“Hrafngaldr Ódins” – The Raven Charm of Odin. A Forgotten Edda poem

In 1867, the Norwegian authority on Old Norse literature, Sophus Bugge, dismissed the Raven Charm of Odin as a hoax and decided that it should never again be published as a part of the Poetic Edda. He based his decision on his belief that the Edda poems were representative of simple folklore, a category into which the Raven Charm did not fit. Also, he confessed, as many before him, that it was impossible to decipher this poem. All the Edda poems are metaphorical and allusive, giving away just a tip of an enormous narrative iceberg. But at least it is usually possible to recognize a narrative, and thanks to Snorri Sturlusson, who in 1225 wrote an explanation of the metaphors known as The Prose Edda, most of the Edda poems may be understood. Not so with the Raven Charm, and Snorri never even mentioned this poem. However, I believe that Snorri consciously left out of his explanation poems and parts of poems that were simply too seething with paganism to be acceptable in his time, and that could, in any way, reveal the true spiritual depths of the pagan lore and thus be a threat to the Christian faith. The hanging and self-sacrifice of Odin, a narrative that actually makes up the climax of the Hávamál poem, is not mentioned by Snorri at all, although he often quotes other parts of that poem. The story of Gunnlöd offering the precious mead is reduced by Snorri from being a story of sacred marriage and a stately goddess offering the drink from a golden throne, to being a story …
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