Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

fountain daily. Therefore Gylfaginning draws the correct conclusion that Asgard was
supposed to be situated at one end of the bridge and Urd's fountain near the other. But
from Gylfaginning's premises, it follows that if Asgard-Troy is situated on the surface of
the earth, Urd's fountain must be situated in the heavens, and that the Aesir accordingly
must ride upward, not downward when they ride to Urd's fountain. The conclusion is
drawn with absolute consistency (Hvern dag ríða æsir þangað upp um Bifröst -
Gylfaginning 15). 7
The third mythic tradition used as material is the world-tree, whose roots
extended (down in the lower world) to Urd's fountain. According to Völuspá 19, this
fountain is situated beneath the ash Yggdrasil. The conclusion drawn by Gylfaginning by
the aid of its Trojan premises is that since Urd's fountain is situated in the heavens, and
still under one of Yggdrasil's roots, this root must be located still further up in the
heavens. The placing of the root is also done with consistency, so that we get the
following series of wrong localizations: Down on the earth, Asgard-Troy; therefore
extending up to the heavens, the bridge Bifröst; above Bifröst, Urd's fountain; high above
Urd's fountain, one of Yggdrasil's three roots (which in the mythology are all in the lower
world).
Since one of Yggdrasil's roots thus had received its place far up in the heavens, it
became necessary to place a second root on a level with the earth and the third one was
allowed to retain its position in the lower world. Thus was produced a just distribution of
the roots among the three regions which constituted the universe in the imagination of the
Middle Ages, namely: the heavens, the earth, and hell.
In this manner, two myths were made to do service in regard to one of the
remaining Yggdrasil roots. The one myth was taken from Völuspá, where it was learned
that Mimir's well is situated below the sacred world-tree; the other was Grímnismál 31,
where we are told that frost-giants dwell under one of the three roots. At the time when
Gylfaginning was written, and still later, popular traditions told that Gudmund-Mimir was
of giant descent (see the Middle-Age sagas narrated above, Nos. 45 & 46). From this,
Gylfaginning draws the conclusion that Mimir was a frost-giant, and it identifies the root
which extends to the frost-giants with the root that extends to Mimir's well. Thus this
well of creative power, of world-preservation, of wisdom, and of poetry receives from
Gylfaginning its place in the abode of the powers of frost, hostile to gods and to men, in
the land of the frost-giants, which Gylfaginning regards as being Jotunheim, bordering on
the earth.
In this way Gylfaginning, with the Trojan hypothesis as its starting-point, has
advanced so far that it has separated Urd's realm and fountain, from the lower world with
its three realms and three fountains, they being transferred to the heavens, and Mimir's
realm and fountain, they being transferred to Jotunheim. In the mythology, these two
realms were the subterranean regions of bliss, and the third, Niflhel, with the regions
subject to it, was the abode of the damned. After these separations were made,
Gylfaginning, to be logical, had to assume that the lower world of the heathens was
exclusively a realm of misery and torture, a sort of counterpart of the hell of the Church.
This conclusion is also drawn with due consistency, and Yggdrasil's third root, which in
the mythology descended to the fountain Hvergelmir and to the lower world of the frost-
7 "Every day the Aesir ride there up over Bifröst."