O’er Mithgarth Hugin and Munin both
Each day set forth to fly;
For Hugin I fear lest he come not home,
But for Munin my care is more.– Grimnismal 20, Bellows Translation
This verse of the Grimnismal is one of my favourites from the lore.
Firstly, because I always read this in my head as the Old Man sounding terribly world-weary and somewhat exasperated with His ravens.
Secondly, because I have a lot of thoughts about Hugin and Munin. Thought and Memory.
Here Grimnir states that while He worries that Hugin will not return to Him, He is even more worried about Munin. We could take this to mean simply that Munin-the-raven is a bit more unreliable, but I think this is actually getting at something more symbolic and profound.
Munin represents Memory, and what Grimnir seems to be saying here is that while He values Thought – the intellect, wit, a quick and cunning mind, very important to this schemer of a God – He sees Memory as even more vital.
Odin is a God who has instructed me to know thyself. He is a God of insight. Of learning and wisdom. Of striving always to know more, to understand more. Of facing one’s trauma and one’s demons, going through terror and pain and degradation, and emerging the stronger for it. And for all of these things, we need memory.
To remember is a supremely important, supremely powerful thing. Our memories shape and inform who we are and who we will become. The written word [which in my upg is sacred to Odin, Rune God that He is] is an act of memory – allowing us to record and pass on what we have learned, to grow and advance from humanity’s shared knowledge. Memory keeps the ancestors with us. Keeps folklore and tradition alive. Understanding our history and our context is so important for understanding the world today – both on an individual, personal level, and on the macro, political level of understanding how history shaped our world. Remembering asks us to face up to the demons of our past, learn from our mistakes, acknowledge our ancestors and their legacy [which I feel is important for me personally – I’m white English, my people have historically and continue to perpetrate incredible crimes against the rest of the world, and as one who practices ancestor veneration I have to face up to that].
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.
This is why the All-Father’s care is more for Munin. Without memory, we are lost.