Saxo Temporary Banishment

4. 9. Now the gods, whose principal residence was held at Byzantium,
perceived that Odin had tarnished the honour of his divinity by
these various lapses from dignity and reckoned he should quit their
fraternity. They ensured that he was ousted from his pre-eminence,
stripped of his personal titles and worship, and outlawed, believing it
better for a scandalous president to be thrown from power than
desecrate the character of public religion; nor did they wish to
become involved in another’s wickedness and suffer innocently for
his guilt. Now that the ludicrous behaviour of a high deity had
become common knowledge, they were aware that those who had
been seduced into paying them holy adoration were exchanging
reverence for contempt and growing ashamed of their piety; sacred
rites were considered profane, established ritual childish nonsense.
They saw doom ahead, fear was in their hearts, and you would have
imagined that the misdemeanours of a single member were recoiling
on all their heads.

4. 10. So that he would not force them to banish public devotion,
they banished him and in his stead invested a certain Oller with the
trappings of royalty and godhead, as if the creation of gods and of
kings were comparable. Although they had elected him their pontiff
as a substitute, they bestowed on him full honours, so that he should
be regarded as no mere deputy in office but a lawful inheritor of
authority. As he must lack no particle of dignity they called him Odin
too, intending to dispel the stigma attaching to a parvenu by the
prestige of this name.

4. ii. For almost ten years he held the leadership of the divine
parliament till the gods finally took pity on Odin’s harsh exile;
considering that he had completed a heavy enough sentence they
restored him from filthy rags to his former splendour. By now the
intervening passage of time had rubbed away the brand of his past
disgrace. There were some, however, who believed he did not deserve
permission to be reinstated in his rank because, through adopting
actors’ tricks and women’s duties, he had brought the foulest of slurs
on their hallowed reputation. Some people assert that by flattering a
few of the gods and buttering others with bribes he purchased his lost
royal status and bought back at a costly sum the glories he had long
since forfeited. If you ask me how much he paid, consult those who
have found out the price of a godhead; I confess to having no reliable
information myself.

4. 12. After Oller had been expelled from Byzantium by Odin, he
retired to Sweden where, as if in a new world, he strove to restore
recognition of his fame, but the Danes killed him. According to one
tale he was such a cunning magician that instead of sailing in a ship he
was able to cross the seas on a bone which he had engraved with
fearful charms, and skimmed the waves that rose before him as swiftly
as with oars.

4. 13. Odin, on the other hand, once he had recovered his divine
regalia, shone throughout the earth with such lustrous renown that all
peoples welcomed him like a light returned to the universe; there was
nowhere in the entire world which did not pay homage to his sacred
power. When he saw that his son Bo, Rinda’s child, loved the
hardships of war, he summoned the lad and told him to keep in
mind the destruction of his brother; better to take vengeance on
Balder’s assassins than overpower guiltless men with his weapons, for
a battle was more suitable and beneficial when a proper excuse for
revenge made warring a duty.


- Gesta Danorum, Book III