It has already been demonstrated that _Dvalinn_ is a son of Mimer (see No. 53). Sindre-Dvalin and his kinsmen are therefore Mimer's offspring (_Mims synir_). The golden citadel situated near the fountain of the maelstrom is therefore inhabited by the sons of Mimer.
It has also been shown that, according to Solarljod, the sons of _Mimer-Nidi_ come from this region (from the north in Mimer's domain), and that they are in all seven:
Nordan sá ek rida Nidja sonu ok váru sjau saman;
that is to say, that they are the same number as the "economical months," or the changes of the year (see No. 87).
In the same region Mimer's daughter Nat has her hall, where she takes her rest after her journey across the heavens is accomplished (see No. 93). The "chateau dormant" of Teutonic mythology is therefore situated in Nat's udal territory, and Dvalin, "the slumberer," is Nat's brother. Perhaps her citadel is identical with the one in which Dvalin and his brothers sleep. According to Saxo, voices of women are heard in the _tabernaculum_ belonging to the sleeping men, and glittering with weapons and treasures, when Thorkil and his men come to plunder the treasures there. Nat has her court and her attendant sisters in the Teutonic mythology, as in Rigveda (_Ushas_). _Simmara_ (see Nos. 97, 98) is one of the dises of the night. According to the middle-age sagas, these dises and daughters of Mimer are said to be twelve in number (see Nos. 45, 46).
Mimer, as we know, was the ward of the middle root of the world-tree. His seven sons, representing the changes experienced by the world-tree and nature annually, have with him guarded and tended the holy tree and watered its root with _aurgom forsi_ from the subterranean horn, "Valfather's pledge." When the god-clans became foes, and the Vans seized weapons against the Asas, Mimer was slain, and the world-tree, losing its wise guardian, became subject to the influence of time. It suffers in crown and root (Grimnersmal), and as it is ideally identical with creation itself, both the natural and the moral, so toward the close of the period of this world it will betray the same dilapidated condition as nature and the moral world then are to reveal.
Logic demanded that when the world-tree lost its chief ward, the lord of the well of wisdom, it should also lose that care which under his direction was bestowed upon it by his seven sons. These, voluntarily or involuntarily, retired, and the story of the seven men who sleep in the citadel full of treasures informs us how they thenceforth spend their time until Ragnarok. The details of the myth telling how they entered into this condition cannot now be found; but it may be in order to point out, as a possible connection with this matter, that one of the older Vanagods, Njord's father, and possibly the same as Mundilfore, had the epithet _Svafr_, _Svafrthorinn_ (Fjölsvinnsmal). _Svafr_ means _sopitor_, the sleeper, and _Svafrthorinn_ seems to refer to _svefnthorn_, "sleep-thorn." According to the traditions, a person could be put to sleep by laying a "sleep-thorn" in his ear, and he then slept until it was taken out or fell out.