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, 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" in the sense that a wanderer does not have a specified profession, 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.
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 are often lesser gods with human emotions." This ambivalence and propensity for caprice and flamboyance seems to be reflected in Wōdmã's character.
Cults
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. However, Wōdmã contains the suffix *-mn̥, which forms abstract nouns in Proto-Erani-Eracuran, that Óðinn does not contain. Wōdmã is neuter in Epic Northian, like all nouns ending in -mã, while Óðinn is masculine.
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.