SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Mimir: Two Myths or One? 51
with particular value to women in childbirth. In any
case, whether or not Mimir's connexion with Yggdrasill
or some other tree is an original part of his myth, it is in
no way irreconcilable with his major function.
The major function of Mimir is of course to be both the
source and guardian of wisdom, especially magical,
chthonic and prophetic wisdom; his name is cognate with
memor, and the waters of his well (or its mead - see
below, p. 52) give knowledge, not healing. That QC5inn's
eye 25 should be hidden there has been often interpreted
as being on one level a nature-myth symbolizing the
dipping of the setting sun in the ocean, and on another,
a myth of the winning of wisdom by sacrificial torments.
At the same time it cannot be dissociated from the
practice, amply attested over a wide area of Europe and
at many periods, of offering sacrifices to sacred wells by
casting objects or victims into them; thus Adam of
Bremen speaks of the sacrifices held at the well beneath
the sacred tree at Uppsala, and of a living man being cast
into it." 6 Such sacrifices would accord well with a belief
in an Otherworld deity dwelling in the depths of a well.
Of particular interest is the obscure passage of
Sigrdrifttmal translated above, p. 42; even if the last four
lines of the first of these stanzas are an interpolation, their
presence does at least prove that at some stage in the
transmission of the poem someone thought it appropriate
to pass from the runes carved by QC5inn to the "liquid that
oozed from Heiodraupnir's skull and Hoddrofnir's horn",
and from this to an episode concerning Mirnr's head.
These two names are usually held to refer to Mimir.
Hoddrofnir, 'Treasure-Opener', resembles the name
Hoddmirnir in Vafpritonismal 45; it probably refers to the
"treasures" of hidden knowledge which he can bestow,
or perhaps to literal wealth of which he is the guardian.
2& And perhaps Heimdallr's horn; see below, p. 52.
26 Gesta, IV 26 schol. 134. For other examples of well-offerings in the
Scandinavian area, see A. Olrik and H. Ellekilde, Nordens Gudeierden.
(1926-51), I 372-93.