ABSTRACT
Somewhat in the manner of the Sumerian goddess Inanna, Odin of Norse mythology, father of the gods, travels to Mimir’s well without his usual golden armor and starry mantle. He goes on foot, not on his mighty eight-legged steed, and travels anonymously so as not to draw attention to his status. His purpose is to seek wisdom from the spring of Mimir (Memory) that lies at the eastern base of the great ash tree of the world, called the Yggdrasil. Like Inanna, Odin humbles himself, since he is a suppliant and a stranger to the land below. Along the way Odin encounters a wise giant from whom he seeks answers. Riddles are the stuff of myth: If the seeker can answer correctly the question posed by the riddler, he will gain secret knowledge. If not, he will lose his head (or in the case of Oedipus and the Sphinx, he could be eaten). The head as sacrifice is indeed a mighty exchange, since Celts and possibly the Norse, too, believed that the head was the seat of the soul. Mimir, after all, is the name of the giant who lives in the well as the severed head. Asking questions of the head was thus a sacred enterprise of the highest order from which a sacrifice was to be expected. What price, he asks a giant, must he pay for a drink from the Well of Memory? The answer: Odin’s right eye (Colum, 2005).
