Part 4

In Hávamál (140, ff.), Odin says that he in his youth obtained nine fimbul-songs and a drink of the precious mead dipped out of Odrerir from Bestla's father, Bölþorn's famous son:

Fimbulljóð níu
nam eg af inum frægja syni
Bölþorns, Bestlu föður,
og eg drykk um gat
ins dýra mjaðar,
ausinn Óðreri.

The mythologists have assumed, for reasons that cannot be doubted, that Bolthorn's famous son, Bestla's brother, is identical with Mimir. No one else than he presided at that time over the drink dipped out of Odrerir, the fountain which conceals "wisdom and man's sense," and Sigurdrífumál (13, 14) corroborates that it was from Mimir, and through a drink from "Hoddrofnir's horn," that Odin obtained wonderful runes and "true sayings".

Accordingly Mimir had a sister by name Bestla (variations: Beistla, Besla, Bezla). A strophe by Einar Skalaglamm (Skáldskaparmál 9; cp. Gylfaginning 6) informs us that Bestla is Odin's mother. Mimir's disciple, the clan-chieftain of the gods, is accordingly his sister's son. Herein we have one more reason for the faithful friendship which Mimir always showed to Odin.

The Mimir epithet Narfi, Narvi, means, as shown above, "the one who binds". His daughter Nott is called draumnjörun, the dream-binder (Alvíssmál 30). His kinswomen, the norns, spin and bind the threads and bonds, which, extended throughout the world, weave together the web of events. Such threads and bonds are called örlögþættir (Helgakviða Hundingsbana i. 3), and Urðar lokur (Gróugaldur 7). As the nearest kinswomen of Bestla all have epithets or tasks which refer to the idea of binding, and when we add to this that Bestla's sons and descendants as gods have the epithet höpt and bönd, her own name might most properly be referred to the old word beizl, beisl (cp. betsel, bridle), which has a similar meaning.

As Mimir and Bestla are of giant descent, and in the theogony belong to the same stage of development as Bur (Burr), Odin's father, then, as the mythologists also have assumed, Bölthorn can be none else than Ymir.

Mimir, Bestla, the norns, and Nott thus form a group of kindred beings, which belong to the oldest giant race, but still they are most definitely separated from the other descendants of Ymir, as a higher race of giants from a lower, a noble giant race friendly to the gods and fostering the gods, from that race of deformed beings which bear children in the strangest manner, which are hostile to the gods and to the world, and which are represented by the rimthurses Thrudgelmir and Bergelmir and their offspring.

It now lies near at hand to inquire whether the mythology which attributed the same father to Mimir and Thrudgelmir was unable to conceive in this connection the idea of a nobler origin for the former than the latter. The remedy nearest at hand would have been to have given them mothers of different characters. But the mythology did not resort to this expedient. It is expressly stated that Ymir bore children without the pleasure of woman (gýgjar gaman - Vafþrúðnismál 32 ; cp. No. 60). Neither Mimir nor Thrudgelmir had a mother. Under such circumstances there is another expedient to which the sister of the Teutonic mythology, the Rigveda mythology, has resorted, and which is explained in the 90th hymn of book x. of Rigveda. The hymn informs us in regard to a primeval giant Parusha, and this myth is so similar to the Teutonic in regard to Ymir that it must here be considered.

The primeval being Parusha was a giant monster as large as the whole world, and even larger (lines 1-5). The gods resolved to sacrifice him, that is to say, to slay him for sacred purposes (1. 6), and from his limbs was created the present world. From his navel was made the atmosphere, from his head the canopy of heaven, from his two feet the earth, from his heart the moon, from his eye the sun, from his breath the wind, &c. His mouth became the brahma (the priest), his arms became the rajanya (the warrior), his thighs became the vaisya (the third free caste), and from his feet arose the sudra (the thrall, line 12).

The two fundamental ideas of the myth concerning Parusha are:

(1) There was a primeval being who was not divine. The gods slew him and created the material world out of his limbs.

(2) This primeval being gave rise to other beings of different ranks, and their rank corresponded with the position of the giant's limbs from which they were created.

Both these fundamental ideas reappear in the Teutonic myth concerning Ymir. In regard to the former idea we need only to quote what Vafþrúðnismál says in strophe 21:

In regard to the second fundamental idea, it is evident from the Rigveda account that it is not there found in its oldest form, but that, after the rise of four castes among the Rigveda Aryans, it was changed, in order to furnish an explanation of the origin of these castes and make them at least as old as the present material world. Far more original, and perfectly free from the influence of social ideas, it appears in the Teutonic mythology, where the 33rd strophe of Vafþrúðnismál testifies concerning its character:

In perfect harmony with this Gylfaginning narrates: "Under Ymir's left arm grew forth a man and a woman, and his one foot begat with the other a son. Thence come (different) races."

The different races have this in common, that they are giant races, since they spring from Ymir; but these giant races must at the same time have been widely different intellectually and physically, since the mythology gives them different origins from different limbs of the progenitor. And here, as in Rigveda, it is clear that the lowest race was conceived as proceeding from the feet of the primeval giant. This is stated with sufficient distinctness in Vafþrúðnismál, where we read that a "strangely-headed" monster (Thrudgelmir - see No. 60) was born by them, while "man and maid" were born under the arm of the giant. "The man" and "the maid" must therefore represent a noble race sprung from Ymir, and they can only be Mimir and his sister, Odin's mother. Mimir and his clan constitute a group of ancient powers, who watch over the fountains of the life of the world and care for the perpetuation of the world-tree. From them proceeded the oldest, fairest, and most enduring parts of the creation. For the lower world was put in order and had its sacred fountains and guardians before Bur's sons created Midgard and Asgard. Among them the world-tree grew up from its roots, whose source no one knows (Hávamál 138). Among them those forces are active which make the starry firmament revolve on its axis, and from them come the seasons and the divisions of time, for Nott and niðjar, Mani and Sol, belong to Mimir's clan, and were in the morning of creation named by the oldest "high holy gods," and endowed with the vocation árum að telja (Völuspá). From Mimir comes the first culture, for in his fountain inspiration, spiritual power, man's wit and wisdom, have their source, and around him as chief stand gathered the artists of antiquity by whose hands all things can be smithied into living and wonderful things. Such a giant clan demands another origin than that of the frost-giants and their offspring. As we learn from Vafþrúðnismál that two giant races proceeded from Ymir, the one from a part of his body which in a symbolic sense is more noble than that from which the other race sprang, and that the race born of his feet was the ignoble one hostile to the gods, then the conclusion follows of necessity that "the man and maid" who were born as twins under Ymir's arm became the founders of that noble group of giants who are friendly to the gods, and which confront us in the mythology of our fathers. It has already been shown above (see No. 54) that Jima (Yama) in the Asiatic-Aryan mythology corresponds to Mimir in the Teutonic. Jima is an epithet which means twin. The one with whom Jima was born together was a maid, Yami. The words in the quoted Vafþrúðnismál strophe, undir hendi hrímþursi vaxa mey og mög saman, are evidence that the Germans also considered Mimir and his sister as twins.