Breath is invisible to the naked eye, yet when it is absent all life comes to an end. Odin is the Giver of Breath (as it was He who breathed life into Ask and Embla, the very first humans), yet He is also the one who takes it away at the end of our lives. This, I believe, is one reason why so many are drawn to Him; the sensitive among us can feel His power moving through us, gentle as the caress of a lover, with every breath we take. Yet our mortality also feels His power—to cut off life abruptly and completely—and fears Him, desperately.
As Leader of the Hunt, He drives this fearful power en masse. During the rest of the year He acts as a psychopomp, leading the spirits of the newly dead—or His chosen ones, at any rate—forth to Valhalla, sometimes ferrying them Himself across the waters dividing Midgard from the other worlds. But on these coldest, darkest nights of winter, He leads His army of the dead back into the world of the living to maraud through the stormy skies, to revel in wildness and destruction. And yet, just as death makes way for new life, just as lighting scorches the earth to prepare it for new growth, so the winds of the Hunt scatter the seeds that will sprout in the spring, so the spirits of the Hunt—our ancestors, our beloved dead—bless the land with fertility and prosperity for the coming year.
Hail to the Furious Host, and hail its Master. We hold You in our hearts during these raw nights of Yule. Our hearth fires are lit to welcome You home, and to light Your way between the worlds.
