Gungnir

Gungnir (Old Norse, possibly “the swaying one”) is Odin’s spear — the weapon of the Allfather and the instrument of his sovereignty over battle and death. It was forged in the same commission that produced Sif’s golden hair and Freyr’s ship Skíðblaðnir, made by the sons of the dwarf Ívaldi at Loki’s arrangement. Skáldskaparmál ch. 35 lists it among the greatest treasures the gods possess.

The spear and its symbolism

The spear was Odin’s weapon from the earliest layers of Germanic religion. Unlike Thor’s hammer — a tool of protection and hallowing — and Freyr’s magic sword — an instrument of fertility’s force — Odin’s spear is the instrument of selection: of choosing who dies in battle. The spear tips toward a man; that man falls. This is the extension of the same function the valkyrjur perform at his direction: the sovereign of the slain marks his own claims.

Gungnir and the consecration of battle

Völuspá stanza 24 names the founding act: at the beginning of the Æsir-Vanir war, the first war in the cosmos, Odin “threw his spear over the host.” This throw is both a weapon-cast and a ritual consecration — by casting the spear, Odin claims the battle-dead, dedicates them to himself, and opens the conflict. This pattern — throwing a spear over an enemy army to dedicate them — was observed in Viking Age ritual: before battle, a warrior could enact this same gesture, symbolically claiming the fallen for Odin.

Gungnir and Odin’s ordeal

Hávamál stanza 138 has Odin hanging on Yggdrasil “wounded by a spear, offered to myself.” The weapon used in this self-sacrifice is not explicitly named, but the association with Gungnir is strong in the tradition: it completes the logic of Odin’s weapons — the spear that marks the slain, used to mark Odin himself in the ordeal that won the runes.