ODDFELLOWS, the name of several friendly societies.  The Independent Order of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity, is the largest and most important of the number, its membership is over 665,000, and its funds amount to L8,000,000.  It has been the pioneer in many important movements of the kind, several of the provisions now compulsory on all societies it observed of its own accord, prior to their enactment; the actuarial tables compiled from its statistics in 1845 by its secretary, Henry Radcliffe, are still a standard work.  The Grand United Order of Oddfellows has a membership of 241,000, and funds amounting to L882,000; the National Independent Order of Oddfellows embraces 58,000 members, and has L242,000.

ODER, an important German river, rises in Moravia, and crossing the frontier flows NW. through Silesia, and N. through Brandenburg and Pomerania 550 m. into the Stettiner Haff and so to the Baltic.  On its banks stand Ratibor, where navigation ends, Breslau, Frankfort, and Stettin; it receives its chief tributary, the navigable Warthe, on the right, and has canal communication with the Spree and the Elbe.

ODESSA (298), on the Black Sea, 25 m.  NE. of the mouth of the Dniester, is the fourth largest city of Russia, and the chief southern port and emporium of commerce.  It exports large shipments of wheat, sugar, and wool; imports cotton, groceries, iron, and coal, and manufactures flour, tobacco, machinery, and leather.  It is well fortified, and though many of the poor live in subterraneous caverns, is a fine city, with a university, a cathedral, and a public library.  It was a free port from 1817 till 1857.  The population includes many Greeks and Jews.

ODIN or WODIN, the chief god of the ancient Scandinavians, combined in one the powers of Zeus and Ares among the Greeks, and was attended by two black ravens—­Hugin, mind, and Munin, memory, the bearers of tidings between him and the people of his subject-world.  His council chamber is in ASGARD (q. v.), and he holds court with his warriors in VALHALLA (q. v.).  He is the source of all wisdom as well as all power, and is supposed by Carlyle to have been the deification of some one who incarnated in himself all the characteristic wisdom and valour of the Scandinavian race; Frigga was his wife, and Balder and Thor his sons.  See CARLYLE’S “HEROES.”

ODO, bishop of Bayeux, brother of William the Conqueror, fought by his side at Hastings; after blessing the troops, was made Earl of Kent, and appointed governor of kingdom during William’s absence in Normandy; had great influence in State affairs all along, and set out for the Holy Land, but died at Palermo (1032-1096).

ODOACER, a Hun, son of one of Attila’s officers, who entered the Imperial Guards, dethroned Augustulus, and became emperor himself; Zeno, the emperor of the East, enlisted Theodoric of the Ostrogoths against him, who made a treaty with him to be joint ruler of the kingdom of Italy, and assassinated him in 493.