Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/300

268 BOOK third in Niflheim, or Hades, is the Hvergehnir, or boiHng cauldron. At the first the ^sir and Norns hold their court; at the second Mimir keeps his ceaseless watch, a being whose name has apparently a meaning closely akin to that of the Latin Minerva,^ and 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 Nidhogr; 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 Irminsul,^ 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 aUke 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 Virgil, 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.* The process which multiplied the Norns and defined their func- a'nd Adi-as- tions exalted also the character of Ate, who, as we have seen, appears in the Iliad simply as the spirit of mischievous folly, hurled out of Olympos for bringing about the birth of Eurj'stheus before that of Herakles, but who in the hands of ^schylos 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

' Grimm, who traces the word the myth of ISremnon's head with its through its many changes, notes also prophetic powers, localised in Egj'pt. the relation of the Latin mcmor with Compare also the Greek kephalos. the Greek fxififofxai — the mimic being * Although the name of the German the man who remembers what is done Irmin cannot be identified with the by another; and thus "mummery" is Greek Hermes (Grimm, Z). Jl/yZ/i.^iS), but another form of "memory." — Z>. yet we may compare the Greek ep;ui5io;/ Jl/j'//i. 353. Mimir is thus the Kentaur with the German Irminsul, the pillar or Mimas; and the wisdom of the Ken- column of Irmin, answering to the busts taur, it may be noted, became a proverb. of Hermes fixed on the Hermai at In one story Mimir is sent by the /Esir Athens and elsewhere. Cf. the note to the Vanir, who cut off his head and of M. Breal in Professor Max Miiller's send it back to them. Wuotan utters a Lectmrs, second series, 474. charm over it, and the head, which * See also Max Miiller, Chips, ii. never wastes away, becomes his coun- 207. sollor — a legend which reminds us of Nemesis