Mimir inspired the "Thought Runes"

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Isis3Anubis
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Mimir inspired the "Thought Runes"

Post by Isis3Anubis »

I find the mythology of the Norse Eddas to be important to the history of the runes. I have come across an interesting character named Mimir who may have been Odin's wizard uncle.
In one account of the myths the god Odin sacrifices his eye to Mimir to obtain the wisdom of the runes. We get the wisdom of the runes from Odin. He sacrificed himself to himself by hanging upsidedown on the ash tree Yggdrasil: The poem Hávamál explains that the originator of the runes was the major deity, Odin. Stanza 138 describes how Odin received the runes through self-sacrifice:

I know that I hung on a windy tree
nine long nights,
wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin,
myself to myself,
on that tree of which no man knows from where its roots run.

No bread did they give me nor a drink from a horn,
downwards I peered;
I took up the runes,
screaming I took them,
then I fell back from there.

In Sigrdrifumal another part of the Eddas the story of The Lay of Sigrdrifa describes how the Valkyria Sigrdrífa tells the hero Sigurd of the magickal use of the runes. She mentions Mimir and the thought-runes:

Hug-(thought-) runes thou must know,
if thou a wiser man wilt be
than every other.
Those interpreted,
those graved,
those devised Hropt,
from the fluid,
which had leaked
from Heiddraupnir’s head,
and from Hoddropnir’s horn.


Mimir: a water spirit which dwells in the magick well which is under that root of the ash Yggdrasil where Odin sacrifices one eye for wisdom. He is "the embodiment of self-awareness of the universe". He may have been Odin's sorcerer uncle. Mimir myths is connected with his head, cut off by the Vanir. Odin smeared it with worts that it should not rot, and sang words of magic (galdra) over it, and gave it such might that it told him of hidden matters.
These are “thought-runes” which Hropt (Odin) devised from the fluid which “dropped from Heiddraupnir’s head and from Hoddrofnir’s horn.” These are evidently names of Mimir. Mimir’s head may at first have been nothing more than the source of the stream of which he was the guardian spirit or in which he dwelt, the source being the stream’s “head,” or “Mimir’s head,” and the name afterwards taken literally. Mimir’s name in its different Eddic forms — Mimir, Mim, Mimi — is connected with words meaning “mindful,” “to brood over,” and it seems to have meant “the thinking one.” Inspiration, knowledge, prophecy were often associated with springs and streams, or with the spirits inhabiting them.

EDDIC MYTHOLOGY by John Arnott MacCulloch
http://www.heathengods.com/library/eddi ... tents.html
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runes
She's just pieces of me you've never seen ~ Tori Amos
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