Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/573

Rh guarded from the gaze of women, may perhaps be compared what is said in old Norse literature respecting the fountain of Woden's wisdom, as described in the passages brought together by Vigfusson and Powell in their Volospá Reconstructed, to the following effect: "Where is the chief abode or sanctuary of the gods ? . . . It is at the Ash Ygg's steed, where the gods held their court every day. This Ash is the greatest and best of trees; its limbs spread over all the world, and three roots of it stretch across the heaven, and hold it up and stretch wonderfully far. One turns towards the Anses, the second towards the Rime-ogres, where once the Yawning Gulf was, but the third stretches over Cloud-world, and Hwergelme [Cauldron-Whelmer] is under this root, and Felon-cutter [the snake] gnaws the bottom of this root. But under the root that trends towards the Rime-ogres is Mim's Burn, wherein is wisdom and understanding, and he that owns the burn is named Mim; he is full of knowledge, because he drinks from the brook out of the Yellhorn." Here the communication with the whole world, which Irish paganism leaves to the mystic river, is replaced by the mighty ramifications of a vast world-tree; but we are chiefly interested in the passage representing Woden so greatly coveting the water of wisdom that for one draught alone he pledged his eye to the giant who owned it. It is thus put in Vigfusson and Powell's Reconstruction of the Volospá:

"Well I know, Woden, where thou didst hide thine eye, in the blessed Burn of Mim;