The lunar theme surrounding the Vanir does not seem to end with the identification of Njörðr as Soma, and a few of the other figures surrounding the Aesir-Vanir War itself must each be (much more speculatively) looked at from the perspective of this great lunar cycle. For there are others involved in the lead up and aftermath of the Aesir-Vanir conflict who seem to make no appearance in the Indian version and who it would be prudent to attempt to account for in the context of the lunar theme.
First is Gullveig, a mysterious personage who is suggested to have had some unspecified role in the inciting events of the war. She is killed three times for some unstated offense, being born again each time. Dumezil notes her similarity to the Roman Tarpeia, a Sabine woman who betrays the Sabines to the Romans hoping for a payment of gold, but is instead killed. One common position holds that Gullveig is merely a goddess or demon of greed of some kind, her name possibly meaning “gold intoxication.” Some interpreters also relate her to the goddess Freyja (see Simek). However, knowing that the context in which she appears is a lunar myth cycle, if we instead begin by attempting to read Gullveig in terms of lunar symbolism, we can perhaps better understand her nature and why she is involved with this cycle to begin with.
According the the Voluspa, Gullveig tames wolves, as the moon, especially when full, often seems to do; she knows magic arts, which are sometimes associated with the power of the moon, as with the powers of the Irish Midir and Indian Chyavana; and she “is the joy of evil people,” as night itself certainly is, especially when well lit by a clear moon, the time for shameful hidden crimes and other wicked possibilities. One meaning of veig is “alcoholic drink,” which itself could ultimately derive from the association of the moon with various special beverages and with derangement of the senses (lunacy) in all forms. Gullveig dies and is reborn three times, just as the moon is a master of repeated resurrection as it wanes and waxes again. The full moon, after all, is generally seen to last three nights, just as Gullveig is killed and reborn three times. Her name, also containing gull, meaning “gold,” suggests that she could then be a hierophany of the moon at its maximum power, when it is exercising its fullest and most dangerous lunar influence, intoxicating people and enabling evil to be done by its light; that is, the full moon, and more specifically the golden-yellow full moon. What would symbolically match the idea of a "golden alcoholic drink"? The sun? No, it is golden but not intoxicating or as closely associated with liquid. Gold itself? No, it is not associated with liquid. The golden moon, repeatedly connected with waters and beverages, would be a correct symbolic match for this concept.
If this is so, then it is the frightful influence of this golden-yellow full moon that may be part of what causes the gods to have to kill her three times to quell the powerful, destructive force she is able to exert on people and perhaps gods alike. Her power has become too great and must be reduced. She is finally neutralized and transformed, fittingly, into the more benign “Heiðr,” meaning “bright, clear” (meaning also “fame”), perhaps a placid, no longer dangerously golden-yellow moon.
Ursula Dronke, in her translation of the Poetic Edda, points out that heið- is found as an element in names relating to the sacred mead: Heiðrun, the goat that "yields the 'shining mead' of the gods" in Grimnismal 25, and Heiðdraupnir, the "skull that drips sacred mead" in Sigrdrifumal (Dronke, 131). As such, Dronke, like Robert Hockert before her, suggests that Heiðr may have had an intimate connection to the mead. Hockert himself argues that Gullveig and Heiðr could even be "interpreted as a personification of the mythical mead" itself (Kuusela, Halls, Gods, and Giants, 28). Additionally, the Norwegian word veigja, and the Icelandic veig, both contain the element veig and mean “intoxicating drink.” Building on the possibility of Gullveig as directly connected to the mead, and bringing it back to the soma sacrifice, around which so much Vedic mythology seems to orbit: could the changing of the color of the moon from gold to white have been seen as a process of purification of the mead that metaphysically originated there? Was this heavenly process also repeated in the processing of the soma or mead that was offered at the archaic sacrifices, the juice of the plant at first being yellow, perhaps overly strong, then being mixed and clarified into a final form fit for sacrifice, just as the full moon itself changes from yellow to white? In just such a way, Encyclopedia Britannica describes the process of preparing the Iranic version of this drink, the haoma: "The juice, described as yellow, was filtered and mixed with milk, to cut the bitter taste, and perhaps with water too" (Encyclopedia Britannica). Though we cannot expect processing of the juice of local Iranic plants to match the processing of the Germanic mead very closely, the beverages of both branches likely had a yellowish color, if for different reasons. We will see, in a later section looking at the Irish and Vedic parallels of Gullveig's myth, that the Vedic myth of the churning of the milk sea also includes a poisonous gas that has to be contained (by Shiva) and neutralized while the nectar of immortality is being extracted. Thus this general concept is present in a less encoded form in relation to the drink of immortality within Indo-European mythology.
Second, we have the case of Mímir. Why is Mímir, keeper of the mystical well, involved in the Aesir-Vanir hostage exchange at all, and what does this mean? The wise Vanir exchanged for him in Snorri's Ynglingasaga, Kvasir, who was born of the saliva of both the Aesir and Vanir and whose blood made the Mead of Poetry, can be associated with the Soma theme via the shared thematic of “drinks of the gods.” Thus Mímir’s presence in this myth too reinforces the idea that “the drinks of the gods” could be one of the subjects around which the war turns. Kvasir is exchanged, in the Ynglingasaga version, as seems fit, for the equally or more wise Mímir, who is also associated with a drinkable liquid capable of giving intellectual powers, the water of his well. The presence of these two in explicit juxtaposition reinforces the idea that Njörðr and Freyr themselves may have a deeper connection to the drinks of the gods, as we have seen, perhaps with Njörðr as master of the waters generally, which ultimately metaphysically originate the various sacred drinks, and Freyr as the orderer and administer of the connected sacrifice. Yet there is distinctly lacking from Njörðr's extant body of myths any other indication that he himself had a direct connection to the drinks of either immortality or illumination themselves besides as a lord of waters and ultimately as priest of the general Aesir sacrifice. By their association in the hostage exchange then, we should look also at Mímir, to see if we can find this link to the sacred drinks themselves, and so to see if Mímir too may have originated as in some way related to, or even as an aspect of, the moon.
Soma, seen by the Vedics as both the plant, the moon and the liquid that grants immortality simultaneously, forms a symbolic match to Mímir if we picture the moon as simultaneously a severed head and a round well where a divine liquid is held. Wisdom would then reside in this well that is Mímir's head, just as immortality is contained in the liquid of the moon which is also the god Soma. Commentator Timothy Stephany sees a similar connection, pointing out that the phases of the moon mimic the shining of sunlight into a well. Stephany suggests that the moon could then be considered the well, while the face on the moon could be seen as the head of Mímir. Alternately, Mímir's Well could be one location on the moon which is Mímir's head. This theory would also fit very well with the idea that Óðinn carries Mímir's head around with him, while it wisely advises him. If we accept Óðinn as – in one part – an analog of the Vedic Varuna, this would make him the god of the night sky. Hence, his carrying around of Mímir's head would simply be an image of the moon floating in the night sky.
Even the pledging of Óðinn’s eye to this well could speculatively be seen as another layer of this same lunar hierophany. If, as Dumezil and many others have suggested, Óðinn is a sky god parallel to Vedic Varuna, and if one of his eyes is the sun, and he is also a god of night sky, then the other eye could be considered to be the moon. (The sun is frequently referred to as the eye of Vedic Varuna and Iranic Ahura Mazda, and of the case of Varuna, Hartmut Scharfe says: "in VIII 41,9ab Varuṇa's “two white eyes” (śvetā́ vicakṣaṇā́) almost certainly refer to the sun and the moon" (Scharfe, Rgveda, Avesta, and Beyond)). However, if the moon is also considered to be this sacred well, then the moon would simultaneously be the well and Óðinn’s eye, one within the other, the eye in the well. This kind of metaphysical symbolic layering, multiplying of hierophanies around a supposedly singular phenomena, is typical of religious and mythological symbolism. The myths are not simply a symbolic game, however, so this highly speculative line of thought should be balanced by an account of the other metaphysical dimensions present in the given myth.
Etymological evidence further connects Mímir to concepts often related to the moon. The etymology of Mímir is generally accepted as coming from a reduplication of the Proto-Indo-European verb *(s)mer-. The meaning of this verb most often cited when discussing Mímir is “memory,” relating to his apparent character as a god of deep wisdom. However, the verb also has the meaning of “to allot.” In Persian, Kurdish and Pashto this root developed into the word for “to count,” while in Hittite it is the root of the verb “mark,” meaning “to divide a sacrifice.” On the other hand, the word for “moon” in Sanskrit comes from Proto-Indo-European *méh₁n̥ss, probably from *meh₁-, meaning “to measure.” Hence the fact that the archaic Indo-Europeans saw the moon as being in one of its primary aspects a measurer, so crucial as it was to marking the days as it measured them out via its even and steady phases, is apparent in the words they used to name it. The moon was preeminently “the measurer.” Mímir, on the other hand, with his deep memory, was “the allotter” or “the counter.” If we return briefly to Irish Midir, who we have shown to be equated with Chyavana-Soma and Njörðr, we find that his name, Midir (already so similar in appearance to Mímir), meaning “judge,” derives ultimately from a proposed Proto-Indo-European root, *med-, meaning “to measure.” That is, the name Midir comes from a perfect synonym of the root of the aforementioned word for moon, a synonym which is indeed orthographically almost the same word (med- vs. meh-). To compound this etymological mystery, we find that the second meaning of this root (connected to Midir but not to Mímir), *med-, is “to give advice” – coincidentally this is of course just the thing said to be Mímir's main function.
There are further curious cases of etymological overlap among the figures thus far discussed. The aforementioned root *med- yields (along with Armenian mit, “mind”), in Old Norse, mjotudr, meaning “dispenser of fate.” From the root of Mímir previously stated, *(s)mer-, is yielded in Greek moira, the name of the Fates. Additionally, this root can mean "to worry over," and yields Greek merimna, meaning “care, thought” and “anxious mind,” while the meaning of the Welsh Pwyll's name (who we will relate to this cycle in subsequent sections, and who stands in a similar but distinct position in the Welsh myths as Midir does in the Irish or Njörðr does in the Norse) is “care, deliberation” and also “discretion, wisdom, judgment, mind,” and derived also from its Proto-Indo-European root *kweyt- is also the Slavic cisti, “to count.”
This is not a clear division of meanings between clear parallel figures, but a persistent and irreducible cross-pollination of similar, identical, and connected meanings even among figures who are closely positioned but who should not be strictly equal (Mímir, Midir, Pwyll), yet who are linked by this complex cycle of lunar significances.
Can we say clearly then who any of these figures are, or at least give a sense of how they interrelate? As for the Norse cases, we could of course decide to say that the Soma mythos was merely fragmented and then overlaid here and there over gods loosely connected to the central myth as best fit the narrative expediency, and that we cannot say for sure if any of these figures were definitively lunar in origin. Or conversely, we can simply take the clues we have from the myths to understand the separate aspects of the moon and sacred waters that these deities embody. This gives us: Njörðr, the moon as it relates to the wedding with “Suryā” (aka Skaði), as well as the moon as governor of the tides of the sea, perhaps of the waters in a generalized sense, but even more, the moon as that which brings forth fecundity from both sea and land, the fecundator moon, hence his being called “wealthy.” He is also perhaps the moon seen as preceding the sunrise, explaining why he is father of Freyr and Freyja, Freyr considered as god of sunrise or the morning star and Freyja possibly as goddess of dawn. Thus also his setting in motion of Freyr's romance. Gullveig is the golden-yellow full moon, the moon at its most dangerous full power, who must be ritually murdered for three nights to return her to placidity. And Mímir, once again much more speculatively, would be the aspect of the magical power of wisdom residing in the moon, perhaps that aspect of the soma liquid which grants not only immortality but higher illumination as well.
Njörðr does indeed become one of the priests of the Aesir's sacrifice, while Mímir keeps his seemingly separate well, each then retaining an important possible connection to the soma. As the later Vedic Soma was himself known to be a composite deity, it may be that what we have in the Norse version with the juxtaposition of Njörðr and Mímir, along with Kvasir, is an image of three of those closely related deities of lunar and watery character who were ultimately combined into one god in the Vedic version. Mímir then would be the higher aspect god within this “Soma” composite, the dispenser of the highest possible wisdom, the aspect that would seem only capable of being Aesir in nature. And Njörðr would be that aspect of “Soma” which aligned with and fought for the lower gods, that aspect associated with the moon's "third function" powers of fecundation and wealth, who it would not be natural at first to call Aesir. Kvasir would be the embodiment of the soma liquid itself, which seems the most incontrovertible of all.
To complete this equation, then, we must of course bring in the Vedic figure Dadhyanc, who many commentators have already compared to Mímir. We have discussed two versions of the story of the Asvins' accession to the Soma sacrifice, but there is a third. In this version, the Asvins gain access to the sacrifice by inquiring it of the sage Dadhyanc. He refuses, saying that Indra will cut his head off if he tells the secret of the sacrifice. The Asvins reassure him by saying that they will first give him a horse's head, and will store his human head safely away, so that when Indra beheads him, they will have his original head ready to be put on again. The Rig Veda alludes to this story saying, “Upon Dadhyanc a horse head is placed by the Asvins, who wish to learn his knowledge (R.V.1-117-22), and the Satapatha Brahmana narrates it in more detail: "Now, Dadhyanc Atharvana knew this essence, this sacrifice – how this head of the sacrifice is put on again, how this sacrifice becomes complete" (SB 14-1-18/24). Timothy Stephany suggests once again that the horse head of Dadhyanc is another image that can be seen on the face of the moon, making the beheaded Dadhyanc, keeper of the secret of the soma, another possible lunar god, just like the beheaded Mímir, keeper of the secret of his well. As Stephany puts it, "The Horse Head came from Dadhyanc who was the possessor of the secret of the soma, the intoxicating drink known as the “well of immortality”" (Stephany, Lunar Illusions). If this is accurate, then we would have in the Indian version Dadhyanc and Chyavana in the same contrasting positions as Mímir and Njörðr, perhaps preserving the more ancient contrast of these lunar figures who eventually were combined in the later conception of the god Soma.
In this context we should also consider the myth of Svarbhanu, who drinks the Amrita, or nectar of immortality, an analog of the soma, churned from the ocean of milk, and then has his head cut off by Mohini, his still animated severed head therefter being named Rahu. This head, Rahu, was then seen as the being responsible for causing lunar eclipses and as representing the ascending moon.
However, though the comparison of Mímir with Soma here has demonstrated possible connections, we must bracket it and set it aside. Rydberg argues that Mímir overlaps with both Soma and the Vedic god of the Underworld, Yama. We take seriously the possibility that these Vedic gods could be closely aligned or even overlapping, considering the common role of the Moon god also as a lord of the underworld in ancient societies (see Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, “The Moon and Its Mystique”). Yet, as Rydberg's arguments demonstrate, Mímir may align even more with the figure of Yama than with the figure of soma, and we cannot exclude the possibility that Mímir's seeming connections to Soma could be due to some incidental overlap of these archetypes or another kind of coincidence. Lastly, modern scholarship has connected Mímir to a motif of heads in wells seen commonly, for example, in Celtic folklore and hagiography. As such, the possibility must be examined that Mímir comes from such a folklore motif or even from a local water spirit of some kind. Still, this perspective remains shallow as it fails to look for the deity underlying such folkloric or water spirit motifs. It is common that under a seemingly narrow deity of wells lies a greater divinity of water or even of the subterranean, from which the wells spring, this greater deity reaching back with its roots into the pantheon of central archaic gods. Irish Nechtan is one of many example of this principle, seemingly merely a god of a well, but shown by comparative analysis to be the same as Vedic Apam Napat, who comes from a root deity that also manifest as Roman Neptune.
Finally, as we will see in the following parts, Bragi, whose wife is a key figure in this cycle of tales and who himself narrates, will here be associated to the moon as the same figure as the Indian Gandharva, chief singer and guardian of the Soma, perhaps embodied on the material plane by the singers at the sacrifice, or the birds of morning.
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