"[to Atreus] Lad, there comes a time in every man's life when he changes his name and heads north to make a new start. If you live long enough to do this many times over, you might end up as far north as this place. By the time I arrived, I already knew Odin by his reputation, and so I set to demonstrate my worth by coming to him with something I knew he'd value: a mystic well of knowledge. Or rather, I should say, a well of water laced with enough mystic mushrooms to make a god see visions. Oh, he was rightly impressed! Can't say for sure what he saw that led him to try gouging out his own eyes, but I managed to restrain him before he finished the job. Then I persuaded him it had been his sacrifice, made for an even higher form of sight to be bestowed, blah-di-blah-di-blah-di-blah! I used to think he never caught on. But the day he took my eye, I realized he had never been fooled. He knew I'd outwitted him, called the lesson wisdom, and hired me to make sure from then on I was on his side - and for a long, long time, I truly was. Doesn't mean he didn't hold a grudge."