one-eyed.... Mimer is no Asa, but an exalted being with whom the
Asas hold converse, of whom they make use,--the sum total of wisdom,
possibly an older Nature-god. Later fables degraded him into a
wood-sprite, or clever smith."--Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, I. p. 379.

Concerning the Mimer of the Eddas, Professor Anderson says, "The name
Mimer means the knowing. The Giants, being older than the Asas, looked
deeper than the latter into the darkness of the past. They had witnessed
the birth of the gods and the beginning of the world, and they foresaw
their downfall. Concerning both these events, the gods had to go to
them for knowledge. It is this wisdom that Mimer keeps in his
fountain."--Norse Mythology, p 209.

In the older versions of the legend, the smith who cared for Siegfried
(Sigurd) is called, as we have before noticed, Regin. He is thus
described by Morris:--

"The lore of all men he knew,
And was deft in every cunning, save the dealings of the
sword.
So sweet was his tongue-speech fashioned, that men
trowed his every word.
His hand with the harp-strings blended was the mingler
of delight
With the latter days of sorrow: all tales he told
aright.
The Master of the Masters in the smithying craft was
he;
And he dealt with the wind and the weather and the
stilling of the sea;
Nor might any learn him leech-craft, for before that
race was made,
And that man-folk's generation, all their life-days had
he weighed."

Sigurd the Volsung, Bk. II.

[EN#3]--The Sword.

"By this sword Balmung also hangs a tale. Doubtless it was one of those
invaluable weapons sometimes fabricated by the old Northern smiths,
compared with which our modern Foxes and Ferraras and Toledos are mere
leaden tools. Von der Hagen seems to think it simply the sword Mimung
under another name; in which case, Siegfried's old master, Mimer, had
been the maker of it, and called it after himself, as if it had been his
son."--Carlyle, on the Nibelungen Lied, note.

In Scandinavian legends, the story of Mimer and Amilias is given,
differing but slightly from the rendering in this chapter.--See Weber
and Jamieson's Illustrations of Northern Antiquities.

In the older versions of the myth, the sword is called Gram, or the
Wrath. It was wrought from the shards, or broken pieces, of Sigmund's
sword, the gift of Odin. It was made by Regin for Sigurd's (Siegfr