Winifred Hodge Rose
In all of my study, writing, and spiritual practice, I feel that I am pursuing this elusive goal: Heathen wisdom. What is Heathen wisdom? That’s part of the elusive goal…figuring out what it is! Maybe when or if I ever get there, I might recognize it. I suspect it may be something different for each of us, because wisdom is based not only on general knowledge, but on how we ripen or ferment that knowledge based on our life experience and the capacity for understanding that we bring to that knowledge: our mindfulness, our perceptions, feelings, intuitions and insights.
In this essay, I’m using my interpretations of some of our myths to suggest some directions one might take to try to ferment Heathen knowledge into wisdom. For that reason I’m not only taking an intellectual approach, but I’m also offering some mini-meditations throughout this essay, which I’m calling ‘fermentations.’ We’ll be closing with a longer, more intense meditation based on an initiatory experience of my own many years ago, which led to the insights that I’ve been pursuing ever since in my writing on Heathen soul lore and other topics. Always trying to grasp that elusive goal: what is Heathen wisdom?
Here we’ll take a look at some myths about Kvasir, Mimir, Odin, and Oðrœrir, the mead of wisdom and inspiration. I’ll offer my interpretations of these myths as forms of sacrificial transformation that result in expansion of wisdom into greater levels of being, and spreading out to reach others.
In a traditional sacrifice, whatever is sacrificed is transformed and translated into a different dimension or level of being, to the place where the Gods live. This is not something to take lightly! There are ways other than death for this process to happen, and here I’m discussing literal and symbolic ‘fermentation’ as one of them. The use of fermented drinks in sacred ritual and offerings, especially mead, goes very far back in history and spreads over many cultures, including the Germanic tribes.
The Kvasir Myth: The Beginning
So, let’s start with Kvasir and see what we can glean from his myth! When the Æsir and Vanir realized that neither side could win over the other during “the first war in the world,” they decided to make peace and gathered for a frith ritual that is ancient in northern cultures. It’s rather unappetizing, really, but is rich in symbolic meaning! This ritual involves placing water, honey, and crushed berries or other plant material into a cauldron to make an alcoholic drink. But one more ingredient is needed to make this a powerful drink: a rich source for the yeasts and bacteria that are responsible for fermentation. This source is the spittle of the participants: they all spit into the cauldron together, symbolically sealing their frith, and then drink the resulting mead together in sumble when it’s ready.
That’s the usual process, but being Gods and Goddesses, this frith-making of theirs has a much more impactful result. A new God arises from this sacred brew, named Kvasir. He was called the wisest of all beings, and he wandered around the world, sharing his wisdom with all who asked. (Skaldskarpamal sections 57-58, in the prose Edda, pp. 61-62 in Faulkes’ translation.)
The Communal Nature of Wisdom
I’ll pause the story for a minute now, to draw some wisdom-lessons from it up to this point. Notice the role that frith and communal activity play in this creation of the ‘wisest being.’ Even before the truce-gathering of the Æsir and Vanir, the honey from which the mead was made was created by communal beings, the bees, working together to gather nectar and pollen from an ecological community of many different flowers. Communities of plants and animals (the bees) are represented in the honey, as are soil, water, and sun. And then the Gods infuse something extra into the mix, something that raises it to the level of divine creativity. In the literal tale, this is their spittle that infuses micro-organisms into the mix, with the biological activity that gives rise to fermentation. But spittle contains something else: it contains genetic material, DNA, and in this case it is divine DNA! These godly genes turn a ritual drink into a greatly wise being.
Let’s think about this in fractal terms: does the same process occur on other levels of being as well? The coming-into-being of each of us: how does it happen? In a way, there’s a parallel with the creation of Kvasir. We can view the ‘cauldron’ in which the drink is mixed as the germ-plasm of our physical body. Our physical ancestors way back into time-before-time metaphorically gather around and ‘spit’ into this cauldron, giving us their genetic material. Then the Gods do that, too, creating a connection between their inner essences and ours, giving us the gifts of our souls along with the spiritual potential that is inherent within us, along with all the potential that arises out of relating to and working with the Holy Ones as we grow and live our lives. The ‘sacred drink’ that is brewed, as these potentials ferment within us, gives rise to powers of wisdom and inspiration.
And there’s another fractal level as well. In the approach to Heathen soul lore that I teach, we each have multiple souls, who are not simply ‘parts’ of our self. They are beings in their own right, individual beings who together sing our sense of selfhood into being. This is another fractal level of the Kvasir myth, where multiple beings, our own souls, all ‘spit into the cauldron’ to create our sense of self and all the powers and abilities that we each hold within us.
Our souls don’t always get along well together, which creates inner conflicts, indecisions, actions that we later regret, and so forth. It’s a useful thing to consciously promote frith and understanding among our souls, getting them all to spit into the cauldron of our being together, and definitely leads to self-understanding and wisdom in our own lives.
Fermentation #1
Wisdom is not something that grows entirely within ourselves, unconnected with others and the world around us. We learn from other people, past and present, and from Nature and the Holy Ones.
It’s a communal process. We take our knowledge from many diverse sources and examine different points of view and perspectives. We sift through it, digest it and ferment it within us through our own thought processes, emotions, and perceptions; through what we learn from our experiences, insights, and intuitions.
Slowly it all bubbles into a heady brew of wisdom. Within us is born a person of wisdom, our own inner Kvasir.
The Transformation of Kvasir
Proceeding with the tale of Kvasir, we’re told that he wanders the world, sharing his knowledge and wisdom with all who ask. In a way, he’s the reverse of the bees: they gather up and condense the ingredients of their honey, while he spreads out and disperses his gifts of wisdom. I guess he’s doing the pollination part of the work! But one day he stumbles into the worst of luck for him: he visits the dwarves Fjalar and Gjalar and they decide to secretly murder him. They drain his blood into three vessels named Són, Bodn, and Oðrœrir, add honey, and turn it (back) into mead.
We’ll talk about this more in a minute, but first I want to mention a side-thought here, because it seems significant to me. Remember Snorri’s account of Freya’s husband Oðr? Her husband has wandered off, no one knows where, while she seeks him across many strange lands in vain, weeping tears of amber and gold. People often assume this mysterious husband is Odin, but he hasn’t really ‘disappeared’ for an extended period of time like that, not to mention that the daughter of Freya and Oðr is called Hnoss, who is never mentioned as a child of Odin’s. (Gylfaginning section 35 in Snorri’s Edda, p. 29-30 in Faulkes’ translation.)
My own idea—this is not in the lore—is that Freya’s missing husband Oðr was in fact Kvasir, who gave rise to the mead of inspiration, Oðrœrir. I think Freya fell in love with Kvasir when he arose in beauty from the frith-mead of the Gods. Freya lost track of him while he wandered around the world giving out wisdom, and then he disappeared completely when the dwarves secretly murdered him. For many years she sought him, weeping. Their daughter’s name, Hnoss, means a treasure, a jewel, a precious thing. I think that the mating of Freya’s beauty and her many powers with the wisdom and inspiration of Kvasir would indeed give rise to a great treasure, a shining jewel of wisdom.
Fermentation #2
Imagine a combination of Freya’s beauty, passion, and power, with Kvasir’s broad knowledge and his roots in frith and sacrificial offering.
What would a being, a jewel, a treasure, that arises from this blending be like? Who or what is Hnoss, this jewel of inspiration, power and wisdom within the landscape of your own souls?
~ ~ ~
Back to the tale we are told in the lore. There are now three vessels called Són, Bodn, and Oðrœrir, holding the blood of Kvasir that has been mixed with honey and fermented into mead. Although Snorri says in this account that Oðrœrir is the name of the vessel, it’s clear from many other references and kennings that Oðrœrir is really the name of the mead, not just the vessel. The word means ‘wode-stirrer,’ the stirrer of oðr, of inspiration, poetry, and prophecy. Snorri says that those who drink of Oðrœrir become skalds (poets), or become frœðamaðr: wise, scholarly, knowledgeable persons (Skaldskarpamal section 57, p. 62 in Faulkes’ translation of the Edda).
The name Bodn simply means ‘vessel, container,’ so that’s straightforward. The name Són, however, is much more interesting. Some older scholars have connected the word to an Old High German word meaning ‘atonement’ and possibly ‘reconciliation.’ This would be applicable to the creation of Kvasir after the Æsir-Vanir war, as a form of reconciliation and mutual atonement for the harms of the war. Atonement or wergild also comes into play further on in this tale, because the dwarves who killed Kvasir later give the Kvasir-mead to the giant Suttung as wergild for killing Suttung’s wife. (See Simek p. 298)
But there is good reason to consider this word as relating to sacrifice, as other modern scholars have done. The sacrificial boar that was slaughtered at Heathen Yuletide after oaths were sworn on it was called the Sónargöltr, and the Blot itself was called Sónarblot. There’s no suggestion that I’m aware of that the Yule Blot and sacrifice was traditionally a ritual of atonement for sins; rather, it was a feast shared with the Gods, an opportunity for oaths, boasts, and sometimes divination. Based on this context with the Yule boar, some scholars say that són is what the top boar in a herd of swine was called, while others consider that it meant ‘sacrifice’ or a sacrificial animal, specifically. In deVries’ etymological Old Norse dictionary he translates són as a poetic term for blood, as well as a poet’s drink.
(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonarg%C3%B6ltr for references.)
There are two interesting passages in Eddic poetry that mention sónar dreyri or sonar-blood as an ingredient for a powerful magical potion. One is the potion of forgetfulness that is brewed by Grimhild and given to Sigurd so he forgets the vows he made to the Valkyrie Brunhilda / Sigrdrifa and is willing to wed Gudrun instead (Second Poem of Gudrun, vs. 21). Larrington translates this ingredient as ‘sacrificial blood.’ The other is apparently a potion that was given to Heimdall when he was a baby to enhance his powers (Song of Hyndla, vs. 38); Larrington translates sónar dreyri as ‘pigs’ blood’ here.
Fermentation #3
Let’s think about the meaning and power within our own blood for a minute. I believe that the La or Lö that was given to Ask and Embla by the Gods, and through them to us, is the life-force in our blood, circulating through our being and enlivening us.
La or Lö is the warmth, the blood, the energy of our living body. This life-force supports the Gods’ gifts of Læti, which is speech, movement, and action, and our Litr, our appearance both physical and spiritual. (Voluspa vs. 18 in the Poetic Edda.)
I think it was the La within Kvasir’s blood that was fermented into Oðrœrir, and holds the potential for such fermentation within us. Spend a moment to sense this La, this life force within your own blood.
~ ~ ~
I suggest that ‘sacrificial blood,’ sanctified as a ritual offering, would be considered far more powerful in a magical potion than simply the blood of any old pig. Though the vat is called Són, it is certainly not a pig itself! I think that the name of the vat Són implies a sacrifice, that it is a container for sacrificial blood. In the Kvasir myth that’s exactly what it is: a container for blood which is turned into mead. My idea is that the killing of Kvasir was in fact a sacrifice, and that the capture of some of his blood into a vessel called Són is a clue toward this understanding.
Sacrifice
So let’s look more deeply into the meaning of ‘sacrifice’ in our mythology. I view the real meaning of ‘sacrifice’ as being ‘transmutation’: the transformation of something from a ‘lower’ level of being to a ‘higher level.’ Sacrifice transforms something into something else through a process of sanctification, of making holy. We’re told in our myths that Ymir was sacrificed by Odin and his brothers to form Midgard. I believe that there are other cosmogonic or creative sacrifices hidden in our lore as well, and that one of them is the beheading of Mimir.
The tale of Mimir’s execution in the Ynglingasaga (Heimskringla p. 3) I find to be completely illogical. Mimir and Hœnir are sent as frith-hostages to the Vanir after the Æsir-Vanir war, but the Vanir consider Hœnir to be so redeless or lacking in wise counsel that in anger at being cheated they cut off Mimir’s head and send it back to the Æsir, thus depriving themselves of the very wisdom they missed getting from Hœnir! Odin preserves the head and apparently sometimes carries it around with him, consulting Mimir’s head during crises when Odin needs his wisdom. (I tend to think of Mimir’s head as something like a smart-phone that connects Odin with the main data center of Mimir’s Well!)
Note that Hœnir in this tale is the same God who, in the Voluspa account of the creation of Ask and Embla, is the one who gives oðr to the new humans, usually translated as ‘spirit’ or ‘consciousness’ in this passage (Voluspa vs. 18). How could a God supposedly lacking in wisdom have given humans such a gift? And why kill Mimir when you’re mad at Hœnir? And why did the Æsir not take revenge for the killing of a frith-hostage, as would normally happen? Especially when Mimir was so valuable to them, most likely being Odin’s maternal uncle and his mentor and advisor.
This whole story makes no sense, which makes me think there is something else going on here, some hidden, symbolic truth hiding in the myth. I believe that this is actually the account of another cosmogonic sacrifice like Ymir’s. Ymir was sacrificed by the Æsir to make the material world of Midgard. Mimir, I believe, was sacrificed by the Vanir to create what I call World-Mind or the Noosphere: the ethereal space where Thought exists, where all our thoughts are formed and fixed in memory, and where they interact together creating new thoughts and insights. It’s the world where thoughts live as entities, the way physical entities live in the physical world. World-Mind, Mimir’s Well of memory and inspiration, and Mimir’s head are all, I believe, fractal versions of one another. (I’ve discussed these ideas in more detail in my article “Mimir, Odin, and World-Mind,” on this website.)
Fermentation #4
Let’s spend just a moment sensing this great, ancient, multidimensional cavern in space that is Mimir’s mind and the Well of memory, inspiration, and wisdom that lies in its depths.
It’s dim and quiet, yet at the edges of our perceptions there are things to be sensed: flashes of light, fleeting whispers, swift movements, elusive scents and songs…
If we let go of our tendency to perceive things in physical terms we can sense the currents and flows of thoughts and memories here, and experience the sudden flashes of inspiration that light up our minds with insights, and fire up our hearts with wode.
~ ~ ~
So, I think that Mimir’s death was a cosmogonic sacrifice, the creation of the world of the mind as Ymir’s sacrifice was the creation of the physical world. I think that Kvasir’s murder was another iteration of a creative sacrifice, on a smaller scale but still a meaningful one. Kvasir really is a sacrifice, a sacred offering, from day one: he arises from the brewing of mead as a ritual offering to establish peace between the Æsir and Vanir. Then he is killed and his blood is transmuted into the mead of poetry and wisdom: here he is sacrificed again, returning him to his previous state as a sacred drink, but enhanced now by the blood, life-force, wisdom, and experiences of a living being. Perhaps Kvasir’s power to generate wode was enhanced during his life by his role as Freya’s beloved husband Oðr, though this is just a supposition on my part. Freya is certainly a wode-stirring being, herself! Think back to your experience in Fermentation #2 on Kvasir, Freya, and Hnoss, here.
After the dwarves add honey and ferment Kvasir’s blood into mead, they’re forced to pay it to the giant Suttung as wergild for killing his wife. We’re told in the tale of Odin and the giantess Gunnloð how Odin steals this mead by swallowing it and escaping back to Asgard in eagle form. Note that an additional process of mixing the mead with godly saliva and DNA happens at this point when Odin swallows the mead, then spits it out when he reaches Asgard. Here we have yet another iteration of spitting! Much like bees do when they gather nectar, mysteriously ferment it in their guts, and regurgitate it in the form of honey. Presumably all this spitting enhances the power of the mead still further! Again and again in this myth we’re given metaphors of gathering, digesting and fermenting, and giving forth the results. This, I believe, is a metaphor for how wisdom develops.
By the conclusion of this tale, Kvasir and the mead of poetry have become a channel into World-Mind or Mimir’s Well, where inspiration, wisdom and memory abound and can be shaped by the thoughts and words of poets and wise-folk. Another name for this channel is Oðrœrir.
Oðrœrir
Oðrœrir, the wode-stirrer, is an enormous topic that reaches far back into prehistory and across many Indo-European cultures as the Mead Myth. We don’t have room here to dive into its great depths, but I want to talk a bit about its relationship to wisdom—to the process of growing wisdom within ourselves. Wode is inspiration, but it can be taken to extremes such as frenzy, berserker-gang, and even literal madness. Wisdom is needed to control and direct wode, while wode is needed to inspire wisdom to its greatest height, breadth, and depth.
Note the important point that during his life, Kvasir shared his wisdom with others, but there is no mention of him being involved in expressing or giving wode. He is not referred to as a poet or a seer; his power lies in his scholarly knowledge rather than inspiration per se. It is only after his death and his blood being brewed in the vats of the dwarves that Oðrœrir, the wode-stirrer, arises.
Oðrœrir arises from that sacrifice—a physical sacrifice. And this happens not only in the context of Kvasir’s myth. We see mead associated with Mimir and Odin, and Odin’s sacrifice of his eye in vs. 29 of the Voluspá (Poetic Edda):
“I know all about it, Odin, where you hid your eye in Mimir’s famous well. Mimir drinks mead every morning from Father of the Slain’s pledge.”
And also in relation to Odin’s sacrifice of ‘himself to himself’ in Havamal vs. 139-140:
“I took up the runes, screaming I took them, then I fell back from there. … I got a drink of the precious mead, I, soaked from Oðrœrir.”
(Both quotations are from Larrington’s translation.)
Each of these beings sacrifices a bodily part as an aspect of their interaction with Oðrœrir: Kvasir his life-blood, Odin his eye, and Mimir’s decapitated head is associated with his Well filled with ‘mead’. But that is not enough. Another step is needed to create and to experience the wode-power of Oðrœrir, and that is ‘fermentation.’
So, now we’re back to what I talked about at the beginning: some mysterious, invisible, outside force is needed for the fermentation to occur. In physical terms, this outside force is provided by yeast. Mythically, it’s presented in Kvasir’s tale as the ‘spittle of the Gods.’ More appealingly, we can see it as the gift of their essence, their blessing, their power—a bit of Godly ‘DNA’ that jump-starts the fermentation of the gathered honey of knowledge and experience into the mead of wisdom and inspiration. And this process occurs within each of us, within the ‘vat’ that is our physical body, our head and brain, our heart and gut, and all of our being.
A model for this process is Odin’s ordeal on the Tree. For nine days he suffered, slowly transforming through his sacrifice of himself to himself. I consider that the runes, lying below him in the mysterious depths, served as one source of ‘yeast’ in his process of self-fermentation. When he was released from the Tree he received more ‘yeast’ in the form of a drink of the precious mead and then was ausinn Oðrœri, ‘soaked or sprinkled with Oðrœrir’ (Havamal vs. 140 in the Poetic Edda. Larrington’s translation uses ‘soaked.’).
This is a very telling phrase, since ausinn vatni or being soaked or sprinkled with water was the Old Norse ceremony of naming and acceptance of a new baby into the kindred. Odin is undergoing a rebirthing experience here, the complement to his sacrificial-death experience earlier on the Tree. And the medium for his rebirthing is not the usual water, but the fermented brew of Oðrœrir. (See note at the end of this article about ausinn vatni.)
So both the runes and Oðrœrir itself serve as the ‘yeast’ for Odin’s fermentation. Yeast causes bread to swell and grow, causes mead and ale to froth and bubble over, and this is what happens to Odin. Once he receives this ‘yeast’ he begins to ‘quicken and be wise,’ to burst into new life and growth. (Havamal vs. 138-141, in the Poetic Edda.)
Fermenting our own Wisdom
Let’s think about this with respect to growing our own wisdom. We bring everything we have to the process of fermenting wisdom in our lives, but the extra push, the invisible secret ingredient that helps everything burst into growth, is the gift of inspiration from our Holy Ones. Perhaps this comes to us through the runes, but it can come in countless other ways, as well. It’s not only our brains that process wisdom; our whole being—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, our life-force itself—undergoes the fermentation into wisdom when enriched with spiritual ‘yeast.’
The underlying means of accessing this spiritual ‘yeast’ is interaction in some way with the Holy Ones: during spiritual practice and during the living of our everyday lives in mindfulness of them and of Heathen ways.
Here at the end of this essay I’m offering our final ‘fermentation:’ meditation on a poem that I wrote more than twenty years ago as I began a period of spiritual and mental fermentation that was very significant to me and to my path of Heathen spirituality.
I tried an experiment to meditatively place myself in the positions of both Odin and Mimir as they related to Mimir’s Well at crucial points of their lives. The poem is thus my perception of three beings: myself, Odin, and Mimir, blended together while facing the challenge of this Well and Oðrœrir as an initiation-experience. Though I don’t mention Kvasir by name in this poem, he is represented in the experience of sacrifice and fermentation itself.
I offer this as an immersive, meditative experience of inner fermentation on your own path of Heathen wisdom. Pause and meditate after each verse to allow fermentation to occur. Alternatively, you could try taking your own meditative journey to the Well, or to the wellspring of wisdom that is Kvasir, and see what you find there.
The “I” in Mimir’s Well
Secrets on the wind.
A leaf flutters, floating, drawn
To its own reflection in the Well.
* * *
Leaf and image kiss:
Souls & body,
Myth & memory,
Then & now & will-be
Meet at the membrane of water:
The holy kiss of wisdom
In Mimir’s Well.
* * *
And is it worth an eye?
Worth a self, a soul,
To sip this water,
Cool and silky on the tongue,
Trickling down my throat
Into unseen depths?
* * *
What will happen when this yeasty sip
Reaches the great vat of unknown liquids
Pooled in the depths of myself?
* * *
Will a heady brew arise,
Lifting and mixing all parts of myself,
Suffusing me
With Mod and Wode and Wisdom
Till I myself am a poem
Brewed by a Master?
* * *
Or will this yeasty sip
Run berserk within me,
Exploding me into fragments
Instead of fermenting me slowly?
* * *
What shall I wager on the chance?
* * *
Would there be a home for my eye
Within the Well?
For my mind, my memory?
What is it like down there?
What will I know?
* * *
I hear a song I could not sing
Humming from the Well
Like a seashell sings the Sea.
And the water smells like everlastingness:
Rocky and green and echoing through time.
* * *
It is full of whispers.
* * *
I dip my finger in, take one drop,
Dab it on the eye I do not have.
* * *
Fire and shards and cacophony,
Bursting and breaking,
Shattering, shimmering.
* * *
I can’t see.
I’m coming apart.
I’m on fire.
I’ve got to quench this burning eye
Or I’ll go mad.
* * *
I grope around blindly…..
Water!
With a gasp, I plunge my whole head in.
* * *
This was not what I expected.
* * *
Can I have my head back?
* * *
This is just the beginning of my tale,
But all my thoughts & words are bubbles now,
Floating like leaves on the wind,
Fermenting.
~~~~~
Perhaps these ideas and meditations will offer you inspiration on your own path into the heights and depths of timeless wisdom reflected in our Heathen myths, tales, lifeways–both ancient and modern views–and reflected in our own interactions with the holy beings and holy otherworld places that we encounter as we walk along Heathen ways in this World and the others.
Book-Hoard / Bibliography
End-note on ausinn vatni, from Wikipedia entry on Old Norse religion:
“A child was accepted into the family via a ritual of sprinkling with water (Old Norse ausa vatni) which is mentioned in two Eddic poems, “Rígsþula” and “Hávamál”, and was afterwards given a name.[212] The child was frequently named after a dead relative, since there was a traditional belief in rebirth, particularly in the family.[213]” References: [212] De Vries, Volume 1, pp. 178–80. Before the water rite, a child could be rejected; infanticide was still permitted under the earliest Christian laws of Norway, p. 179. [213] De Vries 1970, Volume 1, pp. 181–83.”
deVries, Jan. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte. Band I. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1956.
de Vries, Jan. Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch. Leiden: E.J. Brill,W 1961.
Larrington, Carolyne, transl. The Poetic Edda, revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Simek, Rudolf, transl. Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Rochester NY: D.S. Brewer, 1993.
Sturlason, Snorre. Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings. Ed. and transl. Erling Monsen, A.H. Smith. Mineola NY: Dover Publications reprint, 1990.
Sturlason, Snorri. Edda. Transl. Anthony Faulkes. Vermont: Everyman, Charles E. Tuttle, 1995.