References to Odin appear in place names throughout regions historically inhabited by the ancient Germanic and Scandinavian peoples.  

Designed by Mikael Öst, of Helsingland, Sweden, Helsingland is an old spelling of Hälsingland. landscape/region in the middle of Sweden, one of many places with a legacy of ancient influcences.

According to the designer's notes:

Grim is another name for Oden or Odin, in Old Norse Óðinn, a god from the Scandinavian Viking mythology. Helsingland is an old spelling of Hälsingland a landscape/region in the middle of Sweden.

Odin veneration, part of the polytheistic Anglo-Saxon paganism (itself a variant of Germanic paganism)  is found across much of north-western Europe, encompassing a variety of beliefs and cultic practices which were introduced to Britain following the Anglo-Saxon migration in the mid 5th century.  This remained a dominant belief system until the Christianisation of its kingdoms between the 7th and 8th centuries, with some aspects gradually blending into folklore. 

In the latter decades of the ninth century during the Late Anglo-Saxon period, Scandinavian settlers arrived in Britain, bringing with them their own, kindred pre-Christian beliefs.   Although no cultic sites used by Scandinavian pagans have been archaeologically identified, it is believed that place names suggest some possible examples. For instance, Roseberry Topping in North Yorkshire was known as Othensberg in the twelfth century, a name which derived from the Old Norse Óðinsberg, or 'Hill of Óðin'.  

Place names containing Wodnes- or Wednes- as their first element have also been interpreted by some scholars as references to Woden, such as the basis for such place names as Woodnesborough ("Woden's Barrow") in Kent, Wansdyke ("Woden's Dyke") in Wiltshire, and Wensley ("Woden's Woodland Clearing" or "Woden's Wood") in Derbyshire..

The name Woden also appears as an ancestor of the royal genealogies of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia and Mercia, resulting in suggestions that after losing his status as a god during the Christianisation process he was recast as a royal ancestor.   

Though not widely accepted by all place-name scholars, Odin's alternate name, Grim, may be reflected  in such English place-names as Grimspound in Dartmoor, Grimes Graves in Norfolk and Grimsby ("Grim's Village") in Lincolnshire – because in recorded Norse mythology, the god Óðinn is also known as Grímnir.

Scottish place names attributed to the same derivations include:

• Edin's Hall Broch, Berwickshire, sometimes Odin's Hall Broch and originally Wooden's (Woden's) Hall

• Grim's Dyke - another term used for the Antonine Wall

• Woden Law - "Woden Hill", an Iron Age hillfort in the Cheviots.

In Norse and Germanic mythology creation stories, under Woden’s supervision, the earth and sky were created from the dead body of a giant named Ymir.  Woden also created the first man and woman from an ash tree and an alder. 

For more on the Odin Stone, click the painting of  The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo, 1872.