Editing Heimdall (section)

==Scholarly reception==
Heimdall's attestations have proven troublesome and enigmatic to interpret for scholars.<ref name="DUMEZIL-1973-126">For example, scholar [[Georges Dumézil]] summarizes the difficulties as follows:

<blockquote>The god Heimdall poses one of the most difficult problems in Scandinavian mythography. As all who have dealt with him have emphasized, this is primarily because of a very fragmentary documentation; but even more because the few traits that have been saved from oblivion diverge in too many directions to be easily "thought of together," or to be grouped as members of a unitary structure. (Dumézil 1973:126)</blockquote></ref> A variety of sources describe the god as born from Nine Mothers, a puzzling description (for more in-depth discussion, see [[Nine Mothers of Heimdallr]]). Various scholars have interpreted this as a reference to the [[Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán]], personifications of waves. This would therefore mean Heimdall is born from the waves, an example of a deity born from the sea.<ref name="LINDOW-SIMEK-NINE-MOTHERS">See for example Lindow (2002: 169) and Simek (2007: 136).</ref>

In the textual corpus, Heimdall is frequently described as maintaining a particular association with boundaries, borders, and liminal spaces, both spatial and temporal. For example, ''Gylfaginning'' describes the god as guarding the border of the land of the gods, Heimdall meets humankind at a coast, and, if accepted as describing Heimdall, ''Völuspá hin skamma'' describes him as born 'at the edge of the world' in 'days of yore' by the Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán, and it is Heimdall's horn that signals the transition to the events of [[Ragnarök]].<ref name="LINDOW-BOUNDARIES-BORDERS">For brief discussion of this topic, see Lindow (2002: 170).</ref>

Additionally, Heimdall has a particular association with male [[sheep]], rams. A form of the deity's name, ''Heimdali'', occurs twice as a name for 'ram' in ''Skáldskaparmál'', as does Heimdall's name ''Hallinskíði''. Heimdall's unusual physical description has also been seen by various scholars as fitting this association: As mentioned above, Heimdall is described as gold-toothed (by way of his name ''Gullintanni''), as having the ability to hear grass grow and the growth of wool on sheep, and as owning a sword called 'head' (rams have horns on their heads). This may mean that Heimdall was associated with the ram perhaps as a sacred and/or sacrificial animal or that the ancient Scandinavians may have conceived of him as having been a ram in appearance.<ref name="HEIMDALLR-AS-RAM">For discussion on this, see for example Lindow (2002: 171), Simek (2007: 136), and Much (1930).</ref>

All of these topics—Heimdall's birth, his association with borders and boundaries, and his connection to sheep—have led to significant discussion among scholars. For example, influential [[philology|philologist]] and [[folklore|folklorist]] [[Georges Dumézil]], comparing [[Motif-Index of Folk-Literature#Terminology|motif]]s and clusters of motifs in western Europe, proposes the following explanation for Heimdall's birth and association with rams (italics are Dumézil's own):

{{Blockquote|Many folklores compare waves which, under a strong wind, are topped with white foam&nbsp;... to different animals, especially to horses or mares, to cows or bulls, to dogs or sheep. We say in France, "moutons, moutonner, moutannant" (white sheep, to break into white sheep, breaking into white sheep) and the English "white horses." The modern Welsh, like the Irish, speak of "white mares (''cesyg'')" but the old tradition linked to the name of Gwenhidwy, as in French, Basque, and other folklores, turned these waves into sheep. Conversely, in many countries the sailors or the coast dwellers attribute to certain wave sequences particular qualities or forces, sometimes, even,&nbsp;... a supernatural power: it happens that the third, or the ninth, or the tenth wave is the biggest, or the most dangerous, or the noisiest or the most powerful. But what I have found nowhere else but in the Welsh tradition concerning Gwenhidwy is a combination of these two beliefs, the final result of which is ''to make the ninth wave the ram of the simple ewes that are the eight preceding waves''.

This concept furnishes a satisfactory explanation of that section of Heimdall's dossier which we are considering: it allows us to combine his birth—nine mothers who are waves, at the confines of the earth—and his attributes of a ram. We understand that whatever his mythical value and functions were, ''the scene of his birth made him, in the sea's white frothing, the ram produced by the ninth wave''.<ref name="DUMEZIL-1973-135">Dumézil (1973:135).</ref>
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