Sage Advice
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0What advice can a severed head really offer you? It’s not like he can go anywhere. I guess this is just the sort of thing you do when you don’t have libraries or the internet.
We talked about Odin and Mimir and war between the Aesir and Vanir last friday. This comic was supposed to be up this Tuesday when all of that was a little bit fresher in your minds, but I had to go out to Boston for my very last appearance at school ever to make sure that I get to graduate. Turns out I do! Hooray!
If you’ve forgotten about last Friday’s blog post, refresh your memory over here.
Mimir’s head, while a little grisly to us, is a powerful symbol (though it is one among many) representing the hidden knowledge that Odin was said to possess. The head, stuck somewhere between the world of the living and the world of the dead, was able to access information from both realms of existence, a valuable tool for a god that prized knowledge and cunning over brute force. There is a great deal of this sort of thing to be found in the character of Odin. He is a figure that straddles the line between life and death, a figure steeped in secrets and riddles and magic known only to him. Stories like the tales of Mimir and of Kvasir serve to really drive that point home.
Odin was not like other Norse gods.
Though all of these deities enjoyed respect and regards in the Norse mind, Odin seems to be a little bit apart, perhaps even a little bit foreign. Respected and worshiped, but rarely loved the way some of the other gods are. Baldur, Thor, Freyja, and even Loki all seem to enjoy a little more closeness in the heart of the Norse. Odin was one to be respected but also feared.
You can’t really blame anyone for being a little scared of a dude that carries around (and talks to) a severed head, who hung himself from a tree as a sacrifice to himself, and who rides around on a coal black horse with eight legs.
There’s just something a little creepy going on there.
It’s really a wonder that anyone talked to him at all!
Anyway, we’ll get away from Mimir’s head next week, I promise!
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wise, succinct AND based on personal experience. What more could Oðin want?
“stop while you’re a head”
THANKS MIMIR.
You should give yourself a five minute HEAD start!
keep a cool head in all situations.
it’s dangerous to go alone, take Me!
a head in hand is worth two in the bush.
….
I can see where this is heading…
He was eventually ground into dust, and a single spec resides within every magic 8 ball in existence today.
Also, avoid being disembowled. Not very pleasant.
Hey, congratulations on the whole graduation thing. Love your work and the education that you pass along in such a wonderful creative way. Thank you.
I almost was disappointed, I though you hadn’t uploaded one yet for today (err.. yesterday)…
Then I noticed the title… Sage Advice?
Hmm, I think I know what Mimir took to see things! Seer’s Sage! (or Salvia Divinorum for you Latin folks)
Though how he got a hold of some is a mystery as it’s only native to parts of Mexico…
As for advice from severed heads, I think they would yield better advice than a skull would… (I’m looking at you JP Necromancer)
Though theoretically a ghost (or spirit if non-human) could still be attached to either…I guess the main thing would be shock factor… a severed head, would make it more likely for you the be arrested…
I’ve been reading your strip for some time now, and what impresses me most is not your artwork (which is great, by the way) but the deep thinking by which you access these intriguing mythical topics. Thanks a lot!
Thats exactly it though, like the creepy hedgewitch in the forest nobody *would* socialize with Odin, at least in any way that didn’t start off with “Odin, i need your wisdom!”, or “Odin, solve this problem!”, or “Odin, i’m marrying Brynhildr”
Then he created this whole situation and made a friend who can’t leave, and is always willing to have a conversation cause hey, what else is a head going to do?
Probably a convienent excuse to get out of boring blind dates as well. “Whats that Mimir? You want to murmur some grand wisdom to me? Sorry, gotta go, you know how it is with heads. Always muttering at the wrong time, maybe i’ll call you…”
Hey, I stumbled across this and thought it might interest you. I didn’t see any contact info in my brief perusing; so here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_%28A%29