One hand and One eye

How Wōden and Tīw  lost their eye and their hand is worthwhile looking at as it draws out their inner beings for us.  Tīw is called by the Northerners (see Skáldskaparmál 16) “einhenda ás ” “god of the one-hand”. And the tale of how Tīw lost one hand is in Gylfaginning 25 and 34.  It is more or less the only myth we have about him. Loki has three children by the ettin-wife Angrboða: “Fenrisúlf” “Jörmungandr, þat er Miðgarðsormr” and “Hel”. All of which it was foretold would bring scathe to the gods. Alföðr had Jörmungandr cast in the deep sea, Hel he cast into Niflheimr, and although “Fenrisúlf” was still young it was soon seen that they had to bind him. That the gods don't kill any of these also tells us something about them.  Having broke free of two fetters already “Fenrisúlf” had grown great indeed by the time the third fetter was made (“the third times the charm”) that would hold him. But this wolf would not allow himself to have the fetter put on him a third time unless one of the gods would put his own hand in his mouth as a wed veði (=a pledge, and whence we have the wed of wedding “pledging”, and wedlock “sacrificial offering (lock, →O.E. lac) at the making of a pledge” and your “wedded wife” is a wife you have made a pledge to):

“fyrr en þeir lögðu honum at veði hönd Týs í munn hans”

“until they laid Týr's hand into his mouth as a pledge”

“þá leggi einn hverr yðarr hönd sína í munn mér at veði, at þetta sé falslaust gert."

“let some one of you lay his hand in my mouth, for a pledge that this is done in good faith”.

Only Tīw was willing to do this, holding out his right hand (“hönd sína hægri” “his stronger hand”) and knowing all the while that he would lose it. Thus Tīw gives up his hand, not for wisdom or anything like that, but only for the greater good of all the gods and what goes with that, namely the good of elves and of men. Which good we all still brook, or, as is more often found, misbrook, today, and will go on to do until the wolf breaks free.

But Wōden's eye is something else. Þjóðólfr inn hvinverski (see Skáldskaparmál 9) calls Wōden “eineygja Friggjar faðmbyggvi” “one eyed bosom-dweller of Frigg”. And the tale is beckoned to in Gylfaginning 15:

“En undir þeiri rót, er til hrímþursa horfir, þar er Mímisbrunnr, er spekð ok mannvit er í fólgit, ok heitir sá Mímir, er á brunninn. Hann er fullr af vísendum, fyrir því at hann drekkr ór brunninum af horninu Gjallarhorni. Þar kom Alföðr ok beiddist eins drykkjar af brunninum, en hann fekk eigi, fyrr en hann lagði auga sitt at veði. Svá segir í Völuspá:

21.
Allt veit ek, Óðinn,
hvar þú auga falt,
í þeim inum mæra
Mímisbrunni.
Drekkr mjöð Mímir
morgin hverjan
af veði Valföðrs.
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?”


“But under that root which turns toward the Rime-Giants is Mímir's Well, wherein wisdom and understanding are stored; and he is called Mímir, who keeps the well. He is full of ancient lore, since he drinks of the well from the Gjallar-Horn. Thither came Allfather and craved one drink of the well; but he got it not until he had laid his eye in pledge. So says Völuspá:

All know I, Odin, | where the eye thou hiddest,
In the wide-renowned | well of Mímir;
Mímir drinks mead | every morning
From Valfather's wage. | Wit ye yet, or what?”

So although the eye is  another wed veði, this one is not openly for any greater good, but at first sight seemingly only for Wōden’s own good, a drink from Mimir's well will only further his own gathering of wisdom. Whilst Tīw’s hand-offering is truly a kingly and knightly thing, Wōden’s eye-offering is that of a wizard.  It is also  fonding  here to see these offerings  as offerings being somehow made to each other. We shall see later that offerings to Tīw might well have been made into water, whilst Wōden is at least linked to wolves in so much as he is said to have two wolves that he feeds as pets?  

But be that all as it may be, it is enough to see that, notwithstanding his widely acknowledged might to bestow siȝe or sigor, the Northern sigr, "victory", Wōden is nevertheless mainly to be understood as a "subdolus senex" "crafty old man"   (Saxo Gesta Danorum 3.4.3) and as a "viator indefessus" "indefatigabe journeyer" (Saxo Gesta. Dan. 3.4.5) whence the Romans evened him with their Mercurius.  From what Snorri Sturluson writes in his Ynglinga saga it would seem that Óðin was the first finder and teacher of the arts (íþróttir) to our Northern forefathers (as we marked in a earlier post [here]), and which would be akin to what we find written of the Gaulish Mercurius in Cæsar’s commentaries on the Gallic Unfrith.  Tīw/Tīȝ also has no little hand in the bestowing of "victory" too, thus the Romans evened him with their Mars, but whilst at one time his worship was seemingly even with that of Wōden, it can be seen to have waned as Wōden's waxed.  And it may well be that many things which are now said to belong to Wōden once truly belonged to Tīw/Tīȝ.   The whys and wherefores behind this are now hidden from us, but under the name of Núadu Airgetlám, a god answering to our Tīw/Tīȝ, has been long minned by the Irish.  There we will see that he is the king of the gods (Túatha Dé Danann), with a magic sword, and is seemingly the archetype of all the great kings of myth.  He is also the great forefather god of the Irish who all spring from his two sons Glass & Cú Oiss (see Rawlinson B 502 140b (headed “Mínigud Senchais Síl Chuind Inso Sís”)), so that the title of ollathair, that is all-father, might be said to better belong to him rather than to the Dagda.  It runs thus:

“Dá mc oc Nuadait Argatlám: Glass & Cú Oiss. Glass a quo sunt Síl Cuind & Dál Riata & Ulaid & Laigin & Ossairgi. Cú Oiss a quo Muimnich nammá.”
 

“The two  sons of Nuada Argatlam: Glass and Cú Oiss. From Glass are the Sil Cuind and the Dal Riata and the Ulster-men and Leinster-men and the Osraige (=Ossory=folk of Kilkenny and Laois).     From Cú Oiss are only the Munster-men.”

 Mark here also that it may be that we are to understand Glass "Green" & Cú Oiss "Deer-hound" as a kind of "Heavenly Twins".  Other genealogies have other things and go about to hide Núadu Airgetlám as something else.  Professor Rhŷs in his Lectures ...  marked some of the other Núadus found in the Irish king-lists and genealogies and he understands them all as one and the same.  I only mark here the genealogy from Rawlinson B 502 154b ("Item De Genelogiis Regum Muminensium.") which makes the kings of Munster spring from "m. Con Oiss m. Nuadat Décláim".  This "Núadu Déclám" is listed in the Cóir Anmann 7 as "Nuada Deghlamh":

"Nuada Deghlamh .i. Nuadha Deaghlamha(ch) .i. roba maith & roba láidir a dhí láimh."

"Nuada Deg-lámh, that is, Nuada the good-handed, i.e. good and strong were his two hands." 

But "Déclám" looks more like it should be "ten-hand" to me!  So from one hand now Núadu has ten, isn't that wonderful!

I think that a god truly answering to Wōden is hard to find in the body of Irish myth.    Lug, who many folk clutch at here, is at best an odd blending of Wōden and Balder, but with much more that matches him to Balder than to Wōden.  And there again, when  Lug first turns up at Núadu's hall (as Lancelot, Gawain, Percival and Galahad once did at Arthur's hall) and frees the Túatha Dé Danann from the Fomoire, he is Þórr  "sem ungr drengr" "as a young lad" (=Jack the Giant Killer) blending with one or other of the thundering kind of "Heavenly Twins".  His Welsh "other I" Lleu Llaw Gyffes is moreover well understood to be a "twin" of Dylan Eil Ton, and Huan "sun"  is even given as another name for Lleu!  The Irish Cían who stands for the Welsh Gwyddion/Gilfaethwy, and thus our Wōden, is hardly an household name, and indeed among the Irish it seems Lug was more often thought of as mac Ethlenn or mac Ethnenn ("son of Ethliu or Ethniu") from his mother, than mac Cein from his father.  My best guess would be that Wōden in Irish myth becomes Fionn mac Cumhaill.

However, to deem from the unnamed one-eyed door keeper of Núadu's hall in the beginning of Aided chloinne Tuireann,  it would seem that the minning of Wōden has waned among the Irish in the same way as that of Tīw/Tīȝ has done among the Northerners.  If Wōden is behind Fionn mac Cumhaill (=Welsh Gwynn ap Nudd, see Rhŷs Lectures... (1888) ) then it is odd that he is made a son, or downstream offspring of, Núadu, whilst Snorri calls Týr "son Óðins" (Skáldskaparmál 16. Týskenningar.)!  The Welsh seem to have been more even-handed than the Irish however, thus in their Cyfranc Lludd a Llefelys, Lludd Llaw Ereint, who answers to   Núadu Airgetlám and Tīw/Tīȝ, has a brother Llefelys, who, although he has a name lifted from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum where "Gligueillus" is the oldfather of  "Lud"(= Lludd), nevertheless answers to Wōden wonderfully well I think.  Both are kings of their own kingdoms, and Llefelys gives his brother the winning rede by which he can overcome the foes that beset his own kingdom.  And it is from such a matching Tīw/Tīȝ and Wōden, or their Celtic evenlings,  I think can be seen to underlie much of what is said of King Arthur and Merlin (themselves the British answers to the Irish Conchobar mac Nessa and the druid Cathbad).

Now whilst much can be said for Wōden and  Tīw/Tīȝ being in the West what  Mitraḥ (मित्रः) and Varuṇaḥ (वरुणः), the two samrājau (सम्राजौ), are  in the Ṛgvedaḥ (ऋग्वेदः), yet if the Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa 4.10 is to be believed, these two gods could be said to be already known to us as Day and Night:

 ahar vai Mitro, rātrir Varuṇa. 

Mitra is the day, Varuna the night; 

And it is worth bearing in mind that in the beginning of  Sigrdrífumál, Sigrdrífa/Brynhildr calls on Day and Night, and their sons and daughters, before she calls upon  the Æsir and the Asyniur!