws and rules they didn't agree with in their land, who often sailed away to other lands, and my (first) father had sailed away too, I realize I was a real Viking, just in that same way, a rebel me too, rebel to the strict rules I was more and more requested to accept. Thus I too sailed away.

Like the ancient Vikings who left their homes and sailed across the sea, I discovered new worlds, even though a different way than them, naturally. I studied Swedish Literature and Norse Mythology at university, but I also studied and lived different religions, by books and by travelling, meeting other cultures, trying to set myself inside different people, cultures and religions. I got in touch with some kind of different phylosophy, not just religious. I made classes and attended, among others, mostly Hinduist ashram, Jewish synagogues, Christian churches to see if I could find out if some god really exist, and to see if I could believe and practise a religion that fitted me. Like an ancient Viking, I was ready to settle myself in some new land, which doesn't mean just living in a certain country, but it's mostly a spiritual acceptance, no matter where I live. At last I found the culture that seemed to fit me very well in Zen Buddhism, specially in what was proper of Samurai's art of war: spirit, body and weapon are a whole. I did like it much applied to the art of sword and bow. 

Wonderful, although it had to take years. It didn't matter, I had time, I had found my new world. I was learning and it was quite hard, since I had always been impulsive in that kind of things, although I had tried yoga for a while in the past and learnt some meditation. I had to learn to be more patient and it worked just a bit, but I had still a long way to walk on. I also realized that I had to try to become a bit wiser and that new path would have led me to wisdom and much strength.

Meanwhile, I must add, I had also got married, have had a daughter, divorced and mostly sailed alone the two of us, me and my daughter, who was often with me “on my knorr” for years...We have been through hard battles, always alone, with no warrior brothers nor sisters at our sides, a few times wounded, perhaps losing much, but never losing everything.

Well, I tried to calm me down and get more wisdom, yet I still felt I was a warrior and couldn't help it; a warrior, yet, who still had to learn so much about what I thought it was useful for my wars. I was well settling in Japanese world, but specially and generally in Zen, thinking about why not to try to move to Japan some day, although I don't care much of the physical place.

I had found what fitted me, or what I fitted best. I would have learnt how to use my spirit to become skilled in every kind of thing I wanted or needed to do. I was ready to go on like that, I seemed to have found my right path and my philosophy, more than a religion.

It was then that I heard his voice. Odin was calling me.
                                       
 It was like he said “daughter, you have been sailing far away for long time, don't you think it's time to come back home?”. Which I suddenly did, realizing he was right. I came back home and realized it was here that I belonged and still belong. 

The runes carved in small stones, which I had been used mostly as a child game, were waiting for me in their bag, they hadn't lost any of their power, they talked to me, they made me see Odin's advices. Odin has revealed to me he does exist, whatever you can or want him to imagine what he looks like. I came back home and repeated the ancient family rite, telling Odin that I recognized him as my father. My only father. The only father that hasn't left me, like the two humans that I have had and that have never cared much of me. He, only Odin, has never forgotten me. He's the only father of mine that has come and called me and helped me showing me his hand and the way to come back home.

Some time has past since then. I've sworn faith to my father, no need to say a Viking keeps an oath. I know he has always protected me, even through the hardest battles. Some times I have lost my weapon, but I've survived to fight again as long as Odin wants me to fight here. What else could a warrior wish but fighting? I'm happy for all that, I'm happy when thinking I'm likely to end my human life in battle. I've been taught from my human fathers that also female women go to Walhall, if they die in battle. Odin has shown me it's true. What else could I wish if not to go to my father, the only one who has really cared of me, and then prepare myself to stand by his side in the last fight? And one more thing. Maybe someone could think, like the young school mates of mine, I believe I'm someone special because I can call Odin my real father. Not at all. I know I'm not so worthy, I know I should have been and done much more and much better than I have. Perhaps I'm the worst of all Odin's children...

I'm still a bit confused about Odin's way to become father of some humans. I have a daughter. What must I think? I believe she's just my ex husband's daughter, I can't think different. Although I can accept that he's my father, I can't believe he also my daughter's father. Probably our Odin descent has stopped with me.

And I have one more question: how many brothers and sisters I have around in Midgard? Some of you may even not know they are Odin's children. Some maybe have family traditional stories and rites, like me, but many others among you maybe don't know who you really are, nor whom you come from either. Do think well! Why some of you don't have any evident tie to Asatru, yet you are more than just interested for some aleatory reason, rather, you feel something stronger. How many of you feel a special, unexplainable attraction to Aesir, yet you can't say why? 
Are you sure it's some interest like it was mine in other religions and cultures, that could even end after some time, or may it be because Odin has called you back home, because you are some other real children of him? Don't you believe you could be real Odin's children, the same way I am, even though maybe you were born in some far away land and culture and you just have never been told who you really are??

You may be Odin's children, my brothers and sisters...do tell your story or discover it!!!