Mercure, Woden, Óðinn. Nommer Odin dans les mondes du Nord

Alban Gautier (1)

1 CRAHAM - Centre Michel de Boüard - Centre de recherches archéologiques et historiques anciennes et médiévales

The habit of ‘translating’ or ‘interpreting’ the names of Latin pagan gods and goddesses into Germanic, Anglo-Saxon or Norse equivalents was common in the medieval North: the names of the days of the week in Germanic languages bears witness to the practice. But there never was a strict equivalence between one theonym and another: on the contrary, identifications were often unstable, they could and did shift. Focusing on the example of the godhead generally known as ‘Odin’, this paper shows that Latin ‘Mercury’, German ‘Wotan’, Anglo-Saxon ‘Woden’ and Norse ‘Óðinn’ were not always regarded as one and the same.

Domaines: Histoire

Alban Gautier. Mercure, Woden, Óðinn. Nommer Odin dans les mondes du Nord. Bauduin, Pierre; Lebouteiller, Simon; Bourgeois, Luc. Les transferts culturels dans les mondes normands médiévaux (VIIIe–XIIe siècle) : objets, acteurs et passeurs, 36, Brepols, pp.139-154, 2021, CELAMA, 978-2-503-59366-1. ⟨10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.5.123611⟩. ⟨hal-03564890⟩