At the time of Tacitus, and probably one or two centuries earlier, the art of writing was known among the Teutons. The runic inscriptions that have come down to our time bear evidence of a Greek-Roman origin.
By this we do not mean to deny that there were runes—at least, non-phonetic ones—before them. The many kinds of magic runes of which our mythic records speak are perhaps reminiscences of them. At all events we must distinguish the latter from the common runes for writing, and also from the many kinds of cypher-runes the keys of which are to be sought in the common phonetic rune-row.
(10) Brimir. By the side of the golden hall of Sindre, Völuspa (str. 36) mentions the giants Brimer's "bjór" hall, which is in Okólnir. Bjórr is a synonym for mead and ale (Alvism., 34). Okólnir means "the place where cold is not found." The reference is to a giant dwelling in the lower world who presides over mead, and whose hall is situated in a domain to which cold cannot penetrate. The myth has put this giant in connection with Ymer, who in relative opposition to him is called Leirbrimir, clay-Brimer (Fjöllsvinnsmal). These circumstances refer to Mimer. So also Sigrdrifumal (str. 14), where it is said that "Odin stood on the mountain with Brimer's sword" (Brimis eggiar), when Mimer's head for the first time talked with him. The expression "Brimer's sword" is ambiguous. As a head was once used as a weapon against Heimdal, a sword and a head can, according to Skaldskaparmal, be employed as paraphrases for each other, whence "Brimer's sword" may be the same as "Mimer's head" (Skaldskaparmal 69, Cod. H.; cp. Skaldskaparmal, 8, and Gylfag., 27). Sigrdrifumal certainly also employs the phrase in its literal sense of a famous mythological sword, for, in the case in question, it represents Odin as fully armed, with helmet on his head; and the most excellent mythological sword, according to an added line in strophe 24 of Grimnersmal (Cod. A.), bore Brimer's name, just as the same sword in the German saga has the name Miminc (Biterolf v. 176, in Vilkinasaga changed to Mimmung), doubtless because it at one time was in Mimer-Nidhad's possession; for the German saga (Biterolf, 157; cp. Vilkinasaga, ch. 23) remembers that a sword called by Mimer's name was the same celebrated weapon as that made by Volund (Weiland in Biterolf; Velint in Vilkinasaga), and hence the same work of art as that which, according to Vilkinasaga, Nidhad captured from him during his stay in Wolfdales.
89.
THE MEAD MYTH.
We have seen (Nos. 72, 73) that the mead which was brewed from the three subterranean liquids destroys the effects of death and gives new vitality to the departed, and that the same liquid is absorbed by the roots of the world-tree, and in its trunk is distilled into that sap which gives the tree eternal life. From the stem the mead rises into the foliage of the crown, whose leaves nourish the fair giver of "the sparkling drink," in Grimnersmal symbolised as Heidrun, from the streams of whose teats the mead-horns in Asgard are filled for the einherjes. The morning dew which falls from Ygdrasil down into the dales of the lower world contains the same elements. From the bridle of Rimfaxe and from the horses of the valkyries some of the same dew also falls in the valleys of Midgard (see No. 74). The flowers receive it in their chalices, where the bees extract it, and thus is produced the earthly honey which man uses, and from which he brews his mead (cp. Gylfag., ch. 16). Thus the latter too contains some of the strength of Mimer's and Urd's fountains (veigar—see Nos. 72, 73), and thus it happens that it is able to stimulate the mind and inspire poetry and song—nay, used with prudence, it may suggest excellent expedients in important emergencies (cp. Tacitus, Germania).
Thus the world-tree is among the Teutons, as it is among their kinsmen the Iranians (see below), a mead-tree. And so it was called by the latter, possibly also by the former. The name miötvidr, with which the world-tree is mentioned in Völuspa (2) and whose origin and meaning have been so much discussed, is from a mythological standpoint satisfactorily explained if we assume that an older word, miödvidr, the mead-tree, passed into the word similar in sound, miötvidr, the tree of fate (from miöt, measure; cp. mjötudr in the sense of fate, the power which gives measure, and the Anglo-Saxon metod, Old Saxon metod, the giver of measure, fate, providence).
The sap of the world-tree and the veigar of the horn of the lower world are not, however, precisely the same mead as the pure and undefiled liquid from Mimer's fountain, that which Odin in his youth, through self-sacrifice, was permitted to taste, nor is it precisely the same as that concerning the possession of which the powers of mythology long contended, before it finally, through Odin's adventures at Suttung's, came to Asgard. The episodes of this conflict concerning the mead will be given as my investigation progresses, so far as they can be discovered. Here we must first examine what the heathen records have preserved in regard to the closing episode in which the conflict was ended in favour of Asgard. What the Younger Edda (Bragarædur) tells about it I must for the present leave entirely unnoticed, lest the investigation should go astray and become entirely abortive.
The chief sources are the Havamál strophes 104-110, and strophes 13 and 14. Subordinate sources are Grimnersmal (50) and Ynglingatal (15). To this must be added half a strophe by Eyvind Skaldaspiller (Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2).
The statements of the chief source have, strange to say, been almost wholly unobserved, while the mythologists have confined their attention to the later presentation in Bragarædur, which cannot be reconciled with the earlier accounts, and which from a mythological standpoint is worse than worthless. In 1877 justice was for the first time done to Havamál in the excellent analysis of the strophes in question made by Prof. M. B. Richert, in his "Attempts at explaining the obscure passages not hitherto understood in the poetic Edda."