Minni- Memory, the Deep Well

They knew memory as water and the self as the one who drinks.

Minni was more than remembering. It was the well inside you where personal recall, ancestral stories, and cultural truths all gather. Drink deep from it, and you knew who you were. Ignore it, and you risked drifting far from your own shore.

In Grímnismál, the Well of Mímir holds wisdom, and even Odin sacrifices to drink from it. Memory was not just the past, it was a resource, a compass. It carried the voices of the dead, the maps of the land, the caution of old mistakes.

A völva in trance might pull from Minni not only her own memories but those of her line. When she spoke, it might be with the weight of a hundred winters behind her words.

I picture the well on a quiet night. A single torch flickering. You lean over and see not just your reflection, but the faces of those who walked before you. You realize you are part of their remembering, just as they are part of yours.

Minni lives now in every story you pass on. Every name you refuse to let fade. Every choice you make knowing the cost because you’ve seen it paid before.