Stories of Mimir
by Raven Kaldera
Mimir is the son of Bolthorn
and grandson of Bergelmir, first chieftain of the frost-giants. Before the
death of Aurgelmir, he went to the Underworld of the time, Jormundgrund, and
became the consort of the original death goddess, Hel. (This is not to be
confused with the modern Hela, Loki's daughter; see her entry for more
information.) When the flood came, Hel released him and told him that he must
guard a particular spring, a sacred well that had formed in Jotunheim next to a
protruding root of the World Tree. Mimir stood in the spring for so long, up to
his neck in water, that the Kjolen mountains grew on his shoulders.
Finally he decided to leave the spring, perhaps because he wanted to see the world. He had been gone long enough that he recognized few of the new post-Flood generation of giants. His father Bolthorn had been killed in the Flood; he heard that Bolthorn's daughter Bestla dwelt in Asgard, the honored mother of its All-Father. Mimir traveled to Asgard and sought her out, and was welcomed by Odin as his uncle. After having been immersed for so long in the spring of knowledge, Mimir had learned much, and Odin made much use of his wisdom.
When the Aesir discovered that the space around the Tree had been invaded by yet another race - the Vanir - who had made their own world and were prepared to defend it, war broke out. For several years the struggle went on with no clear winner; finally, the Aesir wisely called for a truce, and agreed to exchange hostages as part of the agreement. Odin asked that Njord, the god of sailors, and his two children Freyja and Frey, be the Vanir hostages; he was especially eager to get his hands on Freyja, who was a love goddess with knowledge of seidhr-magic. In return, the Vanir asked that Odin send them hostages of equal knowledge and wisdom.
For reasons of his own, Odin chose his giant uncle to be the sacrifice, and also sent along his youngest brother Hoenir, a shy young Aesir who was good-looking but neither bright nor loquacious. Mimir resented being traded off by Odin, and refused to play the part of the wise counselor to the strange Vanir, to whom he had no kinship links. When they would ask him questions, he would give them long-winded and deliberately cryptic answers. For his part, Hoenir was mostly silent, except when parroting Mimir.
After some time of this, the Vanir became angry and chopped off Mimir's head. They sent Hoenir back to the Aesir, carrying the severed head with him as a message of their ire. It was also a message of power; although the Aesir could have taken the murdering and rejection of their hostages as an excuse to declare war again, or at least to kill their own Vanir hostages, they did neither. Odin valued Njord and his children too highly to murder them, and he dared not afford to start the war again, and the Vanir knew both these things. The Vanir went on with their lives, independent of the Aesir, and meanwhile the Aesir councils had strong Vanir voices in them that could not be ignored.
Odin took the severed head of Mimir and treated it with magical herbs, bringing it back to life so as to have access to Mimir's wisdom. When Mimir cursed his nephew, Odin flung the head back into the Well of Memory in Jotunheim, and there Mimir floats today - old, tired, cantankerous, and resentful. When Odin went on his epic journey to find knowledge, eventually his footsteps led him to Mimir's Well. Mimir offered him control over Thought and Memory - and gave him the two ravens of those names into the bargain - but in exchange, he demanded that Odin rip out one of his own eyes and throw it into the well. As we know, Odin acquiesced. To this day, one of his eyes glows like an underwater star in the well, providing what light there is to see in the depths of the waters there.