Part 4

The names, epithets, and paraphrases with which the king of the lower world, the ward of the fountain of wisdom, was designated, according to the statements hitherto made, are the following:

(1) Mímir (Hodd-mímir, Mímr, Mími, Mime der alte).
(2) Narfi (Narvi, Njörvi, Nörr, Nari, Neri).
(3) Niði (Nidhad, Niðaðr, Niðuðr, Niðungr).

These three names, which mean the Thinker, the Binder, the Subterranean, are presumably all ancient.

(4) Móðsognir, "the mead-drinker".
(5) Hoddrofnir, presumably "the one bounteous in treasures".
(6) Gauta spjalli, "the one with whom Gauti (Odin) counsels".
(7) Baugreginn, Ring-reginn.
(8) Goðmundr, the name by which Mimir appears in Christian middle-age sagas of Norse origin. To these names may still be added:

(9) Fimbulþulr, "the great teacher" (the lecturer). Hávamál (str. 142; cp. str. 80) says that Fimbulþulr drew (fáði) the runes, that ginn-regin "made" (görðu) them, that is to say, in the older sense of the word, prepared them for use, and that Odin (hroptr rögna) carved (reist) them. In the stropbes immediately preceding, it is said that Odin, by self-sacrifice, begot runes out of the deep and fimbul-songs from Bestla's brother. These statements, joined with those which mention how the runes given by Mimir were spread over the world, and were taught by various clan-chiefs to different clans (see No. 53), make it evident that a perfect myth had been developed in regard to the origin of the runes and the spreading of runic knowledge. Mimir, as the possessor of the well of wisdom, was the inventor or source of the runes. When Sigurdrífumál (str. 13) says that they dropped out of Hoddrofnir's horn, this is, figuratively speaking, the same as Hávamál tells, when it states that Fimbulthul carved them. The oldest powers (ginnregin) and Odin afterwards developed and spread them.

At the time of Tacitus, and probably one or two centuries earlier, the art of writing was known among the Teutons. The runic inscriptions that have come down to our time bear evidence of a Greek-Roman origin.

By this we do not mean to deny that there were runes - at least, non-phonetic ones - before them. The many kinds of magic runes of which our mythic records speak are perhaps reminiscences of them. At all events we must distinguish the latter from the common runes for writing, and also from the many kinds of cypher-runes, the keys of which are to be sought in the common phonetic rune-row.

(10) Brimir. By the side of the golden hall of Sindri, Völuspá 37 mentions the giant Brimir's "bjór" hall, which is in Ókólnir. Bjórr is a synonym for mead and ale (Alvíssmál 34). Ókólnir means "the place where cold is not found". The reference is to a giant dwelling in the lower world who presides over mead, and whose hall is situated in a domain to which cold cannot penetrate. The myth has put this giant in connection with Ymir, who in relative opposition to him is called Leirbrimir, clay-Brimir (Fjölsvinnsmál). These circumstances refer to Mimir. So also Sigurdrífumál 14, where it is said that "Odin stood on the mountain with Brimir's sword" (Brimis eggjar), when Mimir's head for the first time talked with him. The expression "Brimir's sword" is ambiguous. As a head was once used as a weapon against Heimdall, a sword and a head can, according to Skáldskaparmál, be employed as paraphrases for each other, whence "Brimir's sword" may be the same as "Mimir's head" (see Skáldskaparmál 86; cp. Skáldskaparmál 15, and Gylfaginning 27). Sigurdrífumál certainly also employs the phrase in its literal sense of a famous mythological sword, for, in the case in question, it represents Odin as fully armed, with helmet on his head; and the most excellent mythological sword, according to an added line in strophe 54 of Grímnismál (Cod. A.), bore Brimir's name, just as the same sword in the German saga has the name Miminc (Biterolf, v. 176, in Vilkinasaga changed to Mimmung), doubtless because it at one time was in Mimir-Nidhad's possession; for the German saga (Biterolf, 157; cp. Vilkinasaga, ch. 23) remembers that a sword called by Mimir's name was the same celebrated weapon as that made by Volund (Wieland in Biterolf; Velint in Vilkinasaga), and hence the same work of art as that which, according to Vilkinasaga, Nidhad captured from him during his stay in Wolfdales.