Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

Undir hendi vaxa
kváðu hrímþursi
mey og mög saman;
fótur við fæti
gat ins fróða jötuns
sérhöfðaðan son.
A son and a daughter
are said to have grown
under the arm of the frost-giant;
foot begat with foot
the strange-headed son
of the wise giant.
In perfect harmony with this Gylfaginning narrates: "Under Ymir's left arm grew
forth a man and a woman, and his one foot begat with the other a son. Thence come
(different) races."
The different races have this in common, that they are giant races, since they
spring from Ymir; but these giant races must at the same time have been widely different
intellectually and physically, since the mythology gives them different origins from
different limbs of the progenitor. And here, as in Rigveda, it is clear that the lowest race
was conceived as proceeding from the feet of the primeval giant. This is stated with
sufficient distinctness in Vafþrúðnismál, where we read that a "strangely-headed"
monster (Thrudgelmir - see No. 60) was born by them, while "man and maid" were born
under the arm of the giant. "The man" and "the maid" must therefore represent a noble
race sprung from Ymir, and they can only be Mimir and his sister, Odin's mother. Mimir
and his clan constitute a group of ancient powers, who watch over the fountains of the
life of the world and care for the perpetuation of the world-tree. From them proceeded the
oldest, fairest, and most enduring parts of the creation. For the lower world was put in
order and had its sacred fountains and guardians before Bur's sons created Midgard and
Asgard. Among them the world-tree grew up from its roots, whose source no one knows
(Hávamál 138). Among them those forces are active which make the starry firmament
revolve on its axis, and from them come the seasons and the divisions of time, for Nott
and niðjar, Mani and Sol, belong to Mimir's clan, and were in the morning of creation
named by the oldest "high holy gods," and endowed with the vocation árum að telja
(Völuspá 6). 1 From Mimir comes the first culture, for in his fountain inspiration, spiritual
power, man's wit and wisdom, have their source, and around him as chief stand gathered
the artists of antiquity by whose hands all things can be smithied into living and
wonderful things. Such a giant clan demands another origin than that of the frost-giants
and their offspring. As we learn from Vafþrúðnismál that two giant races proceeded from
Ymir, the one from a part of his body which in a symbolic sense is more noble than that
from which the other race sprang, and that the race born of his feet was the ignoble one
hostile to the gods, then the conclusion follows of necessity that "the man and maid" who
were born as twins under Ymir's arm became the founders of that noble group of giants
who are friendly to the gods, and which confront us in the mythology of our fathers. It
has already been shown above (see No. 54) that Jima (Yama) in the Asiatic-Indo-
European mythology corresponds to Mimir in the Germanic. Jima is an epithet which
means twin. The one with whom Jima was born together was a maid, Yami. The words in
1 "to reckon in years."