Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

"mortals" can scarcely cross its threshold (haud facile mortalibus patere posse). The
being which is the ward of the sword in this cave is by Saxo called Mimingus.
The question now is, whether the sword smithied by Völund and the one fetched
by Hotherus are identical or not. The former is smithied in a winter-cold country beyond
Mirkwood, where the mythic Niðaður (Nidhad)suddenly appears, takes possession of it,
and the purpose for which it was made, judging from all circumstances, was that Völund
with its aid was to conquer the hated powers, stronger than he, had compelled him, the
chief of elves, to take refuge to the Wolfdales. If these powers were Aesir or Vanir, then
it follows that Völund must have thought himself able to give to his sword qualities that
could render it dangerous to the world of gods, although the latter had Thor's hammer and
other subterranean weapons at their disposal. The sword captured by Hotherus is said to
possess those very qualities which we might look for in the Völund weapon, and the
regions he has to traverse in order to get possession of it refer, by their cold and
remoteness, to a land similar to that where Nidhad surprises Völund, and takes from him
the dangerous sword.
As already stated, Nidhad at the same time captured an armring of an
extraordinary kind. If the saga about Völund and his sword was connected with the sagafragment
turned into history by Saxo concerning Hotherus and the sword, whose owner
he becomes, then we might reasonably expect that the precious arm-ring, too, should
appear in the latter saga. And we do find it there. Mimingus, who guards the sword of
victory, also guards a wonderful armring, and through Saxo we learn what quality makes
this particular armring so precious, that Nidhad does not seem to care about the other
seven hundred which he finds in Völund's workshop. Saxo says: Eidem (Mimingo)
quoque armillam esse mira quadam arcanaque virtute possessoris opes augere solitam.
"In the arm-ring 7 there dwells a wonderful and mysterious power, which increases the
wealth of its possessor." In other words, it is a smith's work, the rival of the ring
Draupnir, from which eight similar rings drop every ninth night. This explains why
Völund's smithy contains so many rings, that Nidhad expresses his suspicious
wonderment (str. 14).
There are therefore strong reasons for assuming that the sword and the ring, which
Hotherus takes from Mimingus, are the same sword and ring as Nidad before took from
Völund, and that the saga, having deprived Völund of the opportunity of testing the
quality of the weapon himself in conflict with the gods, wanted to indicate what it really
amounted to in a contest with Thor and his hammer by letting the sword come into the
hands of Hotherus, another foe of the Aesir. As we now find such articles as those
captured by Nidad reappearing in the hands of a certain Mimingus, the question arises
whether Mimingus is Nidad himself or some one of Nidad's subjects; for that they either
are identical, or are in some way connected with each other, seems to follow from the fact
that one is said to possess what the other is said to have captured. Mimingus is a
Latinizing of Mímingur, Mímungur, son or descendant of Mimir.
Niðaður, Niðuður (both variations are found in Völundarkviða), has, on the other
hand, his counterpart in the Anglo-Saxon Nidhâd. The king who in "Deor the Scald's
Complaint" fetters Völund bears this name, and his daughter is called Beadohild, in
Völundarkviða Bodvild. Previous investigators have already remarked that Beadohild is a
7 Armilla may properly be translated as bracelet or armlet (armring). Both Fisher and Elton chose to render
this word, bracelet.