Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

carried his prey to Nastrond (Völuspá 38-39). There are no more dead bodies to be had for him,
and his task is done. Whether the last line of Völuspá has reference to Nidhogg or not, when it
speaks of some one "who must sink," cannot be determined. Müllenhoff (Deutsche Alt.) assumes
this to be the case, and he is probably right; but as the text has hún (she) not hann (he) [nú mun
hún sökkvast], and as I, in this work, do not base anything even on the most probable text
emendation, this question is set aside, and the more so, since Völuspá's description of the
regenerated earth under all circumstances shows that Nidhogg has nothing there to do but to fly
thence and disappear. The existence of Nidi's mountains on the new earth confirms the fact that it
is identical with Mimir's former lower world, and that Lif and Leifthrasir did not need to move
from one world to another in order to get to the daylight of their final destination.
Völuspá gives one more proof of this.
In their youth, free from care, the Aesir played with a wonderful tafl game. 1 But they had
it only í árdaga, in the earliest time (Völuspá 8, 61). Afterwards, they must in some way or other
have lost it. The Icelandic sagas of the Middle Ages have remembered this tafl game, and there
we learn, partly that its wonderful character consisted in the fact that it could itself take part in
the game and move the pieces, and partly that it was preserved in the lower world, and that
Gudmund-Mimir was in the habit of playing tafl (Fornaldarsögur: Saga Heiðreks konungs ins
vitra ch. 6; Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks konungs ch. 5; Sörla saga sterka ch. 4; Egils saga
einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana chs. 12, 13, 15; In the last passages, the game is
mentioned in connection with another subterranean treasure, the horn. 2 ) If, now, the mythology
had no special reason for bringing the tafl game from the lower world before Ragnarok, then
they naturally should be found on the risen earth, if the latter was Mimir's domain before.
Völuspá 61 also relates that they were found in its grass:
1 An ancient Northern European board game, dated before 400 AD, usually played by two players on a checkered
board of various size. The game pieces consisted of the tablemen or pawns, generally 24 in number, and a single
king. The player with the king had half the number of men as his opponent. The king was placed in the center,
surrounded by his men. These were surrounded by the men of the opposing side. All pieces moved in solid straight
lines (like the rook in chess) and pieces were captured by surrounding them on two sides. The king could not
participate in captures. The game was won when either the king was surrounded by the enemy or reached the edge
of the board.
2 Ch. 12 " In order to save my life, I should go to the underworld and retrieve three precious things: a cloak that will
not burn in fire, a horn that can never be emptied by drinking from it, and a tafl game that plays by itself, when
someone challenges it."