Wōdmã

Wōdmã is the messenger god and god of spirits and miracles in the Northian pantheon in the Epic age. He is associated with supernatural phenomenon, clairvoyance, trance, and sorcery in Northian religious beliefs, in which he may or may not also be the agent of another divinity.

Name

Wōdmã is usually traced to the Proto-Erani-Eracuran word formation *woh₂t-mn̥, from the root *woh₂t- meaning "excitement, madness". Phonologically, it is a regular outcome of the development from Proto-Nordic-Northian to Epic Northian.

Wōdmã is an ablauting noun of the 3rd declension in the Epic language; the genitive form is Ūzmāe̯ṅ < PNN *udmens, cp. nom. *wodmun.

Image

In traditions that reflect an earlier conceptualization, Wōdmã lacks a physical form and is linked to other phenomena that lack physical forms, such as the wind. In turn, these phenomena served as Wōdmã's physical form. Wōdmã is "carried" (vrīoi̯ < PNN *bʰreyeoi) through the wind or "comes by means of the wind" (ānθē īti). Likewise, Wōdmã is associated with birds as animals that also ride the wind.

By the late Epic period, Wōdmã seems to have acquired the concrete, humanoid image of a young, beardless man with lanky limbs and long hair. His attire is usually described as traveller's garb, wearing a cloak, hat, light body armour for protection, and leg wrappings. Characteristic of divinities, the personified Wōdmã travels with a quadriga of horses, while human vehicles typically were biga. He carries a spear on his chariot.

Mythology

In the Epic of Namena, Wōdmã is explicitly said to be the companion of wanderers, clairvoyants, magicians, healers, and poets. Shelly says that the category of magicians, healers, and poets were notably itinerant professionals in the Epic age and so could be equated with "wanderer" under the heading of "mystic", and magicians, healers, and poets often moved in Northian lands alone or in small groups. While many Northian tribes were migratory, they were not "wanderers" in this sense; only those who travelled without family were "wanderers" in Epic terminology, as familial travel was normative to Northian culture. In contrast, mystics were characterized by their severed familial ties in favour for professional-cum-spiritual ties.

Wōdmã's association with wanderers also underlies the more sinister aspects of Wōdmã's mythos. Magicians could be kind individuals who used their powers for ends approved by communities, but more often they were suspected of black magic, using their familiarity with the supernatural for evil ends. Nevertheless, magicians were a complex and variegated class of characters in Epic literature; they could display both human and supernatural stereotypes as well as act as characters in their own right. Hill says "Northian magicians were often lesser gods with human emotions or humans illicitly approximating gods." This ambivalence and propensity for caprice and flamboyance seems to be reflected in Wōdmã's character.

Amongst those patronized by Wōdmã, none were so revered as the healer and none so reviled as the necromancer. Both were regarded as spiritual workers, able to manipulate an individual's invisible spirit. The healer unified and placated a spirit with its body, restoring the ill or insane to the normalcy of life, while the necromancer violated the spirit or the body for their nefarious purpose. A certain class of witches under Wōdmã's patronage could enter a person through a wound and thereafter wrest its control from the rightful spirit. This was held particularly liable to happen in battle as susceptible wounds were inevitably accured. The fear that Wōdmã's witches could steal the war dead prompted months-long vigils held for the dead, where wounds were meticulously closed, and funerary rites offered to placate Wōdmã and ward away necromancers.

Namena warns that while Wōdmã is capable of bringing his clients bounties of wisdom and supernatural powers, he is a very calculating god and will also exploit worshippers should they become available. The poet advises that only those "strong of good-mindedness and arms" should approach his arts. This is because "the weakly-minded will give up too much for Wōdmã's patronage, to the end of owing everything and owning nothing." The price of giving up one's mental independence was dear: "men their lives, even in death they cannot redeem." This particular aspect of Wōdmã was apparently worshipped by cultists as Wōdmã Psychopomp—the god so powerful to take human minds away, dead or alive—during the Late Canon era.

Strong gusts of wind were regarded as Wōdmã's portend. For this reason Wōdmã was also venerated as a wind god, possibly a reference to the idea that strong winds were somehow liable to cause alterations in mental state. On the other hand, the association of Wōdmã with the wind could also be an attempt to harmonize Wōdmã with the elemental gods by assigning an element that represented him. Other scholars see in this myth an equivalence with the Wild Hunt in which deities are thought travel through high winds in winter and abduct unprotected souls. Wōdmã is said to ride a chariot that flies through the wind and bears arms that can be identified as hunting gear, but actual myths showing Wōdmã hunting are conspicuously absent.

In the niche study of religion in mythology—how religion is portrayed in mythology—Wōdmã is a god stereotypically worshipped by several stock characters. He is particularly likely to be worshipped to show that they are bizarre or foreign. It is debated to what extent this is true of the historical Northians, some of whom were known to have worshipped Wōdmã despite not being part of these stereotypes.

Wōdmã and Lugh

Since the 19th century, Wōdmã has been compared with the Celtic god Lugh on the basis of similarities in description and mythology.

Like Lugh, Wōdmã is portrayed as a male youth with bright hair, owns named horses and a spear līhuzi̯å "quite light" or āṇɣurtāθs "weightlessness", and is the patron of many arts, especially those with a strong spiritual context. On the other hand, Wōdmã's spear has far less mythical relevance than Lugh's spear, and indeed "not once in mythology is it used to do anything". Sherwood claims that Wōdmã's spear is only provided to satisfy Wōdmã's theme of duality: his chariot has two axles and two pairs of horses, he is said to be both masked and hooded (thus doubly covered), and it seems appropriate that he should have two weapons. These dualities stress his supernatural abilities as it "would not be possible to use a bow and arrow and spear at the same time, at least for human beings."

Wōdmã and Óðinn

A portion of scholarly attention to Wōdmã is his possible connection to Óðinn, the chief god of Valstígr. This comparison is based on the observation that Wōdmã shares a common root with Óðinn.

Linguistically, Wōdmã points to PNN *wōt-mun, from the o-grade derivation of PEE *weh₂t-; from the e-grade *wāt-on-o-, the word Óðinn descends. But Wōdmã contains the suffix *-mn̥, which forms abstract nouns in Proto-Erani-Eracuran, that Óðinn does not contain; consequently, Wōdmã is neuter in Epic Northian, like all nouns ending in -mã, while Óðinn is masculine. This difference is "more than one of suffixation", according to Halloy.

Chronologically, the first time Wōdmã is attested in the Epics as an animate being is around 300 BCE, or the transitional period between the middle and late Epic era in Northian culture. There are earlier mentions of the word wōdmã as a passive state of mind dating to the early Epic period, but there is insufficient evidence for scholars to determine if this force had been anthropomorphized. The figure of Óðinn has been consistently venerated in Valstígr since the 12th century BCE.

See also

• Ponθōiš Wiḥštō
• Pōnθōiš Wohuš