86.
THE TWO GIANT CLANS DESCENDED FROM YMER.
In Havamál (140, ff.), Odin says that he in his youth obtained nine fimbul-songs and a drink of the precious mead dipped out of Odrerer from Beyzla's father, Bölthorn's famous son:
Fimbulliód nio
nam ec af enom iregia syni
Baulthorns Beyzlu faudur
oc ce dryc of gat
ens dyra miadar
ausinn Odreri.
The mythologists have assumed, for reasons that cannot be doubted, that Bolthorn's famous son, Beistla's brother, is identical with Mimer. No one else than he presided at that time over the drink dipped out of Odrerer, the fountain which conceals "wisdom and man's sense," and Sigrdrifumal (13, 14) corroborates that it was from Mimer, and through a drink from "Hodrofner's horn," that Odin obtained wonderful runes and "true sayings."
Accordingly Mimer had a sister by name Beyzla (variations: Bestla, Besla, Bezla). A strophe by Einar Skalaglam (Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2; cp. Gylfag., ch. 6) informs us that Beistla is Odin's mother. Mimer's disciple, the clan-chieftain of the gods, is accordingly his sister's son. Herein we have one more reason for the faithful friendship which Mimer always showed to Odin.
The Mimer epithet Narfi, Narve, means, as shown above, "the one who binds." His daughter Nat is called draumnjörun, the dream-binder (Alvism., 31). His kinswomen, the norns, spin and bind the threads and bonds, which, extended throughout the world, weave together the web of events. Such threads and bonds are called örlogthættir (Helge Hund., i. 3), and Urdar lokur (Grogaldr., 7). As the nearest kinswomen of Beistla all have epithets or tasks which refer to the idea of binding, and when we add to this that Beistla's sons and descendants as gods have the epithet höpt and bönd, her own name might most properly be referred to the old word beizl, beisl (cp. betsel, bridle), which has a similar meaning.
As Mimer and Beistla are of giant descent, and in the theogony belong to the same stage of development as Bur (Burr), Odin's father, then, as the mythologists also have assumed, Bolthorn can be none else than Ymer.
Mimer, Beistla, the norns, and Nat thus form a group of kindred beings, which belong to the oldest giant race, but still they are most definitely separated from the other descendants of Ymer, as a higher race of giants from a lower, a noble giant race friendly to the gods and fostering the gods, from that race of deformed beings which bear children in the strangest manner, which are hostile to the gods and to the world, and which are represented by the rimthurses Thrudgelmer and Bergelmer and their offspring.