Teutonic Mythology: Gods and Goddesses of the Northland, Vol. 2

by Viktor Rydberg

THE WORLD-MILL (continued). THE WORLD-MILL MAKES THE CONSTELLATIONS REVOLVE. MUNDILFÖRI.

But the colossal mill in the ocean has also served other purposes than that of grinding the nourishing mould from the limbs of the primeval giants.

The Teutons, like all people of antiquity, and like most men of the present time, regarded the earth as stationary. And so, too, the lower world (jormurgrundr—Forspjallsljod) on which the foundations of the earth rested. Stationary was also that heaven in which the Asas had their citadels, surrounded by a common wall, for the Asgard-bridge, Bifrost, had a solid bridge-head on the southern and another on the northern edge of the lower world, and could not change position in its relation to them. All this part of creation was held together by the immovable roots of the world-tree, or rested on its invisible branches. Sol and Mane had their fixed paths, the points of departure and arrival of which were the "horse-doors" (jódyrr), which were hung on the eastern and western mountain-walls of the lower world. The god Mane and the goddess Sol were thought to traverse these paths in shining chariots, and their daily journeys across the heavens did not to our ancestors imply that any part of the world-structure itself was in motion. Mane's course lay below Asgard. When Thor in his thunder-chariot descends to Jotunheim the path of Mane thunders under him (en dundi Mána vegr und Meila bródur—Haustl., 1). No definite statement in our mythical records informs us whether the way of the sun was over or under Asgard.

But high above Asgard is the starry vault of heaven, and to the Teutons as well as to other people that sky was not only an optical but a real vault, which daily revolved around a stationary point. Sol and Mane might be conceived as traversing their appointed courses independently, and not as coming in contact with vaults, which by their motions from east to west produced the progress of sun and moon. The very circumstance that they continually changed position in their relation to each other and to the stars seemed to prove that they proceeded independently in their own courses. With the countless stars the case was different. They always keep at the same distance and always present the same figures on the canopy of the nocturnal heavens. They looked like glistening heads of nails driven into a movable ceiling. Hence the starlit sky was thought to be in motion. The sailors and shepherds of the Teutons very well knew that this revolving was round a fixed point, the polar star, and it is probable that veraldar nagli, the world-nail, the world-spike, an expression preserved in Eddubrott, ii., designates the north star.

Thus the starry sky was the movable part of the universe. And this motion is not of the same kind as that of the winds, whose coming and direction no man can predict or calculate. The motion of the starry firmament is defined, always the same, always in the same direction, and keeps equal step with the march of time itself. It does not, therefore, depend on the accidental pleasure of gods or other powers. On the other hand, it seems to be caused by a mechanism operating evenly and regularly.

The mill was for a long time the only kind of mechanism on a large scale known to the Teutons. Its motion was a rotating one. The movable mill-stone was turned by a handle or sweep which was called möndull. The mill-stones and the möndull might be conceived as large as you please. Fancy knew no other limits than those of the universe.

There was another natural phenomenon, which also was regular, and which was well known to the seamen of the North and to those Teutons who lived on the shores of the North Sea, namely, the rising and falling of the tide. Did one and the same force produce both these great phenomena? Did the same cause produce the motion of the starry vault and the ebb and flood of the sea? In regard to the latter phenomenon, we already know the naïve explanation given in the myth concerning Hvergelmer and the Grotte-mill. And the same explanation sufficed for the former. There was no need of another mechanism to make the heavens revolve, as there was already one at hand, the influence of which could be traced throughout that ocean in which Midgard was simply an isle, and which around this island extends its surface even to the brink of heaven (Gylfaginning).

The mythology knew a person by name Mundilföri (Vafthr., 23; Gylfag.). The word mundill is related to möndull, and is presumably only another form of the same word. The name or epithet Mundilfore refers to a being that has had something to do with a great mythical möndull and with the movements of the mechanism which this möndull kept in motion. Now the word möndull is never used in the old Norse literature about any other object than the sweep or handle with which the movable mill-stone is turned. (In this sense the word occurs in the Grotte-song and in Helge Hund. ii., 3, 4). Thus Mundilfore has had some part to play in regard to the great giant-mill of the ocean and of the lower world.

Of Mundilfore we learn, on the other hand, that he is the father of the personal Sol and the personal Mane (Valfthr. 23). This, again, shows that the mythology conceived him as intimately associated with the heavens and with the heavenly bodies. Vigfusson (Dict., 437) has, therefore, with good reason remarked that mundill in Mundilfore refers to the veering round or the revolution of the heavens. As the father of Sol and Mane, Mundilfore was a being of divine rank, and as such belonged to the powers of the lower world, where Sol and Mane have their abodes and resting-places. The latter part of the name, föri, refers to the verb fœra, to conduct, to move. Thus he is that power who has to take charge of the revolutions of the starry vault of heaven, and these must be produced by the great möndull, the mill-handle or mill-sweep, since he is called Mundilföri.

The regular motion of the starry firmament and of the sea is, accordingly, produced by the same vast mechanism, the Grotte-mill, the meginverk of the heathen fancy (Grotte-song, 11; cp. Egil Skallagrimson's way of using the word, Arnibj.-Drapa, 26). The handle extends to the edge of the world, and the nine giantesses, who are compelled to turn the mill, pushing the sweep before them, march along the outer edge of the universe. Thus we get an intelligible idea of what Snæbjorn means when he says that Eylud's nine women turn the Grotte "along the edge of the earth" (hræra Grotta at fyrir jardar skauti).