Odin is the High One, the Father of our gods, the creator of our race. In the threefold aspect of Odin-Honir-Loður he breathed the spirit of thought and magic and awareness into us and made us human, the upright animal, with a spark of high divinity that makes us question and create and reach for the stars.

I have heard it said that 'Magic has nothing to do with Odinism', which is singularly uninformed comment when it is seen that Odin, among much else, is a God of Magic. Furthermore, magical acts by Gods and men run throughout our myths and sagas. I do not, in this article, intend to define what Magic is. Suffice it to say that in its widest sense it permeates all and that certain of its aspects have been categorised as ESP, telepathy, natural science, and occultism.

In the Elder Days Odinists practised both earth burial and burning. The body of a high-ranking warrior often received special treatment. It was laid in a cairn with goods and arms and sometimes even a charger. The body was placed in a sitting posture, usually in a chamber formed of baulks of timber or blocks of stone, over which was piled earth or gravel. But the ceremonial disposal of the dead for which the old Odinists are most often remembered is what we know as ship-burial.