Editing Bestla (section)

==Theories==
On the basis of the ''Hávamál'' stanza handled above (wherein Odin learns nine magic songs from the unnamed brother of Bestla), some scholars have theorized that Bestla's brother may in fact be the wise being [[Mímir]], from whose severed head the god Odin gains wisdom.<ref name="MIMIR-BESTLA">Examples include Rydberg (1886), Bellows (1923:92), and {{harvnb|Puhvel|1989|p=212}}.</ref>

Since Odin is descended from the jötnar on his mother's side, the slaying of [[Ymir]] by him and his brothers could be seen as an intra-familial killing and, according to scholar [[John Lindow]], "the slaying or denial of a maternal relation".{{Sfn|Lindow|2002|p=77}}

[[Waltraud Hunke]] has argued that Bestla should be regarded as the bark of the [[Yggdrasil|world tree]] on which Odin was perhaps born, alluding to ''[[Hávamál]]'' <small>(141)</small>: "then I started to grow fruitful".{{Sfn|Lindow|2002|p=77}}

In his translation of the ''Poetic Edda'', [[Henry Adams Bellows (businessman)|Henry Adams Bellows]] comments that such the position of the stanza 140 in ''Hávamál'' appears to be the result of [[Interpolation (manuscripts)|manuscript interpolation]], and that its meaning is obscure.<ref name="BELLOWS92" />