SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Saga-Book of the Viking Society
embodying this version is Vf!luspd 46, in the account of
the Doom of the Gods:
Loud blows Heimdallr,
his horn is aloft;
6l'5inn speaks
with Mimr's head. 5
The same situation is apparently alluded to, more
obscurely, in Sigrdrifumdl 12-13, where the valkyrie is
teaching Sigurl'5r the uses of runes:
Mind-runes you must know
if you wish to be more
clever than any man;
these Hroptr read,
these he carved,
these he pondered on,
from the liquid
which had oozed
out of Heiodraupnir's skull
and out of Hoddrofnir's horn.
He stood on the cliff
with Brimir's blade,
he had a helm on his head;
then Mimr's head
spoke a first wise word
and talked of true lore. •
In his Edda Snorri avoids all mention of Mimir as
a severed head. In paraphrasing Vf!lusPd 46 he transforms
"6l'5inn speaks with Mimrs head" into "6l'5inn
rides to Mimir's Well and takes counsel from Mimir",
even though he quotes the verse itself shortly afterwards;
that he is paraphrasing this, and not some other source,
is confirmed by the fact that he goes on at once to speak
of the trembling of Yggdrasill, just as does Vf!luspd
itself. He makes no use of the Sigrdrifumdl passage.
On the other hand, in Ynglinga saga he gives an elaborate
account of how Mimir came to be decapitated by the
Vanir and how 6l'5inn preserved his head:
• Finnur J6nsson, De Gamle Eddadigte (I932), IS.
o ibid. 2SI·2. Hroptr is one of Oilinn's names.