not how Odin lost his eye, but instead how he got it. 👁

Then while reading this series of books for a year, buried in a footnote on p1182 of The Pre-Christian Religions of the North V.3, a passing reference happens to one-eyed Gaius Julius Civilis (25 CE – c. 1st Century) as potentially being the ancient figure that Odin's one-eyed-ness is based upon!

Pulling back to look at how maybe this happens, as we see the chariots roll out of the Indo-European steppes and the migration moves over time & distance from Germany to Scandinavia to the UK to Iceland, the original stories gather details from histories, other mythic traditions, and creative retellings (NorsePlay, anyone?), so this idea that the Gods are a displaced multi-particulate apotheosis or an agglomeration of aspects from ancient figures/locales/traditions is a possibility.

Enter Civilis, Prince of the Batavi, rebel leader in Germania Inferior against the Romans in 69 CE, a notable one-eyed royal warrior who makes a stand and very Odinically celebrates defiant heroism by saying,

"Courage is the peculiar excellence of man, and the Gods help the braver side."

Tacitus' Histories also relate how the Bructeri seeress Veleda predicted the complete success of Civilis and the fall of the Roman Empire, but this prophecy was premature. Roman Emperor Vespasian's forces show up after he wins the Civil War and following some setbacks for the rebels, Civilis reaches a diplomatically beneficial acquiescent agreement with Rome for his people, and we don't hear anything else of Civilis after that.

[Rembrandt's The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (1661 CE) seems to inadvertently have shades of a longtable of Einherjar in Valhalla.]

Euhumerism, the idea that the Gods were instead once accomplished historical figures (Snorri uses this as a safety fallback in his Prose Edda's prologue as a post-Christian excuse for writing down Heathen Lore), expands as per the above to a more complex version with the influence of collectively collaging features into the images of the divine, so the potential sourcing of Odin's monocularity to a specific Germanic Batavi prince is a really interesting outcome of this, and raises the question if this is perhaps how those divine images accrue, then where does the spear, hat, wolves, ravens, and special throne all come from if it might not originally be in the Norse Lore? Not that it can't instead be metaphysically counter-argued that these features are reflective Midgardian manifestations of the already present Gods, depending on how you view it all.

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.