Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

mythology. The question now is whether he actually did so, or whether the subterranean dolia in
question are objects in regard to which our earliest mythic records have left us in ignorance.
In Saxo's time, and earlier, the epithets by which the mead-wells - Urd's and Mimir's -
and their contents are mentioned in mythological songs had come to be applied also to those
mead-vessels which Odin is said to have emptied in the halls of the giant Fjalar or Suttung. This
application also lay near at hand, since these wells and these vessels contained the same liquor,
and since it originally, as appears from the meaning of the words, was the liquor, and not the
place where the liquor was kept, to which the epithets Óðrærir, Boðn, and Són applied. In
Hávamál 107, Odin expresses his joy that Óðrærir has passed out of the possession of the giant
Fjalar and can be of use to the beings of the upper world. But if we may trust Skáldskaparmál 6,
it is the drink and not the empty vessels that Odin takes with him to Valhall. On this supposition,
it is the drink and not one of the vessels which in Hávamál is called Óðrærir. In Hávamál 140,
Odin relates how he, through self-sacrifice and suffering, succeeded in getting runic songs up
from the deep, and also a drink dipped out of Óðrærir. He who gives him the songs and the
drink, and accordingly is the ruler of the fountain of the drink, is a man, "Bölthorn's celebrated
son." Here again Óðrærir is one of the subterranean fountains, and no doubt Mimir's, since the
one who pours out the drink is a man. But in the second stanza of Forspjallsljóð, 17 Urd's fountain
is also called Óðrærir (Óðhrærir Urðar). 18 Paraphrases for the liquor of poetry, such as "Boðn's
growing billow" (Einar Skálaglamm) and "Són's reed-grown grass edge" (Eilífr Guðrúnarson,
Skáldskaparmál 10, Jónsson edition), point to fountains or wells, not to vessels. Meanwhile, a
satire was composed before the time of Saxo and Sturluson about Odin's adventure at Fjalar's,
and the author of this song, the contents of which the Prose Edda has preserved, calls the vessels
which Odin empties at the giant's Óðhrærir, Boðn, and Són (Skáldskaparmál 5-6, Jónsson ed.).
Saxo, who reveals a familiarity with the genuine heathen, or supposed heathen, poems handed
down to his time, may thus have seen the epithets Óðrærir, Boðn, and Són applied both to the
subterranean mead-wells and to a giant's mead-vessels. The greater reason he would have for
selecting the Latin dolium to express an idea that can be accommodated to both these objects.
Over these mead-reservoirs there hang, according to Saxo's description, round-shaped
objects of silver, which in close braids drop down and are spread around the seven times goldplated
walls of the mead-cisterns. 19
Over Mimir's and Urd's fountains hang the roots of the ash Yggdrasil, which sends its
root-knots and root-threads down into their waters. But not only the rootlets sunk in the water,
but also the roots from which they are suspended, partake of the waters of the fountains. The
norns take daily from the water and sprinkle the stem of the tree therewith, "and the water is so
holy," says Gylfaginning 16, "that everything that is put in the well (consequently, also, all that
which the norns daily sprinkle with the water) becomes as white as the membrane between the
17 Forspjallsljóð is the subtitle of the poem properly called Hrafnagaldur Óðins, found in paper manuscripts of the
17 th century. Further references will be rendered as Hrafnagaldur Óðins.
18 Óðhrærir Urðar: While these are the words of the manuscripts of the poem, this reading is grammatically
impossible, since the object of the sentence is then missing. An emendation to Óðhræris- Urður as suggested by
Gunnar Pálsson, in context, would render the meaning "Urd was appointed Óðrærir's keeper," thus allowing Óðrærir
to retain its usual meaning of the liquid in Mimir's well.
19 Inde digressis dolia septem zonis aureis circumligata panduntur, quibus pensiles ex argento circuli erebros
inseruerant nexus.
"There were disclosed to them seven butts hooped round with belts of gold; and from these hung circlets of silver
entwined with them in manifold links," Elton translation.; "They found lying before them seven wine jars circled
with golden hoops, each treaded through many dangling silver rings," Fisher translation.