Gripla - 20.12.2008, Blaðsíða 115

113HEARING VOICES
Dronke questions the logic of this: why do the Vanir decapitate Mímir,
when it is Hœnir who they find wanting? Clunies Ross argues that Mímir
represents memory (as suggested by the etymology of his name), ‘concep-
tualised as alienable from the bod[y] in which [it] normally resided’ and
that ‘once freed from his body, his head (the concentration of his mental
powers) is returned to the Æsir and specifically to Óðinn, who embalms
it (thus freeing it from its corporeal origins)’ (1994, 213). True though this
may be of Míms hǫfuð in Vǫluspá and Sigrdrífumál, it is inadequate as a
description of the situation in Ynglinga saga, where Mímir’s body certainly
matters; where mediation, rather than memory, is the ability at issue; and
where the Æsir’s behaviour is, from the viewpoint of the Vanir at least,
trickery. How Mímir communicates with Hœnir is not made clear. The
requirement that they be near to one another indicates their communica-
tion has a physical basis: it is not a matter of mind reading. The communi-
cation between Míms hǫfuð and its interlocutors is always verbal (þat mælti
við hann ok sagði honum marga leynda hluti, Ynglinga saga ch. 4; mælir Óðinn
/ við Míms hǫfuð, Vsp 46); then again a severed head, however magical,
does not have many other options (cf. Jǫrmunrekkr’s roaring after his arms
and legs have been cut off, Hamðismál 25). Assuming this is also true of
Mímir pre-decapitation, he would then be communicating ‘ventriloquist-
like’ (Bragg 2004, 66) to Hœnir the words which come from the latter’s
mouth. This is the acousmatism trope again, here figured as trickery and
deception (myndi hafa falsat þá). The Vanir’s beheading of Mímir and
silencing of his uncanny voice, at least until Óðinn’s herbs and magic come
on the scene, is then an extreme example of disacousmatisation.
The emphasis on Míms hǫfuð as a speaking being in Ynglinga saga and
Vǫluspá makes it all the odder that when Míms hǫfuð appears in Sigr-
drífumál it is in the context of runic, that is, written, wisdom:
Á biargi stóð með Brimis eggiar,
hafði sér á hǫfði hiálm.
Þá mælti Míms hǫfuð
fróðlict iþ fyrsta orð,
oc sagði sanna stafi.
(Sigrdr. v. 14, Edda 1962, 192).