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TGGDEASILL. 119
Mimvr signifies The Knowing.* The Jotnns, being
older than the ^sir, looked deeper than they into
the darkness of the Past. They had seen the begin-
ning of the -(Esir and of the "World ; they foresaw
in like manner their downfall. Oonceming both
these events the ^sir had to go to them for knowl-
edge—an idea which is expressed in many places
in the old mythic lays, bnt nowhere more clearly
than in the Yoluspa, where a Vala or prophetess,
fostered among the Jotuns, is represented as rising
np from the deep, and unveiling the Past and the
Future to gods and men. It is the "Wisdom of that
deep, therefore, that Mimir keeps in his "Well.
Odin himself, the God of Heaven, must obtain it
from him ; he goes. thither in the night season, when
the sun, the Eye of Heaven, has gone down behind
the borders of the earth, unto the Jotun "World.
Then Odin penetrates the secrets of the Deep, and
his eye is pledged for the drink he receives from
the "Well of Knowledge. But in the glory of morn- .
ing dawn, when the sun rises again from the Jotuns'
"World, the "Watcher of the "Well of Knowledge
drinks from his golden horn the clear mead which
flows over Odin's pledge. Heaven and this lower
"World impart their wisdoni to each other mutually.f
The proper contrast to the fountain Hvergelmir
* Evidently the same word as the A.-S. meomer, skillful, knowing
; mimerian, to keep in memory ; and cogn. with the Lat. me-
mor. The special signification of the word was doubtless "Skilled
in the Past."
) From an indistinct and sensual understanding of this myth,
Odin was usually represented as one-eyed.