402 
O D I 
nations. Having been a mighty and fuccefsful war¬ 
rior, he was believed to be the god of war, who gave 
victory and revived courage in the conflict. Having 
civilized, in fomemeafure, the countries which he con¬ 
quered, and introduced arts formerly unknown, he was 
alfo worfhipped as the god of arts and artifts. In a word, 
to this Odin his deluded worfhippers impioufly afcribed 
all the attributes which belong only to the true God : to 
him they built magnificent temples, offered many facri- 
fices, and confecrated the fourth day of the week, which 
is ftill called by his name in England, and in all the other 
countries where he was formerly worlhipped.” Hift. of 
Great Britain, vol. ii. 
The era of Odin, however, has never been fatisfadlorily 
afcertained : nor is it eafy to decide which is the molt pro¬ 
bable of the three fuppofitions refpedling it that are ex¬ 
tant. Mallet, a fuperficial antiquary, may have fancied 
that Odin fled from Pontus, and was once the ally of 
Mithridates ; and Gibbon may have been pleafed with 
the theory : but fubfequent inveftigations have afcer¬ 
tained that this hypothefis is indefenfible, which repofes 
chiefly on the ignorant fuppolition, that AJh, a title of 
•Odin, fignifies an Afiatic. The Icelandifh word AJct re- 
prefents the Latin dims, and fignifies decenfed in the fenfe 
of fainted; it is applied to ail the gods, as well as Odin, 
and is certainly not trahflatable by the word Afuin. If 
Odin had fiouriflied before Pliny and Tacitus, we fhould 
have met with traces of his progrefs among the nations 
whom they defcribe. Extenfive recent conquefts, ter¬ 
minating in the impofition of a new religion, could not 
but live in the memory even of barbarians. It is there¬ 
fore mofi probable that Odin is pofterior to thefe writers ; 
and that the Anglo-Saxon hiftorians are correct, who de¬ 
fcribe Hengift as fifth in defcent from Odin, and who 
have preferved the intervening pedigree. As in palloral 
nations marriages take place early, it is unlikely that any 
progenitor of Hengift fhouid have palled in celibacy his 
twenty-fifth year. An interval of 125 years is enough to 
allow between Odin liimfelf and his grandfon Vefla’s 
great-grandfon, Hengift. This would place Odin about 
the time of Conftantine, or in the year of Chrift 325, about 
70 years before Alaric ; and would plaufibly account for 
the momentousimpulfe which, about that time, propelled 
the Gothic multitudes againft all the provinces of the 
Roman empire. 
Odin is called, in the Edda, and by Snorro, Runhofdi 
and RnnomJauthr , Father of Letters, King of Spells, as 
the poets phrafe it ; which favours the opinion that he 
introduced the art of writing among the Goths. Now 
Tacitus exprefsly pronounces the alphabet to have been 
unknown to the Germans. Odin, then, mull have lived 
lubfequently to this period. The oldeft Runic infcrip- 
tions on Hone commemorate the fortunes of foldiers who 
had ferved at Conftantinople in the corps of Varangi; 
and the art of llone-cutting in the North is therefore 
pofterior to the transfer of the feat of empire from Rome 
to Conftantinople. Now Odin, according to Snorro, firft 
introduced the practice of uling grave-ftones: in his time, 
no doubt, they were limply inlcribed, not engraved : but 
thefe cannot long have preceded the more permanent 
memorials. This circumftance, again, tends to corro¬ 
borate a chronology which places Odin at the beginning 
of the fourth century. 
There exifts a Ruffian map of the year 949, in which 
the coall of Efthonia is called O/trogard, or the Eaft Gar¬ 
den. If the oppolite coall of Courland was called AJ'gard, 
or the Weft Garden, the river Dana, which feparatesthem, 
may well have borne the name Mitgard, or Middle Garden. 
In Samogitia, various etymological notices unite to indi¬ 
cate the original dwelling-place of Odin : it was natural, 
after his fettlement in Upland, to fing the “ glad home” 
which he had forfaken ; to promile a return thither to the 
fpirits of fuch as fell in battle; and to indicate the rain¬ 
bow, which is ufually feen in the eaft, as the bridge which 
was to direct their path. Mallet's North. Antiq. ch. iv. v. 
O D I 
Monthly Review, vol. xxvii. p. 382. and lxxxviii. p. -8 
Odin, a Poem, by Sir W. Drummond. Brady's Clems Ca- 
lendana, vol. 1. See alfo our article Mvtiiolocv 1 , vol 
xvi. p.487. 
OD'INGTON, a village in Oxfordlhire, near Iflip, 
where is a well of an allringent water, noted for the cure 
of the cattle which catch a flux called the Otmoor-evil, 
from their grazing on that moor. 
OD'INGTON (Walter), a monk of Evefham in Wor- 
ceflerfhire, of whofe writing a treatife is preferved in the 
library of Benet college, Cambridge, that is fo copious 
and complete, with refpefl to every part of mufic when it 
was written, that, if all other mufical trails, from the time 
of Boethius to Franco and John Cotton, were loft, out- 
knowledge^ would not be much diminilhed, if this MS. 
were acceflible. The ingenious author of this work was 
eminent in the early part of the thirteenth century, dur¬ 
ing the reign of Henry III. not only for his profound 
knowledge in mufic, but aftronomy, and mathematics in 
general. The tranflator and continuator of Dugdale’s 
Monafticon, fpeaks of him among learned Englilhmen of 
the order of St. Benedifl in the following manner: 
“ Walter, monk of Evefham, a man of a facetious wit, 
who, applying himfelfto literature, left hefhould fink un¬ 
der the labour of the day, the watching at night, and con¬ 
tinual obfervance of regular difeiplinej ufed, at fpare 
hours, to divert himfelf with the decent and commendable 
diverfion of mufic, to render himfelf the more cheerful 
for other duties.” This apology, however, for the time 
he beftowed on mufic, was needlefs; for it was, and is 
ftill, fo much the bufinefs of a Rornifh prieft, that to be 
ignorant of it difqualifies him for his profeflion. And at 
all times, where an eccleiiaftic thought it neceffary to trace 
the whole circle of the fciences, mufic, having the fecond 
or third rank, could not be neglected. But what this 
author adds farther concerning Odington is ftill lefs de- 
feniible : “ Whether,” fays he, “ this application to mufic 
drew him off from other ftudies I know not, but there 
appears no other work of his than a piece entitled “ Of 
the Speculation,of Mufick.” Yet we are told by Pits, 
Bale, Tanner, Moreri, and all his biographers, that he 
wrote “ De Motibus Planetar,um, et de Mutatione Aeris,” 
as well as on other learned fubjecls. As Walter of Eve¬ 
fham lived at a period which furnifhes but few records 
concerning the Hate of mufic in England, we fhall be 
fomevvhat minute in deferibing its contents. 
The work is divided into fix parts, or books. The firft, 
“ De Inequalitate Numerorum et eorum habitudine,” 
contains ten chapters, on the divifion of the fcale, and har- 
riionical proportions. The fecond part confifls of eigh¬ 
teen chapters. In the introdudlion to this part he calls 
the concords fymphonies, which is frequently the language 
of Hubald, Odo, and Guido. The firft chapter is an 
“ Eulogium upon-Mulic,” in which he enumerates the 
nineMufes and their attributes; fpeaks of David’s power 
over the evil fpirit of Saul, by means of his harp; quotes 
Clemens Alexandrinus, but not in Greek ; and, after giv¬ 
ing the invention of inftruments to Tubal, relates the 
manner in which Pythagoras difeovered harmonical pro¬ 
portions by the weights of a blackfmith’s hammers. 
Speaks of major and minor femitones, and of the comma. 
He has a long chapter on the proportions of the major and 
minor thirds: here he takes occafion to defcribe the diffe¬ 
rent kinds of human voices, from the fhrill cries of the 
infant to the deep and dying groans of an old man ; but 
mentions not thole of the evireiti. Accounts for the thirds 
having been regarded asdifeords by theancients, who ad¬ 
hered to the proportions of Pythagoras ; and fays, that 
to pleafe in harmony they mull necelfarily be altered, or, 
as it was afterwards called, tempered. In his feventeenth 
chapter he gives a lift of concordant dilcords, or the lefs- 
perfedl double founds; and thefe, he flays, are fix: the 
minor and major third ; the major-fixth ; the two tenths, 
or oflaves of the thirds; and the diapafonand diateflaron, 
or eleventh. 
The 
