{
  "id": "mimir",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Mimir",
  "summary": "Keeper of the well of wisdom under the tree, in which Odin's eye is pledged and from which Mimir drinks each morning; at Ragnarok Odin takes counsel from \"the head of Mim\", and the Sigrdrifumol says the head spoke \"words of truth\". The poems never say what kind of being he is; this object files him among the giants, as the tradition does, and says so.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "norse",
    "giants",
    "wisdom",
    "wells"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "odin"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "yggdrasil"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "ragnarok"
    },
    {
      "rel": "attested_in",
      "target": "poetic-edda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "compares",
      "target": "wisdom-gods-compared"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who is Mimir?",
    "What is Mimir's well?",
    "Why did Odin give his eye to Mimir?",
    "Is Mimir a god or a giant?",
    "What is the head of Mimir?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Odin's eye lies in Mimir's well: \"I know where Othin's eye is hidden, / Deep in the wide-famed well of Mimir; / Mead from the pledge of Othin each morn / Does Mimir drink\" (Voluspo 29; cf. 28).",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.95
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "At Ragnarok Odin consults Mimir's head: \"Yggdrasil shakes ... To the head of Mim does Othin give heed, / But the kinsman of Surt shall slay him soon\" (Voluspo 47), while \"Fast move the sons of Mim\" (Voluspo 46).",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.93
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The head speaks: \"Then first the head of Mim spoke forth, / And words of truth it told\" (Sigrdrifumol 14). How Mimir lost his head is not told in the Poetic Edda.",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.92
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Nothing in the poems states Mimir's nature: he is not called a god, a giant or a Vanir hostage anywhere in Bellows's text; the survivors of Ragnarok hide \"In Hoddmimir's wood\" (Vafthruthnismol 45), a name that may or may not be his. The classification \"giant\" here follows the tradition and is uncertain.",
      "sources": [
        "poetic-edda-bellows"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [
    "Well (Voluspo 29), head (Voluspo 47; Sigrdrifumol 14), sons (Voluspo 46) — three separate Mimirs in three passages that the poems never reconcile.",
    "The beheading in the Aesir–Vanir exchange is the Prose Edda's story.",
    "His kind is unknown from the poems; the object's \"giant\" is a filing decision, not a claim."
  ],
  "faqs": [
    {
      "q": "What is Mimir's well?",
      "claim": "c1"
    },
    {
      "q": "What is the head of Mimir?",
      "claim": "c3"
    },
    {
      "q": "Is Mimir a god or a giant?",
      "claim": "c4"
    },
    {
      "q": "Why did Odin give his eye to Mimir?",
      "claim": "c1"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "theoretical",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Says what the poems say about Mimir and refuses to say more — including that his very nature is unattested — where every summary supplies a biography.",
  "confidence": 0.9,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-03",
  "media": [],
  "x": {
    "myth": {
      "pantheon": "norse",
      "kind": "giant",
      "group": "jotnar",
      "domains": [
        "wisdom",
        "memory"
      ],
      "symbols": [
        "the well",
        "the severed head"
      ],
      "wikidata": "Q336496"
    }
  },
  "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/mimir",
  "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/mimir.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Mimir",
    "description": "Keeper of the well of wisdom under the tree, in which Odin's eye is pledged and from which Mimir drinks each morning; at Ragnarok Odin takes counsel from \"the head of Mim\", and the Sigrdrifumol says the head spoke \"words of truth\". The poems never say what kind of being he is; this object files him among the giants, as the tradition does, and says so.",
    "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/mimir",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-09-03",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "The Poetic Edda — tr. Henry Adams Bellows (American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923), XML edition by fjarri",
        "url": "https://github.com/fjarri/poetic_edda/tree/master/chapters"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Mimir"
  }
}