Thus the ship of Nanna's father here reappears, and we learn that on its holy way in space in bygone times it bore a supply of skaldic mead, of which Brage in the days of his innocence drank the strength of life.
With this we must compare a mythic fragment preserved in Gylfaginning (ch. 11). There a fountain called Byrgir is mentioned. Two children, a lass by name Bil and a lad by name Hjuki, whose father was named Vidfinnr, had come with a pail to this fountain to fetch water. The allegory in which the tradition is incorporated calls the pail Sægr, "the one seething over its brinks," and calls the pole on which the pail is carried Simul (according to one manuscript Sumul; cp. Suml, brewing ale, mead). Bil, one of the two children is put in connection with the drink of poetry. The skalds pray that she may be gracious to them. Ef unna itr vildi Bil Skáldi, "if the noble Bil will favour the skald," is a wish expressed in a strophe in the Younger Edda, ii. 363. Byrgir is manifestly a fountain of the same kind as the one referred to by Egil and containing the skaldic mead. Byrgir's fountain must have been kept secret, it must have been a "concealed find," for it is in the night, while the moon is up, that Vidfin's children are engaged in filling their pail from it. This is evident from the fact that Máni sees the children. When they have filled the pail, they are about to depart, presumably to their home, and to their father Vidfin. But they do not get home. While they carry the pail with the pole on their shoulders Máni takes them unto himself, and they remain with him, together with their precious burden. From other mythic traditions which I shall consider later (see the treatise on the Ivalde race), we learn that the moon-god adopts them as his children, and Bil afterwards appears as an asynje (Younger Edda, i. 118, 556).
If we now compare Egil's statement with the mythic fragment about Bil and Hjuke, we find in both a fountain mentioned which contains the liquid of inspiration found in Mimer's fountain, without being Mimer's well-guarded or unapproachable "well." In Egil the find is "kept secret." In Gylfaginning the children visit it in the night. Egil says the liquid was carried from Jotunheim; Gylfaginning says that Bil and Hjuke carried it in a pail. Egil makes the liquid transferred from Jotunheim to Nokve's ship; Gylfaginning makes the liquid and its bearers be taken aloft by the moon-god to the moon, where we still, says Gylfaginning, can see Bil and Hjuke (in the moon-spots).
There can therefore be no doubt that Nokve's ship is the silvery craft of the moon, sailing in space over sea and land on a course marked out for it, and that Nokve is the moon-god. As in Rigveda, so in the Teutonic mythology, the ship of the moon was for a time the place where the liquid of inspiration, the life- and strength-giving mead, was concealed. The myth has ancient Aryan roots.
On the myth concerning the mead-carrying ship, to which the Asas come to drink, rests the paraphrase for composing, for making a song, which Einar Skalaglam once used (Skaldskaparmal, 1). To make songs he calls "to dip liquid out of Her-Tyr's wind-ship" (ausa Hértys víngnodar austr; see further No. 121, about Odin's visit in Nokve's ship).
The name Nefr (variation Nepr), the third name of Nanna's father mentioned above, occurs nowhere in the Norse sources excepting in the Younger Edda. It is, however, undoubtedly correct that Nokve-Gevar was also called Nef.
Among all the Teutonic myths there is scarcely one other with which so many heroic songs composed in heathen times have been connected as with the myth concerning the moon-god and his descendants. As shall be shown further on, the Niflungs are descendants of Nef's adopted son Hjuke, and they are originally named after their adopted race-progenitor Nefr. A more correct and an older form is perhaps Hnefr and Hniflungar, and the latter form is also found in the Icelandic literature. In Old English the moon-god appears changed into a prehistoric king, Hnäf, also called Hoce (see Beowulf, 2142, and Gleeman's Tale). Hoce is the same name as the Norse Hjuki. Thus while Hnäf and Hoce are identical in the Old English poem "Beowulf," we find in the Norse source that the lad taken aloft by Mane is called by one of the names of his foster-father. In the Norse account the moon-god (Nefr) captures, as we have seen, the children of one Vidfinnr, and at the same time he robs Vidfinnr of the priceless mead of inspiration found in the fountain Byrgir. In the Old English saga Hnäf has a son-in-law and vassal, whose name is Finn (Fin Folcvalding), who becomes his bitterest foe, contends with him, is conquered and pardoned, but attacks him again, and, in company with one Gudere (Gunnr), burns him. According to Saxo, Nanna's father Gevarr has the same fate. He is attacked by a vassal and burnt. The vassal is called Gunno (Gunnr, Gudere). Thus we have in the Old English tradition the names Hnäf, Hoce, Fin, and Gudere; and in the Norse tradition the corresponding names Nefr, Hjuki, Vidfinnr, and Gunnr (Gunnarr). The relation of the moon-god (Nefr) to Vidfinnr is the mythological basis of Fin's enmity to Hnäf. The burning is common to both the Old English and the Norse sources. Later in this work I shall consider these circumstances more minutely. What I have stated is sufficient to show that the Old English tradition is in this point connected with the Norse in a manner, which confirms Nefr-Gevarr's identity with Máni, who takes aloft Hjuki and robs Vidfinnr of the skaldic mead.
The tradition of Gevarr-Nefr's identity with Máni reappears in Iceland once more as late as in Hromund Greipson's saga. There a person called Máni Karl shows where the hero of the saga is to find the sword Mistelteinn. In Saxo, Nanna's father Gevarr shows the beforementioned Hotherus where he is to find the weapon which is to slay Balder. Thus Máni in Hromund's saga assumes the same position as Gevarr, Nanna's father, occupies in Saxo's narrative.
All these circumstances form together a positive proof of the moon-god's identity with Nanna's father. Further on, when the investigation has progressed to the proper point, we shall give reasons for assuming that Vidfinnr of the Edda, the Fin of the English heroic poem, is the same person whom we have heretofore mentioned by the name Sumbl Finnakonungr and Svigdir, and that the myth concerning the taking of the mead aloft to the moon accordingly has an epic connection with the myth concerning Odin's visit to the giant Fjalar, and concerning the fate which then befell Nokve's slayer.