Why was Odin afraid that his ravens would not return back to him?

Question

Odin's ravens would continuously fly all over Midgard to collect information and bring it back to Odin.

In Norse mythology, Huginn (from Old Norse "thought") and Muninn (Old Norse "memory" or "mind") are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring information to the god Odin.

_Wikipedia

In the poem Grímnismál, it is said that Odin is afraid the two ravens would not come back.

Hugin and Munin fly each day
over the spacious earth.
I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,
yet more anxious am I for Munin.

_Wikipedia

Why would a god be afraid that his ravens would not come back? Is there any secret meaning, connected to the ravens' names (Memory and Thought)?

Answer 1

I found a different wikipedia source, for Hugin a Munin which states:

Scholars have linked Odin's relation to Huginn and Muninn to shamanic practice. John Lindow relates Odin's ability to send his "thought" (Huginn) and "mind" (Muninn) to the trance-state journey of shamans. Lindow says the Grímnismál stanza where Odin worries about the return of Huginn and Muninn "would be consistent with the danger that the shaman faces on the trance-state journey

Although it seems that this approach of interpreting the ravens as a personification of the Odin's intellectual powers has been criticized too.

Answer 2

The meaning of those two ravens is not 100% answered, yet. One possible explanation is as follows:

In the Norse shamanic tradition, Odin's ravens represent the powers of necromancy, clairvoyance and telepathy, and they were guides for the dead. This poem expresses the shaman's fear of his loss of magical powers.

_{The Well of Remembrance by Ralph Metzner, Shambala, Boston, 1994}

However, it is implied the name of one of the ravens is mistranslated:

it’s often claimed that Munin’s name means “Memory,” but for this to be so, it would have to be derived from minni, “memory,” rather than munr, “desire.” The latter, however, is by far the more parsimonious derivation; if the former were the case, we should expect Munin’s Old Norse name to have been something like “Minninn” rather than “Muninn.” Moreover, the above verse from the Grímnismál makes much more sense if Munin’s name means “Desire” rather than “Memory”.

_{Norse Mythology for Smart People}

Another possible explanation is the following, which is similar to first one:

Anthony Winterbourne connects Huginn and Muninn to the Norse concepts of the fylgja—a concept with three characteristics; shape-shifting abilities, good fortune, and the guardian spirit—and the hamingja—the ghostly double of a person that may appear in the form of an animal. Winterbourne states that “The shaman’s journey through the different parts of the cosmos is symbolized by the hamingja concept of the shape-shifting soul, and gains another symbolic dimension for the Norse soul in the account of Oðin’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn.”

_{My Travels with Huggin and Munnin}

However, Rudolf Simek has an entirely different point to make, saying that the names of the ravens were only used in later times:

Rudolf Simek is critical of the approach, stating that "attempts have been made to interpret Odin's ravens as a personification of the god's intellectual powers, but this can only be assumed from the names Huginn and Muninn themselves which were unlikely to have been invented much before the 9th or 10th centuries" yet that the two ravens, as Odin's companions, appear to derive from much earlier times. Instead, Simek connects Huginn and Muninn with wider raven symbolism in the Germanic world, including the Raven Banner (described in English chronicles and Scandinavian sagas), a banner which was woven in a method that allowed it, when fluttering in the wind, to appear as if the raven depicted upon it was beating its wings.

_Wikipedia