Odin vs Väinämöinen

King of the Aesir and god of wisdom, war, and death. Odin sacrificed his eye at Mimir's well for wisdom and hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days to learn the runes.

Odin is the son of the primordial beings Borr and Bestla. Along with his brothers Vili and Ve, he slew the giant Ymir and created the world from his body.

Odin is the chief of the Aesir, a relentless seeker of wisdom. He sacrificed his eye to Mimir's Well for knowledge and hung himself from Yggdrasil for nine nights to discover the runes.

The 'steady old' singer and sage of Finnish runo-song, named by Agricola in 1551 as the maker of songs, who in the Kalevala is born of Ilmatar, sings his rival into a bog, builds the first kantele from a pike's jawbone, leads the theft of the Sampo, and finally sails away.

Born of Ilmatar after thirty years in her womb on the primeval sea (Kalevala, Rune 1).

Agricola's list of 1551 says that Väinämöinen 'forged songs'. In folk poetry he is the eternal sage (*tietäjä iänikuinen*), a singer whose words have creative and magical force: he sings the world into order, sings rivals into the ground, and knows the 'origins' of things, the charms that give power over iron, fire, and wounds. In many folk variants he is himself the one on whose knee the world-egg is laid.