This is the blog site for the Institute for Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and it mainly contains our Mimir’s Well articles. Mimir’s Well is a column written for The Orcadian newspaper by members of the team, friends, visiting lecturers, professors, fellows and sometimes students.
Mimir is a giant from Old Norse mythology, renowned for his wisdom. The source of Mimir’s wisdom was the water of a well by the root of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, known as Mimir’s Well. The god Odin wanted a share in Mimir’s wisdom too, which he got, but he had to leave one of his eyes to Mimir as a pledge. This is how Odin became the wisest of the gods.
The column Mimir’s Well appears now and again, depending on what inspires us to write. As we are a multidisciplinary team, the topics of the column will span widely, from history and archaeology via folklore and ethnology to literature and language.
This blog contains more than just the wisdom of Mimir however, so we thought it appropriate that Odin should have his eye over the remainder of our content – articles in the Shetland Times or Shetland Life, seminars and more.
Hopefully it will inspire you, too.
The Institute for Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands is a world leading research and teaching centre which was rated first in Scotland for research impact and fifth equal with the University of Oxford across the UK in the Research Excellence Framework Exercise in 2014. We are internationally renowned for our innovative postgraduate teaching and research programmes in Orkney and Shetland Studies, Highlands and Islands Literature, Viking Studies and Islands Studies. We have also just launched a brand new online only MLitt in Scottish Heritage.
Established in 2007, we operate from three key locations at Orkney, Shetland, and Perth Colleges UHI. We also work closely with both Orkney College UHI and Shetland College UHI and their associated learning centres and island communities. All of our programmes are delivered using a mixture of online and video-conferencing, with students studying from Australia, Canada, the UK and the rest of Europe.
Find us via our website, on Facebook, or X. We look forward to hearing from you!
Odin's Eye Blog 