Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

YGGDRASIL AND IRMINSUL. 19
who leaves to Wuotan (Odin) only one eye, having demanded
the other as a pledge before he will grant to him a
draught from the water which imparts wisdom. Such is the
sanctity of this water, which the Norns every morning pour
over the branches of the ash-tree, that everything touched
by it becomes snow-white, and the dew which falls from the
tree is always sweet as honey. On the crown of the tree
sits an eagle ; under its roots lurks the serpent or dragon
Mdhogr ; and between these the squirrel, ever running up
and down, seeks to sow dissension. This mighty ash-tree in
Grimm's belief is only another form of the colossal Irmin-
sul, 1 the pillar which sustains the whole Kosmos, as Atlas
bears up the heaven, the three roads which branch from the
one representing the three roots of the other. The tree and
the pillar are thus alike seen in the columns, whether of
Herakles or of Roland ; while the cosmogonic character of
the myth is manifest in the legend of the primeval man Askr,
the offspring of the ash-tree, of which Yirgil, from the
characteristic which probably led to its selection, speaks as
stretching its roots as far down into earth as its branches
soar towards heaven. 2
The process which multiplied the ISTorns and defined their Nemesis
functions exalted also the character of Ate, who, as we have ^ c
seen, appears in the Iliad simply as the spirit of mischievous
folly, hurled out of Olympos for bringing about the birth of
Eurystheus before that of Herakles, but who in the hands of
iEschylos becomes the righteous but unrelenting avenger of
blood. The statement that the Litai are beings who follow
closely when a crime is done, and seek to make amends for
it, is a mere allegory on the office of prayer ; and what is
told ns of Nemesis, if less allegorical, is still merely the
result of moral reflection. In the world good and evil seem
noted, became a proverb. In one story Irmin cannot be identified with the
Mimir is sent by the Asas to the Vanir,
who cut off his head and sent it back to
them. Wuotan utters a charm over it,
Greek Hermes (Grimm, D. Myth. 328),
yet we may compare the Greek kpiiiliov
with the German Irminsul, the pillar or
and the head, which never wastes away,
becomes his counsellor—a legend which
column of Irmin, answering to the Imsls
of Hermes fixed on the Hermai at Athens
can scarcely fail to remind us of the
myth of Memnon's head with its proand
elsewhere. Cf. the note of M.
Breal in Professor Max Midler's Lectures,
phetic powers, localised in Egypt. second series, 474.
'
z See also Max Muller, Chips, ii. 207.
1 Although the name of the German
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