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Chapter 2. Connections 42
Knowledge as defined above would also have a different feel to it since to be
truly knowledgeable one would not only have to understand the connections between
things or events but would also have to know and understand the layering of actions/
movements in the Well of Urð and how these layers were affecting the surface/
present time.
”The phrase lög leggja is the usual term in Old Norse for the act of making
laws, but the literal meaning of the phrase suggests something else. Leggja
is ’to lay’, ’to place’, or ’to do’. Lög (the plural of lag) is literally ’strata’ or
’that which has been deposited or laid down’. Lög leggja is, then, to lay down
that which has been laid down or to lay down or implant strata. There is a
strong feeling of the physical here. Of course lög occurs again in ørlog seggja:
‘to say or to speak the ør-strata, the ør-things-laid-down, the ør-law’. The
phrase is usually translated as ‘to set fate’, but fate is a non-Germanic word.
If fate’s meaning is to be limited to denoting ‘that which has been spoken’ or
‘that which has been laid down’, then it translates the context well; if not, it
will cause problems.” 32
Knowledge, then, comes from having gained an understanding of the past.
Snorri in the Prose Edda tells of the Tale of Óðinn’s seeking wisdom from the
Well of Mímir:
“But under the root that reaches towards the frost-giants, there is where
Mímir’s Well is, which has wisdom and intelligence contained in it, and the
Master of the Well is called Mímir. All-father (Óðinn) went there and asked
for a single drink from the Well, but He did not get one until He placed His
eye as a pledge (into the bottom of the Well).” 33
One did not gain wisdom or knowledge simply by drinking from the Well; one had
to be able to see the layers/ actions and the currents, the connections, which relate
one stratum to another to understand the true make-up of the surface. For Óðinn
to have knowledge, His eye had to be left in the Well. Knowledge of the past or
“remembering” the events and how they related to one another resulted in “knowing”
the present, and this type of knowledge was within the scope of the Wholemaker’s
skills. And indeed, it has often been the case, that modern collectors of northern
European folklore have found the local “healers” to be some of the best and most
complete repositories of local history, geneologies, as well as tales of the Otherworld.
The Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages separates itself from other
European languages of the same tree in that it does not have a built-in future tense.
32 Bauschatz, p. 6.
33 Snorri, p. 17.