lesser light, he can in various terms describe the sun as the
eye of heaven. In the Rig-Veda it is the 'eye of Mitra,
Varuna, and Agni' — 'chakshuh Mitrasya Varunasyah
Agneh.'[1] In the Zend-Avesta it is 'the shining sun with
the swift horses, the eye of Ahura-Mazda;' elsewhere both
eyes, apparently sun and moon, are praised.[2] To Hesiod it
is the 'all-seeing eye of Zeus' — (
Greek characters)
Macrobius speaks of antiquity calling the sun the eye of
Jove — (Greek characters)[3] The old Germans, in
calling the sun 'Wuotan's eye,'[4] recognized Wuotan, Woden
Odhin, as being himself the divine Heaven. These mythic
expressions are of the most unequivocal type. By the hint
they give, conjectural interpretations may be here not indeed
asserted, but suggested, for two of the quaintest episodes of
ancient European myth. Odin, the All-father, say the old
skalds of Scandinavia, sits among his Æsir in the city
Asgard, on his high throne Hlidskialf (Lid-shelf), whence
he can look down over the whole world discerning all the
deeds of men. He is an old man wrapped in his wide cloak,
and clouding his face with his wide hat, 'os pileo ne cultu
proderetur obnubens,' as Saxo Grammaticus has it. Odin
is one-eyed; he desired to drink from Mimir's well, but he
had to leave there one of his eyes in pledge, as it is said in
the Völuspa:
'All know I, Odin! Where thou hiddest thine eye In Mimir's famous well. Mead drinks Mimir every morning From Wale-father's pledge — Wit ye what this is?'
As Odin's single eye seems certainly to be the sun in heaven, one may guess what is the lost eye in the well — perhaps the sun's own reflection in any pool, or more
1 Rig-Veda, i. 115; Böhtlingk and Roth, s.v. 'mitra.' 2 Avesta, tr. Spiegel, 'Yaçna,' i. 35; iii., lxvii., 61-2; compare Burnouf, 'Yaçna.' 3 Macrob. Saturnal. i. 21, 13. See Max Müller, 'Chips,' vol. ii. p. 85. 4 Grimm, 'Deutsche Myth.' p. 665. See also Hanusch, 'Slaw. Myth.' p. 213.
