Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

(e) As the father of Nott, living in Mimir's realm, and kinsman of Urd, who with
Mimir divides the dominion over the lower world, Narvi is himself a being of the lower
world, and the oldest subterranean being: the first one who inhabited Jotunheim.
(f) He presided over the subterranean fountain of wisdom and inspiration, that is
to say, Mimir's fountain.
(g) He was Odin's friend and the binder of Odin's foes.
(h) He died and left his fountain as a heritage to his descendants. 6
As our investigation progresses it will be found that all these facts concerning
Narvi apply to Mimir, that "he who thinks" (Mimir) and "he who binds" (Narvi) are the
same person. Already the circumstances that Narvi was an ancient being of giant descent,
that he dwelt in the lower world and was the possessor of the fountain of wisdom there,
that he was Odin's friend, and that he died and left his fountain as an inheritance (cp.
Mims synir), point definitely to Narvi's and Mimir's identity. Thus the Germanic
theogony has made Thought the older kinsman of Fate, who through Night bears Day to
the world. The people of antiquity made their first steps toward a philosophical view of
the world in their theogony.
The Old English language has preserved and transferred to the Christian Paradise
a name which originally belonged to the subterranean region of bliss of heathendom -
Neorxenavang. Vang means a meadow, plain, field. The mysterious Neorxena looks like
a gentive plural. Grein, 7 in his Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, and before him Weinhold, refers
neorxena to Narvi, Nari, and this without a suspicion that Narvi was an epithet of Mimir
and referred to the king of the heathen regions of bliss. I consider this an evidence that
Grein's assumption is as correct as it is necessary, if upon the whole we are to look for an
etymological explanation of the word. 8 The plural genitive, then, means those who
inhabit Narvi's regions of bliss, and receive their appellation from this circumstance. The
opposite Old Norse appellation is njarir, a word which I shall discuss below.
To judge from certain passages in Christian writings of the thirteenth century,
Mimir was not alone about the name Narvi, Nari. One or two of Loki's sons are supposed
to have had the same name. The statements in this regard demand investigation, and, as I
think, this will furnish another instructive contribution to the chapter on the confusion of
the mythic traditions, and on the part that the Prose Edda plays in this respect. The
passages are:
6 Statements (f) and (h) rely entirely on the evidence of the verse in Egil's Saga, ch. 56, and cannot
correctly be included.
7 Christian Grein, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, vol. I. Göttingen, 1857. I am unable to
conclusively identify Weinhold.
8 Simek (DNM pg. 229) notes "the first part of the word remains obscure even today, although there have
been a dozen different attempts to interpret it."