By friction Mataricvan brought Agni out of the maternal wombs in which he was concealed as an embryo of light and warmth. Heimdal was born to life in a similar manner. His very place of nativity indicates this. His mothers have their abodes vid jardar thraum (Hyndl., 35) near the edge of the earth, on the outer rim of the earth, and that is where they gave him life (báru thann man vid jardar thraum). His mothers are giantesses (iotna meyjar), and nine in number. We have already found giantesses, nine in number, mentioned as having their activity on the outer edge of the earth—namely, those who with the möndull, the handle, turn the vast friction-mechanism, the world-mill of Mundilfore. They are the níu brúdir of Eyludr, "the Isle-grinder" mentioned by Snæbjorn (see above). These nine giant-maids, who along the outer zone of the earth (fyrir jordar skauti) push the mill's sweep before themselves and grind the coasts of the islands, are the same nine giant-maids who on the outer zone of the earth gave birth to Heimdal, the god of the friction-fire. Hence one of Heimdal's mothers is in Hyndluljod called Angeyja, "she who makes the islands closer," and another one is called Eyrgjafa, "she who gives sandbanks." Mundilföri, who is the father of Sol and Mane, and has the care of the motions of the starry heavens is accordingly also, though in another sense, the father of Heimdal the pure, holy fire to whom the glittering objects in the skies must naturally be regarded as akin.

In Hyndluljod (37) Heimdal's nine giant-mothers are named: Gjálp, Greip, Eistla, Eyrgjafa, Ulfrun, Angeyja, Imdr, Atla, Járnsaxa. The first two are daughters of the fire-giant Geirrod (Younger Edda, i. 288). To fire refers also Imdr, from ím, embers. Two of the names, Angeyja and Eyrgjafa, as already shown, indicate the occupation of these giantesses in connection with the world-mill. This is presumably also the case with Járnsaxa, "she who crushes the iron." The iron which our heathen fathers worked was produced from the sea- and swamp-iron mixed with sand and clay, and could therefore properly be regarded as a grist of the world-mill.

Heimdal's antithesis in all respects, and therefore also his constant opponent in the mythological epic, is Loke, he too a fire-being, but representing another side of this element. Natural agents such as fire, water, wind, cold, heat, and thunder have in the Teutonic mythology a double aspect. When they work in harmony, each within the limits which are fixed by the welfare of the world and the happiness of man, then they are sacred forces and are represented by the gods. But when these limits are transgressed, giants are at work, and the turbulent elements are represented by beings of giant-race. This is also true of thunder, although it is the common view among mythologists that it was regarded exclusively as a product of Thor's activity. The genuine mythical conception was, however, that the thunder which purifies the atmosphere and fertilises the thirsty earth with showers of rain, or strikes down the foes of Midgard, came from Thor; while that which splinters the sacred trees, sets fire to the woods and houses, and kills men that have not offended the gods, came from the foes of the world. The blaze-element (see No. 35) was not only in the possession of the gods, but also in that of the giants (Skirnersmal), and the lightning did not proceed alone from Mjolner, but was also found in Hrungner's hein and in Geirrod's glowing javelin. The conflicts between Thor and the giants were not only on terra firma, as when Thor made an expedition on foot to Jotunheim, but also in the air. There were giant-horses that were able to wade with force and speed through the atmosphere, as, for instance, Hrungner's Gullfaxi (Younger Edda, i. 270), and these giant-horses with their shining manes, doubtless, were expected to carry their riders to the lightning-conflict in space against the lightning-hurler, Thor. The thunder-storm was frequently a vig thrimu, a conflict between thundering beings, in which the lightnings hurled by the ward of Midgard, the son of Hlodyn, crossed the lightnings hurled by the foes of Midgard.

Loke and his brothers Helblindi and Byl-eistr are the children of a giant of this kind, of a giant representing the hurricane and thunder. The rain-torrents and waterspouts of the hurricane, which directly or indirectly became wedded to the sea through the swollen streams, gave birth to Helblinde, who, accordingly, received Rán as his "maid" (Yngl., 51). The whirlwind in the hurricane received as his ward Byleistr, whose name is composed of bylr, "whirlwind," and eistr, "the one dwelling in the east" (the north), a paraphrase for "giant." A thunderbolt from the hurricane gave birth to Loke. His father is called Fárbauti, "the one inflicting harm," and his mother is Laufey, "the leaf-isle," a paraphrase for the tree-crown (Younger Edda, 104, 268). Thus Loke is the son of the burning and destructive lightning, the son of him who particularly inflicts damaging blows on the sacred oaks (see No. 36) and sets fire to the groves. But the violence of the father does not appear externally in the son's character. He long prepares the conflagration of the world in secret, and not until he is put in chains does he exhibit, by the earthquakes he produces, the wild passion of his giant nature. As a fire-being, he was conceived as handsome and youthful. From an ethical point of view, the impurity of the flame which he represents is manifested by his unrestrained sensuousness. After he had been for ever exiled from the society of the gods and had been fettered in his cave of torture, his exterior, which was in the beginning beautiful, became transformed into an expression of his intrinsic wickedness, and his hair grew out in the form of horny spears (see above). In this too he reveals himself as a counterpart of Heimdal, whose helmet is ornamented with a glittering ram's horn.

83.

MUNDILFORE'S IDENTITY WITH LODUR.

The position which we have found Mundilfore to occupy indicates that, although not belonging to the powers dwelling in Asgard, he is one of the chief gods of the Teutonic mythology. All natural phenomena, which appear to depend on a fixed mechanical law and not on the initiative of any mighty will momentarily influencing the events of the world, seem to have been referred to his care. The mythology of the Teutons, like that of the Rigveda-Aryans, has had gods of both kinds—gods who particularly represent that order in the physical and moral world which became fixed in creation, and which, under normal conditions, remain entirely uniform, and gods who particularly represent the powerful temporary interference for the purpose of restoring this order when it has been disturbed, and for the purpose of giving protection and defence to their worshippers in times of trouble and danger. The latter are in their very nature war-gods always ready for battle, such as Vita and Indra in Rigveda, Odin and Thor-Indride in the Eddas; and they have their proper abode in a group of fortified celestial citadels like Asgard, whence they have their out-look upon the world they have to protect—the atmosphere and Midgard. The former, on the other hand, have their natural abode in Jormungrund's outer zone and in the lower world, whence the world-tree grew, and where the fountains are found whose liquids penetrate creation, and where that wisdom had its source of which Odin only, by self-sacrifice, secured a part. Down there dwell, accordingly, Urd and Mimer, Nat and Dag, Mundilfore with the dises of the sun and the moon, Delling, the genius of the glow of dawn, and Billing, the genius of the blushing sunset. There dwell the smiths of antiquity who made the chariots of the sun and moon and smithied the treasures of vegetation. There dwell the nidjar who represent the moon's waxing and waning; there the seven sons of Mimer who represent the changing seasons (see No. 87). Mundilfore is the lord of the regular revolutions of the starry firmament, and of the regular rising and sinking of the sea in its ebb and flood. He is the father of the dises of the sun and moon, who make their celestial journeys according to established laws; and, finally, he is the origin of the holy fire; he is father of Heimdal, who introduced among men a systematic life in homes fixed and governed by laws. As the father of Heimdal, the Vana-god, Mundilfore is himself a Vana-god, belonging to the oldest branch of this race, and in all probability one of those "wise rulers" who, according to Vafthrudnersmal, "created Njord in Vanaheim and sent him as a hostage to the gods (the Asas)."

Whence came the clans of the Vans and the Elves? It should not have escaped the notice of the mythologists that the Teutonic theogony, as far as it is known, mentions only two progenitors of the mythological races—Ymer and Bure. From Ymer develop the two very different races of giants, the offspring of his arms and that of his feet (see No. 86)—in other words, the noble race to which the norns Mimer and Beistla belong, and the ignoble, which begins with Thrudgelmer. Bure gives birth to Burr (Bor), and the latter has three sons—Odinn, Vei (Vé), and Vili (Vilir). Unless Bure had more sons, the Van- and Elf-clans have no other theogonic source than the same as the Asa-clan, namely, Burr. That the hierologists of the Teutonic mythology did not leave the origin of these clans unexplained we are assured by the very existence of a Teutonic theogony, together with the circumstance that the more thoroughly our mythology is studied the more clearly we see that this mythology has desired to answer every question which could reasonably be asked of it, and in the course of ages it developed into a systematic and epic whole with clear outlines sharply drawn in all details. To this must be added the important observation that Vei and Vili, though brothers of Odin, are never counted among the Asas proper, and had no abode in Asgard. It is manifest that Odin himself with his sons founds the Asa-race, that, in other words, he is a clan-founder in which this race has its chieftain, and that his brothers, for this very reason, could not be included in his clan. There is every reason to assume that they, like him, were clan-founders; and as we find besides the Asa-clan two other races of gods, this of itself makes it probable that Odin's two brothers were their progenitors and clan-chieftains.

Odin's brothers, like himself, had many names. When Völuspa says that Odin, in the creation of man, was assisted by Honer and Loder, and when the Younger Edda (i. 52) says that, on this occasion, he was attended by his brothers, who just before (i. 46) are called Ve and Vile, then these are only different names of the same powers. Honer and Loder are Ve and Vile. It is a mistake to believe that Odin's brothers were mythical ghosts without characteristic qualities, and without prominent parts in the mythological events after the creation of the world and of man, in which we know they took an active part (Völuspa, 4, 16, 17). The assumption that this was the case depends simply upon the fact that they have not been found mentioned among the Asas, and that our records, when not investigated with proper thoroughness, and when the mythological synonymics have not been carefully examined, seem to have so little to say concerning them.

Danish genealogies, Saxo's included, which desire to go further back in the genealogy of the Skjoldungs than to Skjold, the eponym of the race, mention before him a King Lotherus. There is no doubt that Lotherus, like his descendants, Skjold, Halfdan, and Hadding, is taken from the mythology. But in our mythic records there is only one name of which Lotherus can be a Latinised form, and this name is, as Müller (Notæ ulterior ad Saxonis Hist.) has already pointed out, Lodurr.

It has above been demonstrated (see Nos. 20, 21, 22) that the anthropomorphous Vana-god Heimdal was by Vana-gods sent as a child to the primeval Teutonic country, to give to the descendants of Ask and Embla the holy fire, tools, and implements, the runes, the laws of society, and the rules for religious worship. It has been demonstrated that, as an anthropomorphous god and first patriarch, he is identical with Scef-Rig, the Scyld of the Beowulf poem, that he becomes the father of the other original patriarch Skjold, and the grandfather of Halfdan. It has likewise been demonstrated (No. 82) that Heimdal, the personified sacred fire, is the son of the fire-producer (by friction) Mundilfore, in the same manner as Agni is the son of Matariçvan. From all this it follows that when the authors of mythic genealogies related as history wish to get further back in the Skjoldung genealogy than to the Beowulf Skjold, that is to say, further back than to the original patriarch Heimdal, then they must go to that mythic person who is Heimdal's father, that is to say, to Mundilfore, the fire-producer. Mundilfore is the one who appears in the Latinised name Lotherus. In other words, Mundilfore, the fire-producer, is Lodurr. For the name Lodurr there is no other rational explanation than that which Jacob Grimm, without knowing his position in the epic of mythology, has given, comparing the name with the verb lodern, "to blaze." Lodurr is active in its signification, "he who causes or produces the blaze," and thus refers to the origin of fire, particularly of the friction-fire and of the bore-fire.

Further on (Nos. 90, 91, 92, 121, 123) I shall give an account of the ward of the atmosphere, Gevarr (Nökkvi, Næfr), and demonstrate that he is identical with Mundilfore, the revolver of the starry firmament. All that Saxo tells about Lotherus is explained by the character of the latter as the chieftain of a Vana-clan, and by his identity with Mundilföri-Gevarr. As a chieftain of the Vans he was their leader when the war broke out between the Asas on the one side, and the Vans and Elves on the other. The banishment of Odin and the Asas by the Vans causes Saxo to say that Lotherus banished from the realm persons who were his equals in noble birth (nobilitate pares), and whom he regarded as competitors in regard to the government. It is also stated that he took the power from an elder brother, but spared his life, although he robbed him of the sceptre. The brother here referred to is not, however, Odin, but Hænir (Vei). The character of the one deposed is gentle and without any greed for rule like that by which Honer is known. Saxo says of him that he so patiently bore the injustice done him that he seemed to be pleased therewith as with a kindness received (ceterum injuriæ tam patiens fuit, ut honoris damno tanquam beneficio gratulari crederetur). The reason why Honer, at the outbreak of the war with the Asas, is deposed from his dignity as the ruler of Vanaheim and is succeeded by Loder, is explained by the fact that he, like Mimer, remained devoted to the cause of Odin. In spite of the confused manner in which the troubles between the Asas and Vans are presented in Heimskringla, it still appears that, before the war between the Asas and Vans, Honer was the chief of the latter on account of an old agreement between the two god-clans; that he then always submitted to the counsels of the wise Mimer, Odin's friend; that Mimer lost his life in the service of Odin, and that the Vans sent his head to Odin; and, finally, that, at the outbreak of the feud with the Asas and after the death of Mimer, they looked upon Honer as unqualified to be their judge and leader. Thus Loder becomes after Honer the ruler of Vanaheim and the chieftain of the Vans, while the Vans Njord, Frey, and the Elf Ull, who had already been adopted in Asgard, administer the affairs of the rest of the world. To the mythical circumstance, that Honer lost his throne and his power points also Völuspa, the poem restoring to the gentle and patient Vana-god, after the regeneration, the rights of which he had been robbed, thá kná Hænir hlautvid kjosa (str. 60). "Then Honer becomes able to choose the lot-wood," that is to say, he is permitted to determine and indicate the fortunes of those consulting the oracle; in other words, then he is again able to exercise the rights of a god. In the Eddas, Honer appears as Odin's companion on excursions from Asgard. Skaldskaparmal, which does not seem to be aware that Honer was Odin's brother, still is conscious that he was intimately connected with him and calls him his sessi, sinni, and máli (Younger Edda, i. 266). During the war between Asas and Vans, Frigg espoused the cause of the Vans (see No. 36); hence Loke's insulting words to her (Lokasenna, 26), and the tradition in Heimskringla (Yngl., 3), that Vilir and Vei took Frigg to themselves once when Odin was far away from Asgard.

Saxo makes Lotherus fall at the hands of conspirators. The explanation of this statement is to be sought in Mundilföri-Gevarr's fate, of which, see Nos. 91, 123.

Mundilfore's character seems at least in one respect to be the opposite of Honer's. Gylfaginning speaks of his ofdrambi, his pride, founded, according to this record, on the beauty of his children. Saxo mentions the insolentia of Lotherus, and one of his surnames was Dulsi, the proud. See No. 89, where a strophe is quoted, in which the founder of the Swedish Skilfing race (the Ynglings) is called Dulsa knor, Dulse's descendant. As was shown above in the account of the myth about Scef, the Skjoldungs, too, are Skilfings. Both these branches of the race have a common origin; and as the genealogy of the Skjoldungs can be traced back to Heimdal, and beyond him to Mundilfore, it must be this personality who is mentioned for his ofdrambi, that bears the surname Dulsi.

With Odin, Vei-Höner and Vili-Lodurr-Mundilföri have participated in the shaping of the world as well as in the creation of man. Of the part they took in the latter act, and of the importance they thereby acquired in the mythical anthropology, and especially in the conceptions concerning the continued creation of man by generation and birth, see No. 95.

84.

NAT, THE MOTHER OF THE GODS.

It has already been shown above that Nat, the mother of the gods, has her hall in the northern part of Mimer's realm, below the southern slopes of the Nida mountains.

There has been, and still is, an interpretation of the myths as symbols. Light is regarded as the symbol of moral goodness, and darkness as that of moral evil. That there is something psychologically correct in this cannot be denied; but in regard to the Aryan religions the assumption would lead to a great error, if, as we might be tempted to do, we should make night identical with darkness, and should refer her to the world of evil. In the mythologies of the Rigveda-Aryans and of the Teutons, Nat is an awe-inspiring, adorable, noble, and beneficent being. Night is said in Rigveda "to have a fair face, to increase riches, and to be one of the mothers of order." None of the phenomena of nature seemed to the Teutons evil per se; only when they transgressed what was thought to be their lawful limits, and thus produced injury and harm, were giant-powers believed to be active therein. Although the Teutonic gods are in a constant, more or less violent conflict with the powers of frost, still winter, when it observes its limits of time, is not an evil but a good divinity, and the cold liquids of Hvergelmer mixed with those of Urd's and Mimer's fountains are necessary to the world-tree. Still less could night be referred to the domain of demons. Mother Nat never transgresses the borders of her power; she never defies the sacred laws, which are established for the order of the universe. According to the seasons of the year, she divides in an unvarying manner the twenty-four hours between herself and day. Work and rest must alternate with each other. Rich in blessing, night comes with solace to the weary, and seeks if possible to sooth the sufferer with a potion of slumber. Though sombre in appearance (Gylfy., 10), still she is the friend of light. She decorates herself with lunar effulgence and with starry splendour, with winning twilight in midsummer, and with the light of snow and of northern aurora in the winter. The following lines in Sigrdrifumal (str., 3, 4) sound like a reverberation from the lost liturgic hymns of our heathendom.

Of the Germans in the first century after Christ, Tacitus writes (Germ., 3): "They do not, as we, compute time by days but by nights, night seems to lead the day" (nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computant: nox ducere diem videtur). This was applicable to the Scandinavians as far down as a thousand years later. Time was computed by nights not by days, and in the phrases from heathen times, nótt ok dagr, nótt med degi bædi um nætr ok um daga, night is named before day. Linguistic usage and mythology are here intimately associated with each other. According to Vafthrudnersmal (25) and Gylfaginning (10), Nat bore with Delling the son Dag, with whom she divided the administration of the twenty-four hours. Delling is the elf of the morning red (see No. 35). The symbolism of nature is here distinct as in all theogonies.

Through other divinities, Naglfari and Ónarr (Anarr, Aunarr), Nat is the mother with the former of Unnr (Udr), also called Audr, with the latter of the goddess Jord, Odin's wife. Unnr means water, Audr means rich. It has above been shown that Unnr-Audr is identical with Njord, the lord of wealth and commerce, who in the latter capacity became the protector of navigators, and to whom sacrifices were offered for a prosperous voyage. Gods of all clans—Asas, Vans, and Elves—are thus akin to Nat, and are descended from her.

85.

NARFI, NAT'S FATHER, IDENTICAL WITH MIMER. A PSEUDO-NARFI IN THE YOUNGER EDDA.

Nat herself is the daughter of a being whose name has many forms.

All these variations are derived from the same original appellation, related to the Old Norse verb njörva, the Old English nearwian meaning "the one that binds," "the one who puts on tight-fitting bonds."

Simply the circumstance that Narve is Nat's father proves that he must have occupied one of the most conspicuous positions in the Teutonic cosmogony. In all cosmogonies and theogonies night is one of the oldest beings, older than light, without which it cannot be conceived. Light is kindled in the darkness, thus foreboding an important epoch in the development of the world out of chaos. The being which is night's father must therefore be counted among the oldest in the cosmogony. The personified representatives of water and earth, like the day, are the children of his daughter.

What Gylfaginning tells of Narve is that he was of giant birth, and the first one who inhabited Jotunheim (Norvi eda Narfi hét jötun, er bygdi fyrst Jotunheima—Gylfag., 10). In regard to this we must remember that, in Gylfaginning and in the traditions of the Icelandic sagas, the lower world is embraced in the term Jotunheim, and this for mythical reasons, since Nifelheim is inhabited by rimthurses and giants (see No. 60), and since the regions of bliss are governed by Mimer and by the norns, who also are of giant descent. As the father of the lower-world dis, Nat, Narve himself belongs to that group of powers, with which the mythology peopled the lower world. The upper Jotunheim did not exist before in a later epoch of the cosmogonic development. It was created simultaneously with Midgard by Odin and his brothers (Gylfaginning).

In a strophe by Egil Skallagrimson (ch. 56), poetry, or the source of poetry, is called niderfi Narfa, "the inheritance left by Narve to his descendants." As is well known, Mimer's fountain is the source of poetry. The expression indicates that the first inhabitant of the lower world, Narve, also presided over the precious fountain of wisdom and inspiration, and that he died and left it to his descendants as an inheritance.

Finally, we learn that Narve was a near kinsman to Urd and her sisters. This appears from the following passages:

(a) Helge Hundingsbane (1, 3, ff.). When Helge was born norns came in the night to the abode of his parents, twisted the threads of his fate, stretched them from east to west, and fastened them beneath the hall of the moon. One of the threads nipt Nera cast to the north and bade it hold for ever. It is manifest that by Nere's (Narve's) kinswoman is meant one of the norns present.

(b) Sonatorr. (str. 24). The skald Egil Skallagrimson, weary of life, closes his poem by saying that he sees the dis of death standing on the ness (Digraness) near the grave-mound which conceals the dust of his father and of his sons, and is soon to receive him:

It goes without saying that the skald means a dis of death, Urd or one of her messengers, with the words, "The kinswoman of Njorve (the binder) of Odin's foes," whom he with the eye of presentiment sees standing on the family grave-mound on Digraness. She is not to stop there, but she is to continue her way to his hall, to bring him to the grave-mound. He awaits her coming with gladness, and as the last line shows, she whose arrival he awaits is Hel, the goddess of death or fate. It has already been demonstrated that Hel in the heathen records is always identical with Urd.

Njorve is here used both as a proper and a common noun. "The kinswoman of the Njorve of Odin's foes" means "the kinswoman of the binder of Odin's foes." Odin's foe Fenrer was bound with an excellent chain smithied in the lower world (dwarfs in Svartalfheimr—Gylfag., 37), and as shall be shown later, there are more than one of Odin's foes who are bound with Narve's chains (see No. 87).

(c) Hofudlausn (str. 10). Egil Skallagrimson celebrates in song a victory won by Erik Blood-axe, and says of the battle-field that there trad nipt Nara náttverd ara ("Nare's kinswoman trampled upon the supper of the eagles," that is to say, upon the dead bodies of the fallen). The psychopomps of disease, of age, and of misfortunes have nothing to do on a battle-field. Thither come valkyries to fetch the elect. Nipt Nara must therefore be a valkyrie, whose horse tramples upon the heaps of dead bodies; and as Egil names only one shield-maid of that kind, he doubtless has had the most representative, the most important one in mind. That one is Skuld, Urd's sister, and thus a nipt Nara like Urd herself.

(d) Ynglingatal (Ynglingasaga, ch. 20). Of King Dygve, who died from disease, it is said that jódis Narva (jódis Nara) chose him. The right to choose those who die from disease belongs to the norns alone (see No. 69). Jódis, a word doubtless produced by a vowel change from the Old Germanic idis, has already in olden times been interpreted partly as horse-dis (from jór, horse), partly as the dis of one's kin (from jod, child, offspring). In this case the skald has taken advantage of both significations. He calls the death-dis ulfs ok Narva jódis, the wolf's horse-dis, Narve's kin-dis. In regard to the former signification, it should be remembered that the wolf is horse for all giantesses, the honoured norns not excepted. Cp. grey norna as a paraphrase for wolf.

Thus what our mythic records tell us about Narve is:

(a) He is one of the oldest beings of theogony, older than the upper part of the world constructed by Bur's sons.

(b) He is of giant descent.

(c) He is father of Nat, father-in-law of Nagelfar, Onar, and of Delling, the elf of the rosy dawn; and he is the father of Dag's mother, of Unnr, and of the goddess Jord, who becomes Odin's wife and Thor's mother. Bonds of kinship thus connect him with the Asas and with gods of other ranks.

(d) He is near akin to the dis of fate and death, Urd and her sisters. The word nipt, with which Urd's relation to him is indicated, may mean sister, daughter, and sister's daughter, and consequently does not state which particular one of these it is. It seems upon the whole to have been applied well-nigh exclusively in regard to mythic persons, and particularly in regard to Urd and her sisters (cp. above: Njörva nipt, nipt Nara, nipt Nera), so that it almost acquired the meaning of dis or norn. This is evident from Skaldskaparmal, ch. 75: Nornir heita thær er naud skapa; Nipt ok Dis nú eru taldar, and from the expression Heil Nótt ok Nipt in the above-cited strophe from Sigrdrifumal. There is every reason for assuming that the Nipt, which is here used as a proper noun, in this sense means the dis of fate and as an appellation of kinship, a kinswoman of Nat. The common interpretation of heil Nótt ok Nipt is "hail Nat and her daughter," and by her daughter is then meant the goddess Jord; but this interpretation is, as Bugge has shown, less probable, for the goddess Jord immediately below gets her special greeting in the words: heil sia in fiolnyta Fold! ("hail the bounteous earth!")

(e) As the father of Nat, living in Mimer's realm, and kinsman of Urd, who with Mimer divides the dominion over the lower world, Narve is himself a being of the lower world, and the oldest subterranean being; the first one who inhabited Jotunheim.

(f) He presided over the subterranean fountain of wisdom and inspiration, that is to say, Mimer's fountain.

(g) He was Odin's friend and the binder of Odin's foes.

(h) He died and left his fountain as a heritage to his descendants.

As our investigation progresses it will be found that all these facts concerning Narve apply to Mimer, that "he who thinks" (Mimer) and "he who binds" (Narve) are the same person. Already the circumstances that Narve was an ancient being of giant descent, that he dwelt in the lower world and was the possessor of the fountain of wisdom there, that he was Odin's friend, and that he died and left his fountain as an inheritance (cp. Mims synir), point definitely to Narve's and Mimer's identity. Thus the Teutonic theogony has made Thought the older kinsman of Fate, who through Nat bears Dag to the world. The people of antiquity made their first steps toward a philosophical view of the world in their theogony.

The Old English language has preserved and transferred to the Christian Paradise a name which originally belonged to the subterranean region of bliss of heathendom—Neorxenavang. Vang means a meadow, plain, field. The mysterious Neorxena looks like a genitive plural. Grein, in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, and before him Weinhold, refers neorxena to Narve, Nare, and this without a suspicion that Narve was an epithet of Mimer and referred to the king of the heathen regions of bliss. I consider this an evidence that Grein's assumption is as correct as it is necessary, if upon the whole we are to look for an etymological explanation of the word. The plural genitive, then, means those who inhabit Narve's regions of bliss, and receive their appellation from this circumstance. The opposite Old Norse appellation is njarir, a word which I shall discuss below.

To judge from certain passages in Christian writings of the thirteenth century, Mimer was not alone about the name Narve, Nare. One or two of Loke's sons are supposed to have had the same name. The statements in this regard demand investigation, and, as I think, this will furnish another instructive contribution to the chapter on the confusion of the mythic traditions, and on the part that the Younger Edda plays in this respect. The passages are:

(a) The prosaic afterword to Lokasenna: "He (Loke) was bound with the entrails of his son Nari, but his son Narfi was turned into a wolf."

(b) Gylfaginning, ch. 33. (1) Most of the codices: "His (Loke's) wife is hight Sygin; their son is Nari or Narvi."

(2) Codex Hypnonesiensis: "His (Loke's) wife is hight Sygin; his sons are hight Nari or Narvi and Vali."

(c) Gylfaginning, ch. 50. (1) Most of the codices: "Then were taken Loke's sons Vali and Nari or Narfi. The Asas changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into pieces his brother Narfi. Then the Asas took his entrails and therewith bound Loke."

(2) Codex Upsalensis: "Then were taken Loke's sons Vali and Nari. The Asas changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into pieces his brother Nari."

(d) Skaldskaparmal, ch. 16. (1) "Loke is the father of the wolf Fenrer, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, 'and also of Nari and Ali.'"

(2) Codex Wormianus and Codex Hypnonesiensis, 3: "Loke is father of the Fenris-wolf, of the Midgard-serpent, and of Hel, 'and also of Nari and Vali.'"

The mythology has stated that Loke was bound with chains which were originally entrails, and that he who contributed the materials of these chains was his own son, who was torn into pieces by his brother in wolf guise. It is possible that there is something symbolic in this myth—that it originated in the thought that the forces created by evil contend with each other and destroy their own parent. There is at least no reason for doubting that this account is a genuine myth, that is to say, that it comes from a heathen source and from some heathen poem.

But, in regard to the names of Loke's two sons here in question, we have a perfect right to doubt.

We discover at once the contradictions betrayed by the records in regard to them. The discrepancy of the statements can best be shown by the following comparisons. Besides Fenrer, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, Loke has, according to

The discrepancy shows that the author of these statements did not have any mythic song or mythic tradition as the source of all these names of Loke's sons.

The matter becomes even more suspicious when we find—

That the variations Nare and Narve, both of which belong to one of the foremost and noblest of mythic beings, namely, to Mimer, are here applied in such a manner that they either are given to two sons of Loke or are attributed to one and the same Loke-son, while in the latter case it happens—

That the names Vale and Ale, which both belong to the same Asa-god and son of Odin who avenged the death of his brother Balder, are both attributed to the other son of Loke. Compare Gylfaginning, ch. 30: Vali eda Ali heitir einn (Assin) sonr Odins ok Rindar.

How shall we explain this? Such an application of these names must necessarily produce the suspicion of some serious mistake; but we cannot assume that it was made wilfully. The cause must be found somewhere.

It has already been demonstrated that, in the mythology, Urd, the dis of fate, was also the dis of death and the ruler of the lower world, and that the functions belonging to her in this capacity were, in Christian times, transferred to Loke's daughter, who, together with her functions, usurped her name Hel. Loke's daughter and Hel became to the Christian mythographers identical.

An inevitable result was that such expressions as nipt Nara, jódis Narfa, nipt Njörva, had to change meaning. The nipt Njörva, whom the aged Egil saw standing near the grave-mound on Digraness, and whose arrival he awaited "with gladness and good-will," was no longer the death-dis Urd, but became to the Christian interpreters the abominable daughter of Loke who came to fetch the old heathen. The nipt Nara, whose horse trampled on the battle-field where Erik Blood-axe defeated the Scots, was no longer Urd's sister, the valkyrie Skuld, but became Loke's daughter, although, even according to the Christian mythographers, the latter had nothing to do on a battle-field. The jódis Narfa, who chose King Dygve, was confounded with Loka mær, who had him leikinn (see No. 67), but who, according to the heathen conception, was a maid-servant of fate, without the right of choosing. To the heathens nipt Nara, nipt Njörva, jódis Narfa, meant "Nare-Mimer's kinswoman Urd." To the mythographers of the thirteenth century it must, for the reason stated, have meant the Loke-daughter as sister of a certain Nare or Narve. It follows that this Nare or Narve ought to be a son of Loke, since his sister was Loke's daughter. It was known that Loke besides Fenrer and the Midgard-serpent, had two other sons, of which the one in the guise of a wolf tore the other into pieces. In Nare, Narve, the name of one or the names of both these Loke-sons were thought to have been found.

The latter assumption was made by the author of the prose in Lokasenna. He conceived Nare to be the one brother and Narve the other. The author of Gylfaginning, on the other hand, rightly regarded Nare and Narve as simply variations of the same name, and accordingly let them designate the same son of Loke. When he wrote chapter 33, he did not know what name to give to the other, and consequently omitted him entirely. But when he got to the 50th chapter, a light had risen for him in regard to the name of the other. And the light doubtless came from the following strophe in Völuspa:

tha kna vala
vigbond snua,
helldi voru hardgior
hoft or thormum.

This half strophe says that those were strong chains (for Loke) that were made of entrails, and these fetters were "twisted" from "Vale's vigbönd." Vig as a legal term means a murder, slaughter. Vala vig was interpreted as a murder committed by Vale; and Vala vigbönd as the bonds or fetters obtained by the slaughter committed by Vale. It was known that Loke was chained with the entrails of his son, and here it was thought to appear that this son was slain by a certain Vale. And as he was slain by a brother according to the myth, then Vale must be the brother of the slain son of Loke. Accordingly chapter 50 of Gylfaginning could tell us what chapter 33 did not yet know, namely, that the two sons of Loke were named Vale and Nare or Narve, and that Vale changed to a wolf, tore the brother "Nare or Narve" into pieces.

The next step was taken by Skaldskaparmal, or more probably by one of the transcribers of Skaldskaparmal. As Vale and Ale in the mythology designated the same person (viz., Balder's avenger, the son of Odin), the son of Loke, changed into a wolf, "Vale" received as a gift the name "Ale." It is by no means impossible that the transcriber regarded Balder's avenger, Vale, and the son of Loke as identical. The oldest manuscript we have of Skaldskaparmal is the Upsala Codex, which is no older than the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mythic traditions were then in the continuation of that rapid decay which had begun in the eleventh century, and not long thereafter the Icelandic saga writings saw Valhal peopled by giants and all sorts of monsters, which were called einherjes, and Thor himself transferred to the places of torture where he drank venom from "the auroch's horn," presented to him by the daughter of Loke.

In the interpretation of the above-cited half strophe of Völuspa, we must therefore leave out the supposed son of Loke, Vale. The Teutonic mythology, like the other Aryan mythologies, applied many names and epithets to the same person, but it seldom gave two or more persons one and the same name, unless the latter was a patronymic or, in other respects, of a general character. There was not more than one Odin, one Thor, one Njord, one Heimdal, one Loke, and there is no reason for assuming that there was more than one Vale, namely, the divine son of this name. Of Balder's brother Vale we know that he was born to avenge the slaying of Balder. His impatience to do that which he was called to perform is expressed in the mythology by the statement, that he liberated himself from the womb of his mother before the usual time (Baldrs brodir var af borinn snemma—Völuspa), and only one night old he went to slay Hödr. The bonds which confine the impatient one in his mother's womb were his vigbönd, the bonds which hindered him from combat, and these bonds were in the most literal sense of the word ór thörmum. As Loke's bonds are made of the same material and destined to hinder him from combat with the gods until Ragnarok, and as his prison is in the womb of the earth, as Vale's was in that of the earth-goddess Rind's, then Vala vigbönd as a designation of Loke's chains is both logically and poetically a satisfactory paraphrase, and the more in order as it occurs in connection with the description of the impending Ragnarok, when Loke by an earthquake is to sever his fetters and hasten to the conflict.

86.

THE TWO GIANT CLANS DESCENDED FROM YMER.

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

Fimbulliód nio
nam ec af enom iregia syni
Baulthorns Beyzlu faudur
oc ce dryc of gat
ens dyra miadar
ausinn Odreri.

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

Accordingly Mimer had a sister by name Beyzla (variations: Bestla, Besla, Bezla). A strophe by Einar Skalaglam (Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2; cp. Gylfag., ch. 6) informs us that Beistla is Odin's mother. Mimer'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 Mimer always showed to Odin.

The Mimer epithet Narfi, Narve, means, as shown above, "the one who binds." His daughter Nat is called draumnjörun, the dream-binder (Alvism., 31). 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 örlogthættir (Helge Hund., i. 3), and Urdar lokur (Grogaldr., 7). As the nearest kinswomen of Beistla all have epithets or tasks which refer to the idea of binding, and when we add to this that Beistla'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 Mimer and Beistla 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, Bolthorn can be none else than Ymer.

Mimer, Beistla, the norns, and Nat 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 Ymer, 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 Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer and their offspring.

It now lies near at hand to inquire whether the mythology which attributed the same father to Mimer and Thrudgelmer 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 Ymer bore children without the pleasure of woman (gygiar gaman—Vafthrudnersmal, 32; cp. No. 60). Neither Mimer nor Thrudgelmer 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 Ymer 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 (l. 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 Ymer. In regard to the former idea we need only to quote what Vafthrudnersmal 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 Vafthrudnersmal testifies concerning its character:

In perfect harmony with this Gylfaginning narrates: "Under Ymer'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 Ymer; 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 Vafthrudnersmal, where we read that a "strangely-headed" monster (Thrudgelmer—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 Ymer, and they can only be Mimer and his sister, Odin's mother. Mimer 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 (Havamál, 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 Nat and nidjar, Mane and Sol, belong to Mimer's clan, and were in the morning of creation named by the oldest "high holy gods," and endowed with the vocation árom at telja (Völuspa). From Mimer 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 Vafthrudnersmal that two giant races proceeded from Ymer, 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 Ymer'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 Mimer 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 Vafthrudnersmal strophe, undir hendi hrimthursi vaxa mey ok maug saman, are evidence that the Germans also considered Mimer and his sister as twins.

87.

THE IDENTITY OF MIMER AND NIDHAD OF THE VOLUND SAGA.

The condition in which the traditions of the great Volund (Wayland) have come down to our time is one of the many examples illustrating how, under the influences of a change of faith, a myth disrobes itself of its purely mythical character and becomes a heroic saga. The nature of the mythic traditions and songs is not at once obliterated in the time of transition; there remain marks of their original nature in some or other of the details as proof of what they have been. Thus that fragment of a Volund saga, turned into an epic, which the Old Norse literature has preserved for us in Volundarkvida, shows us that the artist who is the hero of the song was originally conceived not as a son of man, but as a member of the mythic race of elves which in Völuspa is mentioned in connection with the Asas (hvat er med asom, hvat er med alfom?—str. 49). Volund is an elf-prince (alfa visi, alfa ljothi—Volund., str. 10, 13), and, as shall be shown below, when we come to consider the Volund myth exhaustively, he and his brothers and their mistresses have played parts of the very greatest importance in the epic of Teutonic mythology. Under such circumstances it follows that the other persons appearing in Volundarkvida also were originally mythical characters.

One of these is called Nidadr (Nidudr), king of Njares, and I am now to investigate who this Nidadr was in the mythology.

When Volund for the first time appears by this name in the Elder Edda, he is sojourning in a distant country, to which it is impossible to come without traversing the Myrkwood forest famous in the mythology (see No. 78). It is a snow-clad country, the home of bears and wolves. Volund gets his subsistence by hunting on skees. The Old English poem, "Deor the Scald's Complaint," confirms that this region was regarded as very cold (cp. vintercealde vræce). In Volundarkvida it is called Wolfdales.

Volund stays here many years in company with his two brothers and with three swan-maids, their mistresses or wives, but finally alone. Volund passes the time in smithying, until he is suddenly attacked by Nidadr (Nidudr), "the Njara-king" (Volundarkv., 6), who puts him in chains and robs him of two extraordinary treasures—a sword and an arm-ring. Seven hundred arm-rings hung in a string in Volund's hall; but this one alone seemed to be worth more than all the rest, and it alone was desired by Nidadr (str. 7, 8, 17).

Before Volund went to the Wolfdales, he had lived with his people a happy life in a land abounding in gold (str. 14). Not voluntarily, but from dire necessity he had exchanged his home for the distant wilderness of the Wolfdales. "Deor the Scald's Complaint" says he was an exile (Veland him be vurman vreces cannade). A German saga of the middle ages, "Anhang des Heldenbuchs," confirms this statement. Wieland (Volund), it is there said, "was a duke who was banished by two giants, who took his land from him," whereupon "he was stricken with poverty," and "became a smith." The Volundarkvida does not have much to say about the reason for his sojourn in the Wolfdales, but strophe 28 informs us that, previous to his arrival there, he had suffered an injustice, of which he speaks as the worst and the most revenge-demanding which he, the unhappy and revengeful man, ever experienced. But he has had no opportunity of demanding satisfaction, when he finally succeeds in getting free from Nidadr's chains. Who those mythic persons are that have so cruelly insulted him and filled his heart with unquenchable thirst for revenge is not mentioned; but in the very nature of the case those persons from whose persecutions he has fled must have been mightier than he, and as he himself is a chief in the godlike clan of elves, his foes are naturally to be looked for among the more powerful races of gods.

And as Volundarkvida pictures him as boundlessly and recklessly revengeful, and makes him resort to his extraordinary skill as a smith—a skill famous among all Teutonic tribes—in the satisfaction which he demands of Nidadr, there is no room for doubt that the many years he spent in Wolfdales, he brooded on plans of revenge against those who had most deeply insulted him, and that he made use of his art to secure instruments for the carrying out of these plans. Of the glittering sword of which Nidadr robbed him, Volund says (str. 18) that he had applied his greatest skill in making it hard and keen. The sword must, therefore, have been one of the most excellent ones mentioned in the songs of Teutonic heathendom. Far down in the middle ages, the songs and sagas were fond of attributing the best and most famous swords wielded by their heroes to the skill of Volund.

In the myths turned by Saxo into history, there has been mentioned a sword of a most remarkable kind, of untold value (ingens præmium), and attended by success in battle (belli fortuna comitaretur). A hero whose name Saxo Latinised into Hotherus (see Hist. Dan., p. 110) got into enmity with the Asa-gods, and the only means with which he can hope to cope with them is the possession of this sword. He also knows where to secure it, and with its aid he succeeds in putting Thor himself and other gods to flight.

In order to get possession of this sword, Hotherus had to make a journey which reminds us of the adventurous expeditions already described to Gudmund-Mimer's domain, but with this difference, that he does not need to go by sea along the coast of Norway in order to get there, which circumstance is sufficiently explained by the fact that, according to Saxo, Hotherus has his home in Sweden. The regions which Hotherus has to traverse are pathless, full of obstacles, and for the greater part continually in the cold embrace of the severest frost. They are traversed by mountain-ridges on which the cold is terrible, and therefore they must be crossed as rapidly as possible with the aid of "yoke-stags." The sword is kept concealed in a specus, a subterranean cave, and "mortals" can scarcely cross its threshold (haud facile mortalibus patere posse). The being which is the ward of the sword in this cave is by Saxo called Mimingus.

The question now is, whether the sword smithied by Volund and the one fetched by Hotherus are identical or not. The former is smithied in a winter-cold country beyond Myrkwood, where the mythic Nidadr suddenly appears, takes possession of it, and the purpose for which it was made, judging from all circumstances, was that Volund with its aid was to conquer the hated powers which, stronger than he, the chief of elves, had compelled him to take refuge to the Wolfdales. If these powers were Asas or Vans, then it follows that Volund must have thought himself able to give to his sword qualities that could render it dangerous to the world of gods, although the latter had Thor's hammer and other subterranean weapons at their disposal. The sword captured by Hotherus is said to possess those very qualities which we might look for in the Volund weapon, and the regions he has to traverse in order to get possession of it refer, by their cold and remoteness, to a land similar to that where Nidadr surprises Volund, and takes from him the dangerous sword.

As already stated, Nidad at the same time captured an arm-ring of an extraordinary kind. If the saga about Volund and his sword was connected with the saga-fragment turned into history by Saxo concerning Hotherus and the sword, whose owner he becomes, then we might reasonably expect that the precious arm-ring, too, should appear in the latter saga. And we do find it there. Mimingus, who guards the sword of victory, also guards a wonderful arm-ring, and through Saxo we learn what quality makes this particular arm-ring so precious, that Nidad does not seem to care about the other seven hundred which he finds in Volund's workshop. Saxo says: Eidem (Mimingo) quoque armillam esse mira quadam arcanaque virtute possessoris opes augere solitam. "In the arm-ring there dwells a wonderful and mysterious power, which increases the wealth of its possessor." In other words, it is a smith's work, the rival of the ring Draupner, from which eight similar rings drop every ninth night. This explains why Volund's smithy contains so many rings, that Nidad expresses his suspicious wonderment (str. 13).

There are therefore strong reasons for assuming that the sword and the ring, which Hotherus takes from Mimingus, are the same sword and ring as Nidad before took from Volund, and that the saga, having deprived Volund of the opportunity of testing the quality of the weapon himself in conflict with the gods, wanted to indicate what it really amounted to in a contest with Thor and his hammer by letting the sword came into the hands of Hotherus, another foe of the Asas. As we now find such articles as those captured by Nidad reappearing in the hands of a certain Mimingus, the question arises whether Mimingus is Nidad himself or some one of Nidad's subjects; for that they either are identical, or are in some way connected with each other, seems to follow from the fact that the one is said to possess what the other is said to have captured. Mimingus is a Latinising of Mimingr, Mimungr, son or descendant of Mimer.

Nidadr, Nidudr (both variations are found in Volundarkvida), has, on the other hand, his counterpart in the Anglo-Saxon Nidhâd. The king who in "Deor the Scald's Complaint" fetters Volund bears this name, and his daughter is called Beadohild, in Volundarkvida Bodvild. Previous investigators have already remarked that Beadohild is a more original form than Bodvild, and Nidhad than Nidudr, Nidadr. The name Nidhad is composed of nid (neuter gender), the lower world, Hades, and had, a being, person, forma, species. Nidhad literally means the lower world being, the Hades being. Herewith we also have his mythical character determined. A mythical king, who is characterised as the being of the lower world, must be a subterranean king. The mythic records extant speak of the subterranean king Mimer (the middle-age saga's Gudmund, king of the Glittering Fields; see Nos. 45, 46), who rules over the realm of the well of wisdom and has the dis of fate as his kinswoman, the princess of the realm of Urd's fountain and of the whole realm of death. While we thus find, on the one hand, that it is a subterranean king who captures Volund's sword and arm-ring, we find, on the other hand, that when Hotherus is about to secure the irresistible sword and the wealth-producing ring, he has to betake himself to the same winter-cold country, where all the traditions here discussed (see Nos. 45-49) locate the descent to Mimer's realm, and that he, through an entrance "scarcely approachable for mortals," must proceed into the bosom of the earth after he has subdued a Mimingus, a son of Mimer. Mimer being the one who took possession of the treasure, it is perfectly natural that his son should be its keeper.

This also explains why Nidadr in Volundarkvida is called the king of the Njares. A people called Njares existed in the mythology, but not in reality. The only explanation of the word is to be found in the Mimer epithet, which we discovered in the variations Narve, Njorve, Nare, Nere, which means "he who binds." They are called Njares, because they belong to the clan of Njorvi-Nare.

Volundarkvida (str. 19, with the following prose addition) makes Nidad's queen command Volund's knee-sinews to be cut. Of such a cruelty the older poem, "Deor the Skald's Complaint," knows nothing. This poem relates, on the other hand, that Nidad bound Volund with a fetter made from a strong sinew:

siththan hinne Nidhad on
nede legde
sveoncre seono-bende.

Though Volund is in the highest degree skilful, he is not able to free himself from these bonds. They are of magic kind, and resemble those örlogthættir which are tied by Mimer's kinswoman Urd. Nidad accordingly here appears in Mimer-Njorve's character as "binder." With this fetter of sinew we must compare the one with which Loke was bound, and that tough and elastic one which was made in the lower world and which holds Fenrer bound until Ragnarok. And as Volund—a circumstance already made probable, and one that shall be fully proved below—actually regards himself as insulted by the gods, and has planned a terrible revenge against them, then it is an enemy of Odin that Nidhad here binds, and the above-cited paraphrase for the death-dis, Urd, employed by Egil Skallagrimson, "the kinswoman of the binder (Njorva) of Odin's foes" (see No. 85), also becomes applicable here.

The tradition concerning Nidhad's original identity with Mimer flourished for a long time in the German middle-age sagas, and passed thence into the Vilkinasaga, where the banished Volund became Mimer's smith. The author of Vilkinasaga, compiling both from German and from Norse sources, saw Volund in the German records as a smith in Mimer's employ, and in the Norse sagas he found him as Nidhad's smith, and from the two synonyms he made two persons.

The Norse form of the name most nearly corresponding to the Old English Nidhad is Nidi, "the subterranean," and that Mimer also among the Norsemen was known by this epithet is plain both from the Sol-song and from Völuspa. The skald of the Sol-song sees in the lower world "Nide's sons, seven together, drinking the clear mead from the well of ring-Regin." The well of the lower world with the "clear mead" is Mimer's fountain, and the paraphrase ring-Regin is well suited to Mimer, who possessed among other treasures the wonderful ring of Hotherus. Völuspa speaks of Nide's mountain, the Hvergelmer mountain, from which the subterranean dragon Nidhog flies (see No. 75), and of Nide's plains where Sindre's race have their golden hall. Sindre is, as we know, one of the most celebrated primeval smiths of mythology, and he smithied Thor's lightning hammer, Frey's golden boar, and Odin's spear Gungner (Gylfaginning). Dwelling with his kinsmen in Mimer's realm, he is one of the artists whom the ruler of the lower world kept around him (cp. No. 53). Several of the wonderful things made by these artists, as for instance the harvest-god's Skidbladner, and golden boar, and Sif's golden locks, are manifestly symbols of growth or vegetation. The same is therefore true of the original Teutonic primeval smiths as of the Ribhuians, the ancient smiths of Rigveda, that they make not only implements and weapons, but also grass and herbs. Out of the lower world grows the world-tree, and is kept continually fresh by the liquids of the sacred fountains. In the abyss of the lower world and in the sea is ground that mould which makes the fertility of Midgard possible (see No. 80); in the lower world "are smithied" those flowers and those harvests which grow out of this mould, and from the manes of the subterranean horses, and from their foaming bridles, falls on the fields and meadows that honey-dew "which gives harvests to men."

Finally, it must be pointed out that when Nidhad binds Volund, the foe of the gods, this is in harmony with Mimer's activity throughout the epic of the myths as the friend of the Asa-gods, and as the helper of Odin, his sister's son, in word and deed.

Further evidences of Mimer's identity with Nidhad are to be found in the Svipdag myth, which I shall discuss further on.

Vafthrudnersmal states in strophe 25 that "beneficent regin (makers) created Ny and Nedan to count times for men," this being said in connection with what it states about Narve, Nat, and Dag. In the Völuspa dwarf-list we find that the chief of these regin was Modsogner, whose identity with Mimer has been shown (see No. 53). Modsogner-Mimer created among other "dwarfs" also Ny and Nedan (Völuspa, 11). These are, therefore, his sons at least in the sense that they are indebted to him for their origin. The expressions to create and to beget are very closely related in the mythology. Of Njord Vafthrudner also says (str. 39) that "wise regin created him" in Vanaheim.