Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

egg and the egg-shell." Also the root over Mimir's fountain is sprinkled with its water (Völuspá
27), and this water, so far as its color is concerned, seems to be of the same kind as that in Urd's
fountain, for the latter is called hvítr aurr (Völuspá 19) and the former runs in aurgum fossi upon
its root of the world-tree (Völuspá 27). The adjective aurigr, which describes a quality of the
water in Mimir's fountain, is formed from the noun aurr, with which the liquid is described
which waters the root over Urd's fountain. Yggdrasil's roots, as far up as the liquid of the wells
can get to them, thus have a color like that of "the membrane between the egg and the egg-shell,"
and consequently recall both as to position, form, and color the round-shaped objects "of silver"
which, according to Saxo, hang down and are intertwined in the mead-reservoirs of the lower
world.
Mimir's fountain contains, as we know, the purest mead - the liquid of inspiration, of
poetry, of wisdom, of understanding.
Near by Yggdrasil, according to Völuspá 27, Heimdall's horn 20 is concealed. The seeress
in Völuspá knows that it is hid "beneath the hedge-o'ershadowing 21 holy tree,"
20 The word used here, hljóð means "hearing." This phrase is generally understood to mean that Heimdall's horn is
hidden beneath the Tree, but might better be understood as "Heimdall's hearing" i.e. one of his ears is hidden
beneath the Tree, as one of Odin's eyes is also concealed there.
21 The translation "hedge-o'ershadowing" finds no support. The word in question is heiðvönum, accustomed to
brightness. Ursula Dronke states that the word likely plays on two senses of the word heið, which means both
"shining mead" and "shining heaven," since the roots of the Tree are in the mead, and its branches in heaven. The
Poetic Edda, Vol. II, (1997) pg. 135.