THE SCENE: The passage below provides a brief illustration of what it must have been like to worship Odin: sometimes he provided victory, sometimes he provoked defeat, but regardless his influence always brought blood and death.
THE TEXT: The King Harald Wartooth send Bruni to spy our how King Hring had arranges his forces and whether he was prepared for the battle. Bruni said, “It seems to me that Hring and his host are ready to fight. He has deployed his forces in an amazing way. He has arranged his battle lines the boar’s-head formation, and it won’t be good to fight against him.”
Then King Harald said, “Who could have taught Hring how to form the boar’s-head formation? I thought that no one knew except for me and Odin – or does Odin wish to deny me the gift of victory? That has never happened before, and still I pray to him that he does not do that. But since he now does not wish to grant me victory; then may he let me fall in the battle with all my host, if he will it not that the Danes have the victory as before. And all the slain that fall on this field, I give to Odin.”
– Sogubrot, 13th Century AD
