Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

an isle, and which around this island extends its surface even to the brink of heaven
(Gylfaginning 8).
The mythology knew a person by name Mundilfari (Vafþrúðnismál 23,
Gylfaginning 11). The word mundill is related to möndull, and is presumably only
another form of the same word. The name or epithet Mundilfari refers to a being that has
had something to do with a great mythical möndull and with the movements of the
mechanism which this möndull kept in motion. Now the word möndull is never used in
the old Norse literature about any other object than the sweep or handle with which the
movable mill-stone is turned. (In this sense the word occurs in the Grotti-song and in
Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, 3, 4). Thus Mundilfari has had some part to play in regard
to the great giant-mill of the ocean and of the lower world.
Of Mundilfari we learn, on the other hand, that he is the father of the personal Sol
and the personal Mani (Vafþrúðnismál 23). This, again, shows that the mythology
conceived him as intimately associated with the heavens and with the heavenly bodies.
Vigfusson (Dict., 437) has, therefore, with good reason remarked that mundill in
Mundilfari refers to "the veering round or revolution of the heavens." As the father of Sol
and Mani, Mundilfari was a being of divine rank, and as such belonged to the powers of
the lower world, where Sol and Mani have their abodes and resting-places. The latter part
of the name, föri, refers to the verb færa, to conduct, to move. Thus he is that power who
has to take charge of the revolutions of the starry vault of heaven, and these must be
produced by the great möndull, the mill-handle or mill-sweep, since he is called
Mundilfari.
The regular motion of the starry firmament and of the sea is, accordingly,
produced by the same vast mechanism, the Grotti-mill, the meginverk of the heathen
fancy (Grotti-song 11; cp. Egil Skallagrimson's way of using the word, Arinbjarnardrápa
25). 4 The handle extends to the edge of the world, and the nine giantesses, who are
compelled to turn the mill, pushing the sweep before them, march along the outer edge of
the universe. Thus we get an intelligible idea of what Snæbjörn means when he says that
Eyludur's nine women turn the Grotti "along the edge of the earth" (hræra Grótta út fyrir
jarðar skauti).
Mundilfari and Byggvir thus each has his task to perform in connection with the
same vast machinery. The one attends to the regular motion of the möndull, the other
looks after the mill-stones and the grist.
In the name Eylúður the first part is ey, and the second part is lúður. The name
means the "island-mill." Eyludur's nine women are the "nine women of the island-mill."
The mill is in the same strophe called skerja Grótti, the Grotti of the skerries. These
4 Vigfusson defines ON meginverk as "great works, labour." In Grotti-Song it refers to the labor of the
giantesses, and in Arinbjarnardrápa (Egil's Saga ch. 80) to that of the poet and the poem itself. In the latter,
Codex Wormianus' megin-verkom appears with the variant morgin-verkom, morning labors (Codex AM,
748), this being the preferred reading. That Rydberg applies this term to the mill, presumably in the
meaning "master work," indicates he may have misunderstood the word málþjónn, slave of speech, found
there as malþjónn, servant of grinding.