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Odin's eye was damaged during the process of learning to read the runes.
He was hanging in the tree Yggdrasil and experiencing anguish, probably both mental and physical. He paid this price because
of learning to read the runes, a penalty imposed upon him.
Mimr
The eyes are sometimes referred to as the "window of the soul",
meaning that you might be able to tell what a person is thinking or feeling by looking into his eyes. Sight is perhaps
the main sensory organ. Figurative sight, sometimes called second sight, was a way of "seeing" things hidden from literal
sight such as in a vision. Odin lost the literal sight in one eye, but gained supernatural sight. Very likely, Odin's missing eye also had symbolic meaning.
Odin lost sight in one of his eyes, an important point in his
mythology. The eye as a symbol had meaning in other cultural myths. It was important to the mythology of the Egyptian god Horus.
"Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, was called "Horus who rules
with two eyes." His right eye was white and represented the sun; his left eye was black and represented the moon. According
to myth Horus lost his left eye to his evil brother, Seth, whom he fought to avenge Seth's murder of Osiris. Seth tore out
the eye but lost the fight. The eye was reassembled by magic by Thoth, the god of writing, the moon, and magic. Horus presented
his eye to Osiris, who experienced rebirth in the underworld"
Ra believed that his children were lost and sent the Eye out into the chaos to find them.
Ogdoad, Four Pairs of Two
Horus' two eyes, one being dark and one being light, indicated
the dichotomy of opposing forces often present in mythology. In Horus' case, one eye was the sun, and one eye was the moon.
There is reason to believe that the sun and moon, often personified as dieties, were rivals and engendered rival religions. Horus' left eye
was black, representing the moon. This means that the missing eye represented darkness, magic, and hell, the evil forces.
It was put back together again by magic. In Odin's case, the remaining eye may have been the "day" eye, while the "dark" or missing eye
may have been the "night" eye. The day was associated with light and heaven. The moon was a lesser light, compared with
the sun, in the dark of night, and was associated with the netherworld, sometimes called Hell. In times when there
was no electric light, night time was very dark indeed except during the times each month when it was illuminated by the moon. In superstition, people often think
of a full moon with witches and magic. A full moon enabled people to be out and about because the moonlight
enabled them to see in a time when candles, torches, and lanterns were the only means of illuminating the darkness.
The full moon was also viewed
as important in the sowing and growing of crops.
In the play Riders to The Sea, this is said about the moon and
the stars: "MAURYA.
If it wasn't found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was a star up against the moon, and it rising
in the night" " BARTLEY (to Cathleen). If the west wind holds with the last bit of the moon let you and
Nora get up weed enough for another cock for the kelp. It's hard set we'll be from this day with no one in it but one man
to work."
What
are Maura's children really trying to say? The wind being unseen, could only be detected by its actions, such as
its effect on the sea. Which star was up against the moon or is this a pun of the words "up against"? Do they mean the sea
is rising and so is the moon or could it be that the soul of the missing brother was rising, a portent of his death?
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