Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

there comes a great conflagration and then a regeneration of the world. The renewed
earth is to be filled with the beings who have been protected by the subterranean citadel.
The people who live there have an instructor in the pure worship of the gods and in the
precepts of morality, and in accordance with these precepts they are to live a just and
happy life forever.
It should be added that the two beings whom the Iranian ruler of the lower world
is said to have honored are found or have equivalents in the Germanic mythology. Both
are there put in theogonic connection with Mimir. The one is the celestial lord of the
wind, Vayush, Rigveda's Vâyu-Vâta. Vâta is thought to be the same name as Wodan,
Odinn (Zimmer, Haupt's Zeitschr., 1875; cp. Mannhardt and Kaegi) 36 . At all events,
Vâta's tasks are the same as Odin's. The other is the primeval cow, whose Norse name or
epithet, Audhumla is preserved in Gylfaginning 6. Audhumla liberates from the froststones
in Chaos Buri, the progenitor of the Aesir race, and his son Bor is married to
Mimir's sister Bestla, and with her becomes the father of Odin (Hávamál 140;
Gylfaginning 6).
55.
THE PURPOSE OF MIMIR'S GROVE IN THE
REGENERATION OF THE WORLD.
We now know the purpose of Ódáinsakur, Mimir's land and Mimir's grove in the
world-plan of our mythology. We know who the inhabitants of the grove are, and why
they, though dwellers in the lower world, must be living persons, who did not come there
through the gate of death. They must be living persons of flesh and blood, since the
human race of the regenerated earth must be the same.
Still the purpose of Mimir's land is not limited to being a protection for the fathers
of the future world against moral and physical corruption, through this epoch of the
world, and a seminary where Baldur educates them in virtue and piety. The grove
protects, as we have seen, the ásmegir during Ragnarok, whose flames do not penetrate
therein. Thus the grove, and the land in which it is situated, exist after the flames of
Ragnarok are extinguished. Was it thought that the grove after the regeneration was to
continue in the lower world and there stand uninhabited, abandoned, desolate, and
without a purpose in the future existence of gods, men, and things?
The last moments of the existence of the crust of the old earth are described as a
chaotic condition in which all elements are confused with each other. The sea rises,
overflows the earth sinking beneath its billows, and the crests of its waves aspire to
heaven itself (cp. Völuspá 58:2 - sígur fold í mar, with Völuspá in skamma 14:1-3 - Haf
gengur hríðum við himin sjálfan, líður lönd yfir). The atmosphere, usurped by the sea,
disappears, as it were (loft bilar - Völuspá in skamma 14:4). Its snow and winds (Völuspá
in skamma 14:5-6 - snjóar og snarir vindar) are blended with water and fire, and form
36 Heinrich Zimmer, 1851-1910. The reference appears to be to a journal published by Haupt. Wilhelm
Mannhardt, 1831-1880 Germanische Mythen Forschungen, 1858; Zeitschr. f. deutsch. Myth Wald- und
Feldkulte, 1875. Adolf Kaegi, 1849-1923. Der Rigveda, die älteste Literatur der Inder. Leipzig, O.
Schulze, 1881. (The Rigveda: the oldest literature of the Indians: Authorized translation with additions to
the notes by R. Arrowsmith. Published Boston 1902.)