Wotan

deity sky Germanic single tradition · 8

A Germanic variant of Odin in Wagner's cycle of four music-dramas.

↻ synthesized from 8 sources

When

First attested
0 CE
Attested period
0 – 2020
Historical notes
Equated with Mercury via interpretatio romana.

Relationships

manifests as
Odin
syncretized with
Mercury, Odin
enemy of
Siegfried
allied with
Balder, Phol

Expand to full subgraph →

Sources

Source passages

“Wotan/Wandrer in The Ring of the Nibelung, a Germanic variant of Odin in Wagner's cycle of four music-dramas”

#5193 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“In his opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, Richard Wagner refers to the god as Wotan, a spelling of his own invention which combines the Old High German Wuotan with the Low German Wodan.”

#13720 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by interpretatio romana; 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus identifies him as the chief god of the Germanic peoples. This association of Mercury and Wotan is seen in the English language day-name Wednesday and the French Mercredi.”

#14537 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“he identifies the principal god of the Germans as Mercury, perhaps referring to Wotan”

#25330 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5

“Wotan's (Odin's) spear is made from the wood of the world tree...He uses the spear to break the sword of Siegmund...When he later tries to bar Siegmund's son Siegfried...Wotan is said to have returned to his stronghold Valhalla with the broken spear”

#38422 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5