Mímisbrunnr
In
Attestations
Poetic Edda
In the Poetic Edda poem
- Benjamin Thorpe translation:
- "Of what wouldst thou ask me?
- Why temptest thou me?
- Odin! I know all,
- where thou thine eye didst sink
- in the pure well of Mim."
- Mim drinks from mead each morn
- from Valfather's pledge.[2]
- Henry Adams Bellows translation:
- I know where Othin's eye is hidden,
- Deep in the wide-famed well of Mimir;
- Mead from the pledge of Othin each morn
- Does Mimir drink: would you know yet more?[3]
The above stanza is absent from the
- Benjamin Thorpe translation:
- She knows that Heimdall's horn is hidden
- under the heaven-bright holy tree.
- A river she sees flow, with foamy fall,
- from Valfather's pledge.
- Understand ye yet, or what?[4]
- Henry Adams Bellows translation:
- I know of the horn of Heimdall, hidden
- Under the high-reaching holy tree;
- On it there pours from Valfather's pledge
- A mighty stream: would you know yet more?[5]
- Carolyne Larrington translation:
- She knows that Heimdall's hearing is hidden
- under the radiant, sacred tree;
- she sees, pouring down, the muddy torrent
- from the wager of Father of the Slain; do you
- understand yet, or what more?[6]
Scholar Paul Schach comments that the stanzas in this section of Voluspa are "all very mysterious and obscure, as it was perhaps meant to be". Schach details that "Heimdallar hljóð has aroused much speculation. Snorri seems to have confused this word with gjallarhorn, but there is otherwise no attestation of the use of hljóð in the sense of 'horn' in Icelandic. Various scholars have read this as "hearing" rather than "horn".[7]
Scholar Carolyne Larrington comments that if "hearing" rather than "horn" is understood to appear in this stanza, the stanza indicates that Heimdall, like Odin, has left a body part in the well; his ear. Larrington says that "Odin exchanged one of his eyes for wisdom from Mimir, guardian of the well, while Heimdall seems to have forfeited his ear."[8]
Prose Edda
In chapter 15 of the Prose Edda book
See also
- Hoddmímis holt, a holt associated with Mímir
- Hvergelmir
- Urðarbrunnr
- Wetlands and islands in Germanic paganism
Notes
References
- Bellows, Henry Adams (Trans.) (1936). The Poetic Edda. Princeton University Press. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.
- Faulkes, Anthony (Trans.) (1995). Edda. ISBN 0-460-87616-3
- Larrington, Carolyne (Trans.) (1999). The Poetic Edda. ISBN 0-19-283946-2
- Schach, Paul (1985). "Some Thoughts on Völuspá" as collected in Glendinning, R. J., Haraldur Bessason (Editors). Edda: a Collection of Essays. ISBN 0-88755-616-7
- ISBN 0-85991-513-1
- Thorpe, Benjamin (Trans.) (1866). Edda Sæmundar Hinns Frôða: The Edda of Sæmund the Learned. Part I. London: Trübner & Co.