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We now pass to Völuspa, 40 (Hauk’s Codex), where the word Helvegir occurs. One of the signs that Ragnarok and the fall of the world are at hand, is that the mighty ash Ygdrasil trembles, and that a fettered giant-monster thereby gets loose from its chains. Which this monster is, whether it is Garm, bound above the Gnipa cave, or some other, we will not now discuss. The astonishment and confusion caused by these events among all the beings of the world, are described in the poem with but few words, but they are sufficient for the purpose, and well calculated to make a deep impression upon the hearers. Terror is the predominating feeling in those beings which are not chosen to take part in the impending conflict. They, on the other hand, for whom the quaking of Ygdrasil is the signal of battle for life or death, either arm themselves amid a terrible war-cry for the battle (the giants, str. 41), or they assemble to hold the last council (the Asas), and then rush to arms. Two classes of beings are mentioned as seized by terror — the dwarfs, who stood breathless outside of their stone-doors, and those beings which are á Helvegum. Helvegir may mean the paths or ways in Hel: there, are many paths, just as there are many gates and many rivers. Helvegir may also mean the regions, districts in Hel (cp. Austrvegr, Sudrvegr, Norvegr; and Alvism., 10, according to |
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which the Vans call the earth vegir, ways). The author may have used the word in either of these senses or in both, for in this case it amounts to the same. At all events it is stated that the inhabitants in Hel are terrified when Ygdrasil quakes and the unnamed giant-monster gets loose.
Surt’s spirit, or kinsman (savi, sefi may mean either), is, as has also hitherto been supposed, the fire. The final episode in the conflict on Vigrid’s plain is that the Muspel-flames destroy the last remnant of the contending giants. The terror which, when the world-tree quaked and the unnamed giant got loose, took possession of the inhabitants of Hel continues so long as the conflict is undecided. Valfather falls, Frey and Thor likewise; no one can know who is to be victorious. But the terror ceases when on the one hand the liberated giant-monster is destroyed, and on the other hand Vidar and Vale, Mode and Magne, survive the conflict and survive the flames, which do not penetrate to Balder and Hödr amid their protégés in Hel. The word thann (him), which occurs in the seventh line of the strophe (in the last of the translation) can impossibly refer to any other than the giant mentioned in the |
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fourth line (iotunn). There are in the strophe only two masculine words to which the masculine thann can be referred — iotunn and Ygdrasils askur. Iotunn, which stands nearest to thann, thus has the preference; and as we have seen that the world-tree falls by neither fire nor edge (Fjolsv., 20), and as it, in fact, survives the conflagration of Surt, then thann must naturally be referred to the iotunn. Here Völuspa has furnished us with evidence in regard to the position of Hel’s inhabitants towards the contending parties in Ragnarok. They who are frightened when a giant-monster — a most dangerous one, as it hitherto had been chained — gets free from its fetters, and they whose fright is allayed when the monster is destroyed in the conflagration of the world, such beings can impossibly follow this monster and its fellow warriors with their good wishes. Their hearts are on the side of the good powers, which are friendly to mankind. But they do not take an active part in their behalf; they take no part whatever in the conflict. This is manifest from the fact that their fright does not cease before the conflict is ended. Now we know that among the inhabitants in Hel are the ásmegir Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring, and that they are not hertharfir; they are not to be employed in war, since their very destiny forbids their taking an active part in the events of this period of the world (see No. 53). But the text does not permit us to think of them alone when we are to determine who the beings á Helvegum are. For the text says that all, who are á Helvegum, are alarmed until the conflict is happily ended. What the |
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443 interpreters of this much abused passage have failed to see, the seeress in Völuspa has not forgotten, that, namely, during the lapse of countless thousands of years, innumerable children and women, and men who never wielded the sword, have descended to the kingdom of death and received dwellings in Hel, and that Hel — in the limited local sense which the word hitherto has appeared to have in the songs of the gods — does not contain warlike inhabitants. Those who have fallen on the battle-field come, indeed, as shall be shown later, to Hel, but not to remain there; they continue their journey to Asgard, for Odin chooses one half of those slain on the battlefield for his dwelling, and Freyja the other half (Grimnersmal, 14). The chosen accordingly have Asgard as their place of destination, which they reach in case they are not found guilty by a sentence which neutralises the force and effect of the previous choice (see below), and sends them to die the second death on crossing the boundary to Nifelhel. Warriors who have not fallen on the battlefield are as much entitled to Asgard as those fallen by the sword, provided they as heroes have acquired fame and honour. It might, of course, happen to the greatest general and the most distinguished hero, the conqueror in hundreds of battles, that he might die from sickness or an accident, while, on the other hand, it might be that a man who never wielded a sword in earnest might fall on the field of battle before he had given a blow. That the mythology should make the latter entitled to Asgard, but not the former, is an absurdity as void of support in the records — on the contrary, these give the opposite |
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testimony — as it is of sound sense. The election contained for the chosen ones no exclusive privilege. It did not even imply additional favour to one who, independently of the election, could count on a place among the einherjes. The election made the person going to battle feigr, which was not a favour, nor could it be considered the opposite. It might play a royal crown from the head of the chosen one to that of his enemy, and this could not well be regarded as a kindness. But for the electing powers of Asgard themselves the election implied a privilege. The dispensation of life and death regularly belonged to the norns; but the election partly supplied the gods with an exception to this rule, and partly it left to Odin the right to determine the fortunes and issues of battles. The question of the relation between the power of the gods and that of fate — a question which seemed to the Greeks and Romans dangerous to meddle with and well-nigh impossible to dispose of — was partly solved by the Teutonic mythology by the naive and simple means of dividing the dispensation of life and death between the divinity and fate, which, of course, did not hinder that fate always stood as the dark, inscrutable power in the background of all events. (On election see further, No. 66.) It follows that in Hel’s regions of bliss there remained none that were warriors by profession. Those among them who were not guilty of any of the sins which the Asa-doctrine stamped as sins unto death passed through Hel to Asgard, the others through Hel to Nifelhel. All the inhabitants on Hel’s elysian fields accordingly are the ásmegir, and the women, children, and the agents of the |
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peaceful arts who have died during countless centuries, and who, unused to the sword, have no place in the ranks of the einherjes, and therefore with the anxiety of those waiting abide the issue of the conflict. Such is the background and contents of the Völuspa strophe. This would long since have been understood, had not the doctrine constructed by Gylfaginning in regard to the lower world, with Troy as the starting-point, bewildered the judgment. 62. In Allvissmal occur the phrases: those i helio and halir. The premise of the poem is that such objects as earth, heaven, moon, sun, night, wind, fire, &c., are expressed in six different ways, and that each one of these ways of expression is, with the exclusion of the others, applicable within one or two of the classes of beings found in the world. For example, Heaven is called —
In this manner thirteen objects are mentioned, each one with its six names. In all of the thirteen cases man has a way of his own of naming the objects. Likewise the giants. No other class of beings has any of the thirteen |
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appellations in common with them. On the other hand, the Asas and Vans have the same name for two objects (moon and sun); elves and dwarfs have names in common for no less than six objects (cloud, wind, fire, tree, seed, mead); the dwarfs and the inhabitants of the lower world for three (heaven, sea, and calm). Nine times it is stated how those in the lower world express themselves. In six of these nine cases Allvismal refers to the inhabitants of the lower world by the general expression “those in Hel”; in three cases the poem lets “those in Hel” be represented by some one of those classes of beings that reside in Hel. These three are upregin (str. 10), ásasynir (str. 16), and halir (str. 28). The name upregin suggests that it refers to beings of a very certain divine rank (the Vans are in Allvismal called ginnregin, str. 20, 30) that have their sphere of activity in the upper world. As they none the less dwell in the lower world, the appellation must have reference to beings which have their homes and abiding places in Hel when they are not occupied with their affairs in the world above. These beings are Nat, Dag, Mane, Sol. Ásasynir has the same signification as ásmegir. As this is the case, and as the ásmegir dwell in the lower world and the ásasynir likewise, then they must be identical, unless we should be credulous enough to assume that there were in the lower world two categories of beings, both called sons of Asas. Halir, when the question is about the lower world, means the souls of the dead (Vafthr., 43; see above). From this we find that Alvismal employs the word |
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Hel in such a manner that it embraces those regions where Nat and Dag, Mane and Sol, the living human inhabitants of Mimer’s grove, and the souls of departed human beings dwell. Among the last-named are included also souls of the damned, which are found in the abodes of torture below Nifelhel, and it is within the limits of possibility that the author of the poem also had them in mind, though there is not much probability that he should conceive them as having a nomenclature in common with gods, ásmegir, and the happy departed. At all events, he has particularly — and probably exclusively — had in his mind the regions of bliss when he used the word Hel, in which case he has conformed in the use of the word to Völuspa, Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Skirnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa. 63. While a terrible winter is raging, the gods, according to Forspjallsljod,* send messengers, with Heimdal as chief, down to a lower-world goddess (dis), who is * Of the age and genuineness of Forspjallsljod I propose to publish a separate treatise. |
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448 designated as Gjöll’s (the lower world river’s) Sunna (Sol, sun) and as the distributor of the divine liquids (str. 9, 11) to beseech her to explain to them the mystery of creation, the beginning of heaven, of Hel, and of the world, life and death, if she is able (hlyrnis, heliar, heims ef vissi, ártith, œfi, aldrtila). The messengers get only tears as an answer. The poem divides the universe into three great divisions: heaven, Hel, and the part lying between Hel and heaven, the world inhabited by mortals. Thus Hel is here used in its general sense, and refers to the whole lower world. But here, as wherever Hel has this general signification, it appears that the idea of regions of punishment is not thought of, but is kept in the background by the definite antithesis in which the word Hel, used in its more common and special sense of the subterranean regions of bliss, stands to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it. It must be admitted that what the anxious gods wish to learn from the wise goddess of the lower world must, so far as their desire to know and their fears concern the fate of Hel, refer particularly to the regions where Urd’s and Mimer’s holy wells are situated, for if the latter, which water the world-tree, pass away, it would mean nothing less than the end of the world. That the author should make the gods anxious concerning Loke’s daughter, whom they had hurled into the deep abysses of Nifelhel, and that he should make the wise goddess by Gjöll weep bitter tears over the future of the sister of the Fenris-wolf, is possible in the sense that it cannot be refuted by any definite words of the old records; but we may be permitted to regard it as highly improbable. |
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Among the passages in which the word Hel occurs in the poetic Edda’s mythological songs we have yet to mention Harbardsljod (str. 27), where the expression drepa i Hel is employed in the same abstract manner as the Swedes use the expression “at slå ihjäl,” which means simply “to kill” (it is Thor who threatens to kill the insulting Harbard); and also Völuspa (str. 42), Fjölsvinnsmal (str. 25), and Grimnersmal (str. 31). Völuspa (str. 43) speaks of Goldcomb, the cock which, with its crowing, wakes those who sleep in Herfather’s abode, and of a sooty-red cock which crows under the earth near Hel’s halls. In Fjöllsvinnsmal (str. 25), Svipdag asks with what weapon one might be able to bring down to Hel’s home (á Heljar sjöt) that golden cock Vidofner, which sits in Mimer’s tree (the world-tree), and doubtless is identical with Goldcomb. That Vidofner has done nothing for which he deserves to be punished in the home of Loke’s daughter may be regarded as probable. Hel is here used to designate the kingdom of death in general, and all that Svipdag seems to mean is that Vidofner, in case such a weapon could be found, might be transferred to his kinsman, the sooty-red cock which crows below the earth. Saxo also speaks of a cock which is found in Hades, and is with the goddess who has the cowbane stalks when she shows Hadding the flower-meadows of the lower world, the Elysian fields of those fallen by the sword, and the citadel within which death does not seem able to enter (see No. 47). Thus there is at least one cock in the lower world’s realm of bliss. That there should be one also in Nifelhel and in the abode |
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of Loke’s daughter is nowhere mentioned, and is hardly credible, since the cock, according to an ancient and wide-spread Aryan belief, is a sacred bird, which is the special foe of demons and the powers of darkness. According to Swedish popular belief, even of the present time, the crowing of the cock puts ghosts and spirits to flight; and a similar idea is found in Avesta (Vendidad, 18), where, in str. 15, Ahuramazda himself translates the morning song of the cock with the following words: “Rise, ye men, and praise the justice which is the most perfect! Behold the demons are put to flight!” Avesta is naively out of patience with thoughtless persons who call this sacred bird (Parodarsch) by the so little respect-inspiring name “Cockadoodledoo” (Kahrkatâs). The idea of the sacredness of the cock and its hostility to demons was also found among the Aryans of South Europe and survived the introduction of Christianity. Aurelius Prudentius wrote a Hymnus ad galli cantum, and the cock has as a token of Christian vigilance received the same place on the church spires as formerly on the world-tree. Nor have the May-poles forgotten him. But in the North the poets and the popular language have made the red cock a symbol of fire. Fire has two characters — it is sacred, purifying, and beneficent, when it is handled carefully and for lawful purposes. In the opposite case it is destructive. With the exception of this special instance, nothing but good is reported of the cocks of mythology and poetry. Grimnersmal (str. 31) is remarkable from two points of view. It contains information — brief and scant, it is |
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true, but nevertheless valuable — in regard to Ygdrasil’s three roots, and it speaks of Hel in an unmistakable, distinctly personal sense. In regard to the roots of the world-tree and their position, our investigation so far, regardless of Grimnersmal (str. 31), has produced the following result: Ygdrasil has a northern root. This stands over the vast reservoir Hvergelmer and spreads over Nifelhel, situated north of Hvergelmer and inhabited by frost-giants. There nine regions of punishment are situated, among them Nastrands. Ygdrasil’s second root is watered by Mimer’s fountain and spreads over the land where Mimer’s fountain and grove are located. In Mimer’s grove dwell those living (not dead) beings called Ásmegir and Ásasynir, Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring, whose destiny it is to people the regenerated earth. Ygdrasil’s third root stands over Urd’s fountain and the subterranean thingstead of the gods. The lower world consists of two chief divisions: Nifelhel (with the regions thereto belonging) and Hel; Nifelhel situated north of the Hvergelmer mountain, and Hel south of it. Accordingly both the land where Mimer’s well and grove are situated and the land where Urd’s fountain is found are within the domain Hel. In regard to the zones or climates, in which the roots are located, they have been conceived as having a southern and northern. We have already shown that the root over Hvergelmer is the northern one. That the root over Urd’s fountain has been conceived as the southern one |
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is manifest from the following circumstances. Eilif Gudrunson, who was converted to Christianity — the same skald who wrote the purely heathen Thorsdrapa — says in one of his poems, written after his conversion, that Christ sits sunnr at Urdarbrunni, in the south near Urd’s fountain, an expression which he could not have used unless his hearers had retained from the faith of their childhood the idea that Urd’s fountain was situated south of the other fountains. Forspjallsljod puts upon Urd’s fountain the task of protecting the world-tree against the devastating cold during the terrible winter which the poem describes. Othhrœrir skyldi Urdar geyma mœttk at veria mestum thorra. — “Urd’s Odreirer (mead-fountain) proved not to retain strength enough to protect against the terrible cold.” This idea shows that the sap which Ygdrasil’s southern root drew from Urd’s fountain was thought to be warmer than the saps of the other wells. As, accordingly, the root over Urd’s well was the southern, and that over Hvergelmer and the frost-giants the northern, it follows that Mimer’s well was conceived as situated between those two. The memory of this fact Gylfaginning has in its fashion preserved, where in chapter 15 it says that Mimer’s fountain is situated where Ginungagap formerly was — that is, between the northern Nifelheim and the southern warmer region (Gylfaginning’s “Muspelheim”). Grimnersmal (str. 31) says:
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The root under which human beings, living persons, mennskir menn, dwell we also know as the one over Mimer’s well and Mimer’s grove, where the human beings Lif and Leifthraser and their offspring have their abode, where jörd lifanda manna is situated. There remains one root: the one under which the goddess or fate, Urd, has her dwelling. Of this Grimnersmal says that she who dwells there is named Hel. Hence it follows of necessity that the goddess of fate, Urd, is identical with the personal Hel, the queen of the realm of death, particularly of its regions of bliss. We have seen that Hel in its local sense has the general signification, the realm of death, and the special but most frequent signification, the elysium of the kingdom of death. As a person, the meaning of the word Hel must be analogous to its signification as a place. It is the same idea having a personal as well as a local form. The conclusion that Urd is Hel is inevitable, unless we assume that Urd, though queen of her fountain, is not the regent of the land where her fountain is situated. One might then assume Hel to be one of Urd’s sisters, but these have no prominence as compared with herself. One of them, Skuld, who is the more known of the two, is at the same time one of Urd’s maid-servants, a valkyrie, |
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who on the battlefield does her errands, a feminine psycho-messenger who shows the fallen the way to Hel, the realm of her sisters, where they are to report themselves ere they get to their destination. Of Verdandi the records tell us nothing but the name, which seems to preclude the idea that she should be the personal Hel. This result, that Urd is identical with Hel; that she who dispenses life also dispenses death; that she who with her serving sisters is the ruler of the past, the present, and the future, also governs and gathers in her kingdom all generations of the past, present, and future — this result may seem unexpected to those who, on the authority of Gylfaginning, have assumed that the daughter of Loke cast into the abyss of Nifelhel is the queen of the kingdom of death; that she whose threshold is called Precipice (Gylfag., 34) was the one who conducted Balder over the threshold to the subterranean citadel glittering with gold; that she whose table is called Hunger and whose knife is called Famine was the one who ordered the clear, invigorating mead to be placed before him; that the sister of those foes of the gods and of the world, the Midgard-serpent and the Fenris-wolf was entrusted with the care of at least one of Ygdrasil’s roots; and that she whose bed is called Sickness, jointly with Urd and Mimer, has the task of caring for the world-tree and seeing that it is kept green and gets the liquids from their fountains. Colossal as this absurdity is, it has been believed for centuries. And in dealing with an absurdity which is centuries old, we must consider that it is a force which does not yield to objections simply stated, but must be |
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conquered by clear and convincing arguments. Without the necessity of travelling the path by which I have reached the result indicated, scholars would long since have come to the conviction that Urd and the personal Hel are identical, if Gylfaginning and the text-books based thereon had not confounded the judgment, and that for the following reasons: The name Urdr corresponds to the Old English Vurd, Vyrd, Vird, to the Old Low German Wurth, and to the Old High German Wurt. The fact that the word is found in the dialects of several Teutonic branches indicates, or is thought by the linguists to indicate, that it belongs to the most ancient Teutonic times, when it probably had the form Vorthi. There can be no doubt that Urd also among other Teutonic branches than the Scandinavian has bad the meaning of goddess of fate. Expressions handed down from the heathen time and preserved in Old English documents characterise Vyrd as tying the threads or weaving the web of fate (Cod. Ex., 355; Beowulf, 2420), and as the one who writes that which is to happen (Beowulf, 4836). Here the plural form is also employed, Vyrde, the urds, the norns, which demonstrates that she in England, as in the North, was conceived as having sisters or assistants. In the Old Low German poem “Heliand,” Wurth’s personality is equally plain. But at the same time as Vyrd, Wurth, was the goddess of fate, she was also that of death. In Beowulf (4831, 4453) we find the parallel expressions: |
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And there are also other expressions, as Thiu Wurth nâhida thus: Urd (death) then approached; Wurth ina benam: Urd (death) took him away (cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth., i. 373). Thus Urd, the goddess of fate, was, among the Teutonic branches in Germany and England, identical with death, conceived as a queen. So also in the North. The norns made laws and chose life and örlög (fate) for the children of time (Völuspa). The word örlög (nom. pl.; the original meaning seems to be urlagarne, that is, the original laws) frequently has a decided leaning to the idea of death (cp. Völuspa: Ek sá Baldri örlög fólgin). Hakon Jarl’s örlög was that Kark cut his throat (Nj., 156). To receive the “judgment of the norns” was identical with being doomed to die (Yng., Heimskringla, ch. 52). Fate and death were in the idea and in usage so closely related, that they were blended into one personality in the mythology. The ruler of death was that one who could resolve death; but the one who could determine the length of life, and so also could resolve death, and the kind of death, was, of course, the goddess of fate. They must blend into one. In the ancient Norse documents we also find the name |
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Urd used to designate death, just as in Heliand and Beowulf, and this, too, in such a manner that Urd’s personal character is not emphasised. Ynglingatal (Heimskr., ch. 44) calls Ingjald’s manner of death his Urdr, and to determine death for anyone was to draga Urdr at him. Far down in the Christian centuries the memory survived that Urd was the goddess of the realm of death and of death. When a bright spot, which was called Urd’s moon, appeared on the wall, it meant the breaking out of an epidemic (Eyrbyggia Saga, 270). Even as late as the year 1237 Urd is supposed to have revealed herself, the night before Christmas, to Snaebjorn to predict a bloody conflict, and she then sang a song in which she said that she went mournfully to the contest to choose a man for death. Saxo translates Urdr or Hel with “Proserpina” (Hist., i. 43). 64. As those beings for whom Urd determines birth, position in life, and death, are countless, so her servants, who perform the tasks commanded by her as queen, must also be innumerable. They belong to two large classes: the one class is active in her service in regard to life, the other in regard to death. |
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Most intimately associated with her are her two sisters. With her they have the authority of judges. Compare Völuspa, 19, 20, and the expressions norna dómr, norna kvidr. And they dwell with her under the world-tree, which stands for ever green over her gold-clad fountain. As maid-servants under Urd there are countless haminges (fylgjes) and giptes (also called gafes, audnes, heilles). The hamingjes are fostered among beings of giant-race (who hardly can be others than the norns and Mimer). Three mighty rivers fall down into the world, in which they have their origin, and they come wise in their hearts, soaring over the waters to our upper world (Vafthr., 48, 49). There every child of man is to have a hamingje as a companion and guardian spirit. The testimony of the Icelandic sagas of the middle ages in this regard are confirmed by phrases and forms of speech which have their root in heathendom. The hamingjes belong to that large circle of feminine beings which are called dises, and they seem to have been especially so styled. What Urd is on a grand scale as the guardian of the mighty Ygdrasil, this the hamingje is on a smaller scale when she protects the separate fruit produced on the world-tree and placed in her care. She does not appear to her favourite excepting perhaps in dreams or shortly before his death (the latter according to Helgakv. Hjörv. the prose; Njal, 62; Hallf, ch. 11; proofs from purely heathen records are wanting). In strophes which occur in Gisle Surson’s saga, and which are attributed (though on doubtful grounds) to this heathen skald, the |
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hero of the saga, but the origin of which (from a time when the details of the myth were still remembered) is fully confirmed by a careful criticism, it is mentioned how he stood between good and evil inspirations, and how the draumkona (dream-woman) of the good inspirations said to him in sleep: “Be not the first cause of a murder! excite not peaceful men against yourself! — promise me this, thou charitable man! Aid the blind, scorn not the lame, and insult not a Tyr robbed of his hand!” These are noble counsels, and that the hamingjes were noble beings was a belief preserved through the Christian centuries in Iceland, where, according to Vigfusson, the word hamingje is still used in the sense of Providence. They did not usually leave their favourite before death. But there are certain phrases preserved in the spoken language which show that they could leave him before death. He who was abandoned by his hamingje and gipte was a lost man. If the favourite became a hideous and bad man, then his hamingje and gipta might even turn her benevolence into wrath, and cause his well-deserved ruin. Uvar ’ro disir, angry at you are the dises! cries Odin to the royal nithing Geirrod, and immediately thereupon the latter stumbles and falls pierced by his own sword. That the invisible hamingje could cause one to stumble and fall is shown in Fornm., iii. The giptes seem to have carried out such of Urd’s resolves, on account of which the favourite received an unexpected, as it were accidental, good fortune. Not only for separate individuals, but also for families and clans, there were guardian spirits (kynfylgjur, œttarfylgjur). |
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Another division of this class of maid-servants under Urd are those who attend the entrance of the child into the world, and who have to weave the threads of the new-born babe into the web of the families and events. Like Urd and her sisters, they too are called norns. If it is a child who is to be a great and famous man, Urd herself and her sisters may be present for the above purpose (see No. 30 in regard to Halfdan’s birth). A few strophes incorporated in Fafnersmal from a heathen didactic poem, now lost (Fafn., 12-13), speak of norns whose task it is to determine and assist the arrival of the child into this world. Nornir, er naudgaunglar ’ro oc kjósa mœdr frá maugum. The expression kjósa mœdr frá maugum, “to choose mothers from descendants,” seems obscure, and can under all circumstances not mean simply “to deliver mothers of children.” The word kjósa is never used in any other sense than to choose, elect, select. Here it must then mean to choose, elect as mothers; and the expression “from descendants” is incomprehensible, if we do not on the one hand conceive a crowd of eventual descendants, who at the threshold of life are waiting for mothers in order to become born into this world, and on the other hand women who are to be mothers, but in reference to whom it has not yet been determined which descendant each one is to call hers among the great waiting crowd, until those norns which we are here discussing resolve on that point, and from the indefinite crowd of waiting megir choose mothers for those children which are especially destined for them. These norns are, according to Fafn., 13, of different |
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birth. Some are Asa-kinswomen, others of elf-race, and again others are daughters of Dvalin. In regard to the last-named it should be remembered that Dvalin, their father, through artists of his circle, decorated the citadel, within which a future generation of men await the regeneration of the world, and that the mythology has associated him intimately with the elf of the morning dawn, Delling, who guards the citadel of the race of regeneration against all that is evil and all that ought not to enter (see No. 53). There are reasons (see No. 95) for assuming that these dises of birth were Hænir’s maid-servants at the same time as they were Urd’s, just as the valkyries are Urd’s and Odin’s maid-servants at the same time (see below). To the other class of Urd’s maid-servants belong those lower-world beings which execute her resolves of death, and conduct the souls of the dead to the lower world. Foremost among the psycho-messengers (psychopomps), the attendants of the dead, we note that group of shield-maids called valkyries. As Odin and Freyja got the right of choosing on the battlefield, the valkyries have received Asgard as their abode. There they bring the mead-horns to the Asas and einherjes, when they do not ride on Valfather’s errands (Völuspa, 31; Grimnersmal, 36; Eiriksm., 1; Ulf Ugges. Skaldsk., 238). But the third of the norns, Skuld, is the chief one in this group (Völuspa, 31), and, as shall be shown below, they for ever remain in the most intimate association with Urd and the lower world. |
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The modern conception of the removal of those fallen by the sword to Asgard is that the valkyries carried them immediately through blue space to the halls above. The heathens did not conceive the matter in this manner. It is true that the mythological horses might carry their riders through the air without pressing a firm foundation with their hoofs. But such a mode of travel was not the rule, even among the gods, and, when it did happen, it attracted attention even among them. Compare Gylfaginning, i. 118, which quotes strophes from a heathen source. The bridge Bifrost would not have been built or established for the daily connection between Asgard and Urd’s subterranean realm if it had been unnecessary in the mythological world of fancy. Mane’s way in space would not have been regarded as a road in the concrete sense, that quakes and rattles when Thor’s thunder-chariot passes over it (Haustl., Skaldsk., ch. 16), had it not been thought that Mane was safer on a firm road than without one of that sort. To every child that grew up in the homes of our heathen fathers the question must have lain near at hand, what such roads and bridges were for, if the gods had no advantage from them. The mythology had to be prepared for such questions, and in this, as in other cases, it had answers wherewith to satisfy that claim on causality and consistency which even |
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the most naive view of the world presents. The answer was: If the Bifrost bridge breaks under its riders, as is to happen in course of time, then their horses would have to swim in the sea of air (Bilraust brotnar, er their á bru fara, oc svima i modo marir — Fafn., 15; compare a strophe of Kormak, Kormak’s Saga, p. 259, where the atmosphere is called the fjord of the gods, Dia fjördr). A horse does not swim as fast and easily as it runs. The different possibilities of travel are associated with different kinds of exertion and swiftness. The one method is more adequate to the purpose than the other. The solid connections which were used by the gods and which the mythology built in space are, accordingly, objects of advantage and convenience. The valkyries, riding at the head of their chosen heroes, as well as the gods, have found solid roads advantageous, and the course they took with their favourites was not the one presented in our mythological text-books. Grimnersmal (str. 21; see No. 93) informs us that the breadth of the atmospheric sea is too great and its currents too strong for those riding on their horses from the battlefield to wade across. In the 45th chapter of Egil Skallagrimson’s saga we read how Egil saved himself from men, whom King Erik Blood-axe sent in pursuit of him to Saud Isle. While they were searching for him there, he had stolen to the vicinity of the place where the boat lay in which those in pursuit had rowed across. Three warriors guarded the boat. Egil succeeded in surprising them, and in giving one of them his death-wound ere the latter was able to defend himself. The second fell in a duel on the |
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strand. The third, who sprang into the boat to make it loose, fell there after an exchange of blows. The saga has preserved a strophe in which Egil mentions this exploit to his brother Thorolf and his friend Arinbjorn, whom he met after his flight from Saud Isle. There he says:
“Three of those who serve the tester of the valkyrie-din (the warlike Erik Blood-axe) will late return; they have gone to the lower world, to Hel’s high hall.” The fallen ones were king’s men and warriors. They were slain by weapons and fell at their posts of duty, one from a sudden, unexpected wound, the others in open conflict. According to the conception of the mythological text-books, these sword-slain men should have been conducted by valkyries through the air to Valhal. But the skald Egil, who as a heathen born about the year 904, and who as a contemporary of the sons of Harald Fairhair must have known the mythological views of his fellow-heathen believers better than the people of our time, assures us positively that these men from King Erik’s body-guard, instead of going immediately to Valhal, went to the lower world and to Hel’s high hall there. He certainly would not have said anything of the sort if those for whom he composed the strophe had not regarded this idea as both possible and correct. The question now is: Does this Egil’s statement stand |
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alone and is it in conflict with those other statements touching the same point which the ancient heathen records have preserved for us? The answer is, that in these ancient records there is not found a single passage in conflict with Egil’s idea, but that they all, on the contrary, fully agree with his words, and that this harmony continues in the reports of the first Christian centuries in regard to this subject. All the dead and also those fallen by the sword come first to Hel. Thence the sword-slain come to Asgard, if they have deserved this destiny. In Gisle Surson’s saga (ch. 24) is mentioned the custom of binding Hel-shoes on the feet of the dead. Warriors in regard to whom there was no doubt that Valhal was their final destiny received Hel-shoes like all others, that er tidska at binda mönnum helskó, sem menn skulo á ganga till Valhallar. It would be impossible to explain this custom if it had not been believed that those who were chosen for the joys of Valhal were obliged, like all others, to travel á Helvegum. Wherever this custom prevailed, Egil’s view in regard to the fate which immediately awaited sword-fallen men was general. When Hermod betook himself to the lower world to find Balder he came, as we know, to the golden bridge across the river Gjöll. Urd’s maid-servant, who watches the bridge, mentioned to him that the day before five fylki of dead men had rode across the same bridge. Consequently all these dead are on horseback and they do not come separately or a few at a time, but in large troops called fylki, an expression which, in the Icelandic literature, |
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denotes larger or smaller divisions of an army — legions, cohorts, maniples or companies in battle array; and with fylki the verb fylkja, to form an army or a division of an army in line of battle, is most intimately connected. This indicates with sufficient clearness that the dead here in question are men who have fallen on the field of battle and are on their way to Hel, each one riding, in company with his fallen brothers in arms, with those who belonged to his own fylki. The account presupposes that men fallen by the sword, whose final destination is Asgard, first have to ride down to the lower world. Else we would not find these fylkes on a Hel-way galloping across a subterranean bridge, into the same realm as had received Balder and Nanna after death. It has already been pointed out that Bifrost is the only connecting link between Asgard and the lower regions of the universe. The air was regarded as an ether sea which the bridge spanned, and although the horses of mythology were able to swim in this sea, the solid connection was of the greatest importance. The gods used the bridge every day (Grimnismal, Gylfaginning). Frost-giants and mountain-giants are anxious to get possession of it, for it is the key to Asgard. It therefore has its special watchman in the keen-eyed and vigilant Heimdal. When in Ragnarok the gods ride to the last conflict they pass over Bifrost (Fafnersmal). The bridge does not lead to Midgard. Its lower ends were not conceived as situated among mortal men. It stood outside and below the edge of the earth’s crust both in the north and in the south. In the south it descended to Urd’s |
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fountain and to the thingstead of the gods in the lower world (see the accompanying drawing, intended to make these facts intelligible). From this mythological topographical arrangement it follows of necessity that the valkyries at the head of the chosen slain must take their course through the lower world, by the way of Urd’s fountain and the thingstead of the gods, if they are to ride on Bifrost bridge to Asgard, and not be obliged to betake themselves thither on swimming horses.
There are still two poems extant from the heathen time, which describe the reception of sword-fallen kings in Valhal. The one describes the reception of Erik Blood-axe, the other that of Hakon the Good. When King Erik, with five other kings and their attendants of fallen warriors, come riding up thither, the gods hear on their approach a mighty din, as if the foundations of Asgard trembled. All the benches of Valhal quake and tremble. What single probability can we now conceive as to what the skald presupposed? Did he suppose that the chosen heroes came on horses that swim in |
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the air, and that the movements of the horses in this element produced a noise that made Valhal tremble? Or that it is Bifrost which thunders under the hoofs of hundreds of horses, and quakes beneath their weight? There is scarcely need of an answer to this alternative. Meanwhile the skald himself gives the answer. For the skald makes Brage say that from the din and quaking it might be presumed that it was Balder who was returning to the halls of the gods. Balder dwells in the lower world; the connection between Asgard and the lower world is Bifrost: this connection is of such a nature that it quakes and trembles beneath the weight of horses and riders, and it is predicted in regard to Bifrost that in Ragnarok it shall break under the weight of the host of riders. Thus Brage’s words show that it is Bifrost from which the noise is heard when Erik and his men ride up to Valhal. But to get to the southern end of Bifrost, Erik and his riders must have journeyed in Hel, across Gjoll, and past the thingstead of the gods near Urd’s well. Thus it is by this road that the psychopomps of the heroes conduct their favourites to their final destination. In his grand poem “Hákonármal,” Eyvind Skaldaspiler makes Odin send the valkyries Gandul and Skagul “to choose among the kings of Yngve’s race some who are to come to Odin and abide in Valhal.” It is not said by which road the two valkyries betake themselves to Midgard, but when they have arrived there they find that a battle is imminent between the Yngve descendants, Hakon the Good, and the sons of Erik. Hakon is just putting |
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on his coat-of-mail, and immediately thereupon begins the brilliantly-described battle. The sons of Erik are put to flight, but the victor Hakon is wounded by an arrow, and after the end of the battle he sits on the battlefield, surrounded by his heroes, “with shields cut by swords and with byrnies pierced by arrows.” Gandul and Skagul, “maids on horseback, with wisdom in their countenances, with helmets on their heads, and with shields before them,” are near the king. The latter hears that Ganndul, “leaning on her spear,” says to Skagul that the wound is to cause the king’s death, and now a conversation begins between Hakon and Skagul, who confirms what Gandul has said, and does so with the following words:
“We two (Gandul and Skagul) shall now, quoth the mighty Skagul, ride o’er green realms (or worlds) of the gods in order to say to Odin that now a great king is coming to see him.” Here we get definite information in regard to which way the valkyries journey between Asgard and Midgard. The fields through which the road goes, and which are beaten by the hoofs of their horses, are green realms of the gods (worlds, heimar). With these green realms Eyvind has not meant the |
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blue ether. He distinguishes between blue and green. The sea he calls blue (blámœr — see Heimskringla). What he expressly states, and to which we must confine ourselves, is that, according to his cosmological conception and that of his heathen fellow-believers, there were realms clothed in green and inhabited by divinities on the route the valkyries had to take when they from a battlefield in Midgard betook themselves back to Valhal and Asgard. But as valkyries and the elect ride on Bifrost up to Valhal, Bifrost, which goes down to Urd’s well, must be the connecting link between the realms decked with green and Asgard. The grœnar heimar through which the valkyries have to pass are therefore the realms of the lower world. Among the realms or “worlds” which constituted the mythological universe, the realms of bliss in the lower world were those which might particularly be characterised as the green. Their groves and blooming meadows and fields of waving grain were never touched by decay or frost, and as such they were cherished by the popular fancy for centuries after the introduction of Christianity. The Low German language has also rescued the memory thereof in the expression gróni godes wang (Hel., 94, 24). That the green realms of the lower world are called realms of the gods is also proper, for they have contained and do contain many beings of a higher or lower divine rank. There dwells the divine mother Nat, worshipped by the Teutons; there Thor’s mother and her brother and sister Njord and Fulla are fostered; there Balder, Nanna, and Hödr are to dwell until Ragnarok; there Delling, |
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Billing, Rind, Dag, Mane, and Sol, and all the clan of artists gathered around Mimer, they who “smithy” living beings, vegetation, and ornaments, have their halls; there was born Odin’s son Vale. Of the mythological divinities, only a small number were fostered in Asgard. When Gandul and Skagul at the head of sword-fallen men ride “o’er the green worlds of the gods,” this agrees with the statement in the myth about Hermod’s journey to Hel, that “fylki” of dead riders gallop over the subterranean gold-bridge, on the other side of which glorious regions are situated, and with the statement in Vegtamskvida that Odin, when he had left Nifelhel behind him, came to a foldvegr, a way over green plains, by which he reaches the hall that awaits Balder. In the heroic songs of the Elder Edda, and in other poems from the centuries immediately succeeding the introduction of Christianity, the memory survives that the heroes journey to the lower world. Sigurd Fafnersbane comes to Hel. Of one of Atle’s brothers who fell by Gudrun’s sword it is said, i Helju hon thana hafdi (Atlam., 51). In the same poem, strophe 54, one of the Niflungs says of a sword-fallen foe that they had him lamdan til Heljar. The mythic tradition is supported by linguistic usage, which, in such phrases as berja i Hel, drepa i Hel, drepa til Heljar, færa til Heljar, indicated that those fallen by the sword also had to descend to the realm of death. The memory of valkyries, subordinate to the goddess of fate and death, and belonging with her to the class of norns, continued to flourish in Christian times both among |
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Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. Among the former, välcyrge, välcyrre (valkyrie) could be used to express the Latin parca, and in Beowulf occur phrases in which Hild and Gud (the valkyries Hildr and Gunnr) perform the tasks of Vyrd. In Atlamal (28), the valkyries are changed into “dead women,” inhabitants of the lower world, who came to choose the hero and invite him to their halls. The basis of the transformation is the recollection that the valkyries were not only in Odin’s service, but also in that of the lower world goddess Urd (compare Atlamal, 16, where they are called norns), and that they as psychopomps conducted the chosen Heroes to Hel on their way to Asgard. 66. If death on the battlefield, or as the result of wounds received on the field of battle, had been regarded as an inevitable condition for the admittance of the dead into Asgard, and for the honour of sitting at Odin’s table, then the choosing would under all circumstances have been regarded as a favour from Odin. But this was by no means the case, nor could it be so when regarded from a psychological point of view (see above, No. 61). The poems mentioned above, “Eiriksmál” and “Hakonarmal,” give us examples of choosing from a standpoint quite different from that of favour. When one of the einherjes, |
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Sigmund, learns from Odin that Erik Blood-axe has fallen and is expected in Valhal, he asks why Odin robbed Erik of victory and life, although he, Erik, possessed Odin’s friendship. From Odin’s answer to the question we learn that the skald did not wish to make Sigmund express any surprise that a king, whom Odin loves above other kings and heroes, has died in a lost instead of a won battle. What Sigmund emphasises is, that Odin did not rather take unto himself a less loved king than the so highly appreciated Erik, and permit the latter to conquer and live. Odin’s answer is that he is hourly expecting Ragnarok, and that he therefore made haste to secure as soon as possible so valiant a hero as Erik among his einherjes. But Odin does not say that he feared that he might have to relinquish the hero for ever, in case the latter, not being chosen on this battlefield, should be snatched away by some other death than that by the sword. Hakonarmal gives us an example of a king who is chosen in a battle in which he is the victor. As conqueror the wounded Hakon remained on the battlefield; still he looks upon the choosing as a disfavour. When he had learned from Gandul’s words to Skagul that the number of the einherjes is to be increased with him, he blames the valkyries for dispensing to him this fate, and says he had deserved a better lot from the gods (várun thó verdir gagns frá godum). When he enters Valhal he has a keener reproach on his lips to the welcoming Odin: illúdigr mjók thykkir oss Odinn vera, sjám ver hans of hugi. |
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Doubtless it was for our ancestors a glorious prospect to be permitted to come to Odin after death, and a person who saw inevitable death before his eyes might comfort himself with the thought of soon seeing “the benches of Balder’s father decked for the feast” (Ragnar’s death-song). But it is no less certain from all the evidences we have from the heathen time, that honourable life was preferred to honourable death, although between the wars there was a chance of death from sickness. Under these circumstances, the mythical eschatology could not have made death from disease an insurmountable obstacle for warriors and heroes on their way to Valhal. In the ancient records there is not the faintest allusion to such an idea. It is too absurd to have existed. It would have robbed Valhal of many of Midgard’s most brilliant heroes, and it would have demanded from faithful believers that they should prefer death even with defeat to victory and life, since the latter lot was coupled with the possibility of death from disease. With such a view no army goes to battle, and no warlike race endowed with normal instincts has even entertained it and given it expression in their doctrine in regard to future life. The absurdity of the theory is so manifest that the mythologists who have entertained it have found it necessary to find some way of making it less inadmissible than it really is. They have suggested that Odin did not necessarily fail to get those heroes whom sickness and age threatened with a straw-death, nor did they need to relinquish the joys of Valhal, for there remained to them an expedient to which they under such circumustances resorted: |
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they risted (marked, scratched) themselves with the spear-point (marka sik geirs-oddi). If there was such a custom, we may conceive it as springing from a sacredness attending a voluntary death as a sacrifice — a sacredness which in all ages has been more or less alluring to religious minds. But all the descriptions we have from Latin records in regard to Teutonic customs, all our own ancient records from heathen times, all Northern and German heroic songs, are unanimously and stubbornly silent about the existence of the supposed custom of “risting with the spear-point,” although, if it ever existed, it would have been just such a thing as would on the one hand be noticed by strangers, and on the other hand be remembered, at least for a time, by the generations converted to Christianity. But the well-informed persons interviewed by Tacitus, they who presented so many characteristic traits of the Teutons, knew nothing of such a practice; otherwise they certainly would have mentioned it as something very remarkable and peculiar to the Teutons. None of the later classical Latin or middle age Latin records which have made contributions to our knowledge of the Teutons have a single word to say about it; nor the heroic poems. The Scandinavian records, and the more or less historical sagas, tell of many heathen kings, chiefs, and warriors who have died on a bed of straw, but not of a single one who “risted himself with the spear-point.” The fable about this “risting with the spear-point” has its origin in Ynglingasaga, ch. 10, where Odin, changed to a king in Svithiod, is said, when death was approaching, to have |
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let marka sik geirs-oddi. Out of this statement has been constructed a custom among kings and heroes of anticipating a straw-death by “risting with the spear-point,” and this for the purpose of getting admittance to Valhal. Vigfusson (Dictionary) has already pointed out the fact that the author of Ynglingasaga had no other authority for his statemnent than the passage in Havamál, where Odin relates that he wounded with a spear, hungering and thirsting, voluntarily inflicted on himself pain, which moved Beistla’s brother to give him runes and a drink from the fountain of wisdom. The fable about the spear-point risting, and its purpose, is therefore quite unlike the source from which, through ignorance and random writing, it sprang. 67. The psychopomps of those fallen by the sword are, as we have seen, stately dises, sitting high in the saddle, with helmet, shield, and spear. To those not destined to fall by the sword Urd sends other maid-servants, who, like the former, may come on horseback, and who, as it appears, are of very different appearance, varying in accordance with the manner of death of those persons whose departure they attend. She who comes to those who sink beneath the weight of years has been conceived as a very benevolent dis, to judge from the solitary passage |
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where she is characterised, that is in Ynglingasaga, ch. 49, where it is said of the aged and just king Halfdan Whiteleg, that he was taken hence by the woman, who is helpful to those bowed and stooping (hallvarps hlífinauma). The burden which Elli (age), Utgard-Loke’s foster-mother (Gylfag., 47), puts on men, and which gradually gets too heavy for them to bear, is removed by this kind-hearted dis. Other psychopomps are of a terrible kind. The most of them belong to the spirits of disease dwelling in Nifelhel (see No. 60). King Vanlandi is tortured to death by a being whose epithet, vitta vœttr and trollkund, shows that she belongs to the same group as Heidr, the prototype of witches, and who is contrasted with the valkyrie Hild by the appellation ljóna lids bága Grimhildr (Yngl., ch. 16). The same vitta vœttr came to King Adils when his horse fell and he himself struck his head against a stone (Yngl., ch. 33). Two kings, who die on a bed of straw, are mentioned in Ynglingasaga’s Thjodolf-strophes (ch. 20 and 52) as visited by a being called in the one instance Loke’s kinswoman (Loka mœr), and in the other Hvedrung’s kinswoman (Hvedrungs mœr). That this Loke’s kinswoman has no authority to determine life and death, but only carries out the dispensations of the norns, is definitely stated in the Thjodolf-strophe (ch. 52), and also that her activity, as one who brings the invitation to the realm of death, does not imply that the person invited is to be counted among the damned, although she herself, the kinswoman of Loke, the daughter of Loke, surely does not belong to the regions of bliss. |
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Far down in Christian times the participle leikinn was used in a manner which points to something mythical as the original reason for its application. In Biskupas. (i. 464) it is said of a man that he was leikinn by some magic being (flagd). Of another person who sought solitude and talked with himself, it is said in Eyrbyggja (270) that he was believed to be leikinn. Ynglingatal gives us the mythical explanation of this word. |
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In its strophe about King Dyggve, who died from disease, this poem says (Yngling., ch. 20) that, as the lower world dis had chosen him, Loke’s kinswoman came and made him leikinn (Allvald Yngva thjodar Loka mœr um leikinn hefir). The person who became leikinn is accordingly visited by Loke’s kinswoman, or, if others have had the same task to perform, by some being who resembled her, and who brought psychical or physical disease. In our mythical records there is mention made of a giantess whose very name, Leikin, Leikn, is immediately connected with that activity which Loke’s kinswoman — and she too is a giantess — exercises when she makes a person leikinn. Of this personal Leikin we get the following information in our old records: 1. She is, as stated, of giant race (Younger Edda, i. 552). 2. She has once fared badly at Thor’s hands. He broke her legs (Leggi brauzt thu Leiknar — Skaldsk., ch. 4, after a song by Vetrlidi). 3. She is kveldrida. The original and mythological meaning of kveldrida is a horsewoman of torture or death (from kvelja, to torture, to kill). The meaning, a horsewoman of the night, is a misunderstanding. Compare Vigfusson’s Dict., sub voce “Kveld.” 4. The horse which this woman of torture and death rides is black, untamed, difficult to manage (styggr), and ugly-grown (ljótvaxinn). It drinks human blood, and is accompanied by other horses belonging to Leikin, black and bloodthirsty like it. (All this is stated by Hallfred |
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Vandradaskald.)* Perhaps these loose horses are intended for those persons whom the horsewoman of torture causes to die from disease, and whom she is to conduct to the lower world. Popular traditions have preserved for our times the remembrance of the “ugly-grown” horse, that is, of a three-legged horse, which on its appearance brings sickness, epidemics, and plagues. The Danish popular belief (Thiele, i. 137, 138) knows this monster, and the word Hel-horse has been preserved in the vocabulary of the Danish language. The diseases brought by the Hel-horse are extremely dangerous, but not always fatal. When they are not fatal, the convalescent is regarded as having ransomed his life with that tribute of loss of strength and of torture which the disease caused him, and in a symbolic sense he has then “given death a bushel of oats” (that is, to its horse). According to popular belief in Slesvik (Arnkiel, i. 55; cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth., 804), Hel rides in the time of a plague on a three-legged horse and kills people. Thus the ugly-grown horse is not forgotten in traditions from the heathen time. Völuspa informs us that in the primal age of man, the sorceress Heid went from house to house and was a welcome guest with evil women, since she seid Leikin (sida means to practise sorcery). Now, as Leikin is the “horsewoman of torture and death,” and rides the Hel-horse, then the expression sida Leikin can mean nothing else
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than by sorcery to send Leikin, the messenger of disease and death, to those persons who are the victims of the evil wishes of “evil women”; or, more abstractly, to bring by sorcery dangerous diseases to men.* From all this follows that Leikin is either a side-figure to the daughter of Loke, and like her in all respects, or she and the Loke-daughter are one and the same person. To determine the question whether they are identical, we must observe (1) the definitely representative manner in which Völuspa, by the use of the name Leikin, makes the possessor of this name a mythic person, who visits men with diseases and death; (2) the manner in which Ynglingatal characterises the activity of Loke’s daughter with a person doomed to die from disease; she makes him leikinn, an expression which, without doubt, is in its sense connected with the feminine name Leikn, and which was preserved in the vernacular far down in Christian times, and there designated a supernatural visitation bringing the symptoms of mental or physical illness; (3)
There was a sacred sorcery and an unholy one, according to the purpose for which it was practised, and according to the attending ceremonies. The object of the holy sorcery was to bring about something good either for the sorcerer or for others, or to find out the will of the gods and future things. The sorcery practised by Heidr is the unholy one, hated by the gods, and again and again forbidden in the laws, and this kind of sorcery is designated in Völuspa by the term sida kyni. Of a thing practised with improper means it is said that it is not kynja-lauss, kyn-free. The reading in Cod. Hauk., seid hon hvars hon kunni, seid hon hugleikin, evidently has some “emendator” to thank for its existence who did not understand the passage and wished to substitute something easily understood for the obscure lines he thought he had found. |
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the Christian popular tradition in which the deformed and disease-bringing horse, which Leikin rides in the myth, is represented as the steed of “death” or “Hel”; (4) that change of meaning by which the name Hel, which in the mythical poems of the Elder Edda designates the whole heathen realm of death, and especially its regions of bliss, or their queen, got to mean the abode of torture and misery and its ruler — a transmutation by which the name Hel, as in Gylfaginning and in the Slesvik traditions, was transferred from Urd to Loke’s daughter. Finally, it should be observed that it is told of Leikin, as of Loke’s daughter, that she once fared badly at the hands of the gods, who did not, however, take her life. Loke’s daughter is not slain, but is cast into Nifelhel (Gylfaginning, ch. 34). From that time she is gnúpleit — that is to say, she has a stooping form, as if her bones had been broken and were unable to keep her in an upright position. Leikin is not slain, but gets her legs broken. All that we learn of Leikin thus points to the Loke-maid, the Hel, not of the myth, but of Christian tradition. 68. It has already been demonstrated that all the dead must go to Hel — not only they whose destination is the realm of bliss, but also those who are to dwell in Asgard or in |
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the regions of torture in Nifelheim. Thus the dead tread at the outset the same road. One and the same route is prescribed to them all, and the same Helgate daily opens for hosts of souls destined for different lots. Women and children, men and the aged, they who have practised the arts of peace and they who have stained the weapons with blood, those who have lived in accordance with the sacred commandments of the norns and gods and they who have broken them — all have to journey the same way as Balder went before them, down to the fields of the fountains of the world. They come on foot and on horseback — nay, even in chariots, if we may believe Helreid Brynhildar, a very unreliable source — guided by various psychopomps: the beautifully equipped valkyries, the blue-white daughter of Loke, the sombre spirits of disease, and the gentle maid-servant of old age. Possibly the souls of children had their special psychopomps. Traditions of mythic origin seem to suggest this; but the fragments of the myths themselves preserved to our time give us no information on this subject. The Hel-gate here in question was situated below the eastern horizon of the earth. When Thor threatens to kill Loke he says (Lokas., 59) that he will send him á austrvega. When the author of the Sun-song sees the sun set for the last time, he hears in the opposite direction — that is, in the east — the Hel-gate grating dismally on its hinges (str. 39). The gate has a watchman and a key. The key is called gillingr, gyllingr (Younger Edda, ii. 494); and hence a skald who celebrates his ancestors in his songs, and thus recalls to those living the |
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484 shades of those in Hades, may say that he brings to the light of day the tribute paid to Gilling (yppa gillings gjöldum. See Eyvind’s strophe, Younger Edda, i. 248. The paraphrase has hitherto been misunderstood, on account of the pseudo-myth in Bragarœdur about the mead.) From this gate the highway of the dead went below the earth in a westerly direction through deep and dark dales (Gylfag., ch. 52), and it required several days — for Hermod nine days and nights — before they came to light regions and to the golden bridge across the river Gjoll, flowing from north to south (see No. 59). On the other side of the river the roads forked. One road went directly north. This led to Balder’s abode (Gylfag., ch. 52); in other words, to Mimer’s realm, to Mimer’s grove, and to the sacred citadel of the ásmegir, where death and decay cannot enter (see No. 53). This northern road was not, therefore, the road common to all the dead. Another road went to the south. As Urd’s realm is situated south of Mimer’s (see Nos. 59, 63), this second road must have led to Urd’s fountain and to the thingstead of the gods there. From the Sun-song we learn that the departed had to continue their journey by that road. The deceased skald of the Sun-song came to the norns, that is to say, to Urd and her sisters, after he had left this road behind him, and he sat for nine days and nights á norna stóli before he was permitted to continue his journey (str. 51). Here, then, is the end of the road common to all, and right here, at Urd’s fountain and at the thingstead of the gods something must happen, on which account the dead are divided into different groups, some |
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destined for Asgard, others for the subterranean regions of bliss, and a third lot for Nifelhel’s regions of torture. We shall now see whether the mythic fragments preserved to our time contain any suggestions as to what occurs in this connection. It must be admitted that this dividing must take place somewhere in the lower world, that it was done on the basis of the laws which in mythological ethics distinguish between right and wrong, innocence and guilt, that which is pardonable and that which is unpardonable, and that the happiness and unhappiness of the dead is determined by this division. 69. The Asas have two thingsteads: the one in Asgard, the other in the lower world. In the former a council is held and resolutions passed in such matters as pertain more particularly to the clan of the Asas and to their relation to other divine clans and other powers. When Balder is visited by ugly dreams, Valfather assembles the gods to hold counsel, and all the Asas assemble á thingi, and all the asynjes á máli (Vegtamskv., 1; Balder’s Dr., 4). In assemblies here the gods resolved to exact an oath from all things for Balder’s safety, and to send a messenger to the lower world to get knowledge partly about Balder, partly about future events. On this thingstead efforts are made of |
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reconciliation between the Asas and the Vans, after Gulveig had been slain in Odin’s hall (Völuspa, 23, 24). Hither (á thing goda) comes Thor with the kettle captured from Hymer, and intended for the feasts of the gods (Hymerskv., 39); and here the Asas hold their last deliberations, when Ragnarok is at hand (Völuspa, 49: Æsir ’ro a thingi). No matters are mentioned as discussed in this thingstead in which any person is interested who does not dwell in Asgard, or which are not of such a nature that they have reference to how the gods themselves are to act under particular circumstances. That the thingstead where such questions are discussed must be situated in Asgard itself is a matter of convenience, and is suggested by the very nature of the case. It follows that the gods assemble in the Asgard thingstead more for the purpose of discussing their own interests than for that of judging in the affairs of others. They also gather there to amuse themselves and to exercise themselves in arms (Gylfaginning, 50). Of the other thingstead of the Asas, of the one in the lower world, it is on the other hand expressly stated that they go thither to sit in judgment, to act as judges; and there is no reason for taking this word dœma, when as here it means activity at a thingstead, in any other than its judicial and common sense. What matters are settled there? We might take this to be the proper place for exercising Odin’s privilege of choosing heroes to be slain by the sword, since this right is co-ordinate with that of the norns to determine life and dispense fate, whence it might seem that the domain of the |
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authority of the gods and that of the norns here approached each other sufficiently to require deliberations and decisions in common. Still it is not on the thingstead at Urd’s fountain that Odin elects persons for death by the sword. It is expressly stated that it is in his own home in Valhal that Odin exercises his right of electing (Grimnersmal, 8), and this right be holds so independently and so absolutely that he does not need to ask for the opinion of the norns. On the other hand, the gods have no authority to determine the life and death of the other mortals. This belongs exclusively to the norns. The norns elect for every other death but that by weapons, and their decision in this domain is never called a decision by the gods, but norna domr, norna kvidr, feigdar ord, Dauda ord. If Asas and norns did have a common voice in deciding certain questions which could be settled in Asgard, then it would not be in accordance with the high rank given to the Asas in mythology to have them go to the norns for the decision of such questions. On the contrary, the norns would have to come to them. Urd and her sisters are beings of high rank, but nevertheless they are of giant descent, like Mimer. The power they have is immense; and on a closer investigation we find how the mythology in more than one way has sought to maintain in the fancy of its believers the independence (at least apparent and well defined, within certain limits) of the gods — an independence united with the high rank which they have. It may have been for this very reason that the youngest of the dises of fate, Skuld, was selected as |
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a valkyrie, and as a maid-servant both of Odin and of her sister Urd. The questions in which the Asas are judges near Urd’s fountain must be such as cannot be settled in Asgard, as the lower world is their proper forum, where both the parties concerned and the witnesses are to be found. The questions are of great importance. This is evident already from the fact that the journey to the thingstead is a troublesome one for the gods, at least for Thor, who, to get thither, must wade across four rivers. Moreover, the questions are of such a character that they occur every day (Grimnersmal, 29, 31). At this point of the investigation the results hitherto gained from the various premises unite themselves in the following manner: The Asas daily go to the thingstead near Urd’s fountain. At the thingstead near Urd’s fountain there daily arrive hosts of the dead. The task of the Asas near Urd’s fountain is to judge in questions of which the lower world is the proper forum. When the dead arrive at Urd’s fountain their final doom is not yet sealed. They have not yet been separated into the groups which are to be divided between Asgard, Hel, and Nifelhel. This question now is, Can we conceive that the daily journey of the Asas to Urd’s fountain and the daily arrival there of the dead have no connection with each other? — That the judgments daily pronounced by the Asas at this thingstead, and that the daily event in accordance with which the dead at this thingstead are divided |
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between the realms of bliss and those of torture have nothing in common? That these mythological facts should have no connection with each other is hard to conceive for anyone who, in doubtful questions, clings to that which is probable rather than to the opposite. The probability becomes a certainty by the following circumstances: Of the kings Vanlandi and Halfdan, Ynglingatal says that after death they met Odin. According to the common view presented in our mythological text-books, this should not have happened to either of them, since both of them died from disease. One of them was visited and fetched by that choking spirit of disease called vitta vœttr, and in this way he was permitted “to meet Odin” (kom a vit Vilja brodur). The other was visited by Hvedrungs mœr, the daughter of Loke, who “called him from this world to Odin’s Thing.”
Thing-bod means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of judgment. Bjoda til things is to perform this legal summons. Here it is Hvedrung’s kinswoman who comes with sickness and death and thing-bod to King Halfdan, and summons him to appear before the judgment-seat of Odin. As, according to mythology, all the dead, and as, according to the mythological text-books, at least all those who have died from disease must go to Hel, then certainly King Halfdan, who died from disease, |
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must descend to the lower world; and as there is a Thing at which Odin and the Asas daily sit in judgment, it must have been this to which Halfdan was summoned. Otherwise we would be obliged to assume that Hvedrung’s kinswoman, Loke’s daughter, is a messenger, not from the lower world and Urd, but from Asgard, although the strophe further on expressly states that she comes to Halfdan on account of “the doom of the norns”; and furthermore we would be obliged to assume that the king, who had died from sickness, after arriving in the lower world, did not present himself at Odin’s court there, but continued his journey to Asgard, to appear at some of the accidental deliberations which are held at the thingstead there. The passage proves that at least those who have died from sickness have to appear at the court which is held by Odin in the lower world. 70. In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) we read:
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“Speech-runes you must know, if you do not wish that the strong one with consuming woe shall requite you for the injury you have caused. All those runes you must wind, weave, and place together in that Thing where the host of people go into the full judgments.” In order to make the significance of this passage clear, it is necessary to explain the meaning of speech-runes or mal-runes. Several kinds of runes are mentioned in Sigrdrifumal, all of a magic and wonderful kind. Among them are mal-runes (speech-runes). They have their name from the fact that they are able to restore to a tongue mute or silenced in death the power to mœla (speak). Odin employs mal-runes when he rists i runom, so that a corpse from the gallows comes and mœlir with him (Havam., 157). According to Saxo (i. 38), Hadding places a piece of wood risted with runes under the tongue of a dead man. The latter then recovers consciousness and the power of speech, and sings a terrible song. This is a reference to mal-runes. In Gudrunarkvida (i.) it is mentioned how Gudrun, mute and almost lifeless (hon gordiz at deyja), sat near Sigurd’s dead body. One of the kinswomen present lifts the napkin off from Sigurd’s head. By the sight of the features of the loved one Gudrun awakens again to life, bursts into tears, and is able to speak. The evil Brynhild then curses the being (vettr) which “gave mal-runes to Gudrun,” that is to say, freed her tongue, until then sealed as in death. Those who are able to apply these mighty runes are very few. Odin boasts that he knows them. Sigurdrifa, |
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who also is skilled in them, is a dis, not a daughter of man. The runes which Hadding applied were risted by Hardgreip, a giantess who protected him. But within the court here in question men come in great numbers (thjódir), and among them there must be but a small number who have penetrated so deeply into the secret knowledge of runes. For those who have done so it is of importance and advantage. For by them they are able to defend themselves against complaints, the purpose of which is “to requite with consuming woe the harm they have done.” In the court they are able to mœla (speak) in their own defence. Thus it follows that those hosts of people who enter this thing-stead stand there with speechless tongues. They are and remain mute before their judges unless they know the mal-runes which are able to loosen the fetters of their tongues. Of the dead man’s tongue it is said in Solarljod (44) that it is til trés metin ok kolnat alt fyr utan. The sorrow or harm one has caused is requited in this Thing by heiptir, unless the accused is able — thanks to the mal-runes — to speak and give reasons in his defence. In Havamál (151) the word heiptir has the meaning of something supernatural and magical. It has a similar meaning here, as Vigfusson has already pointed out. The magical mal-runes, wound, woven, and placed together, form as it were a garb of protection around the defendant against the magic heiptir. In the Havamál strophe mentioned the skald makes Odin paraphrase, or at least partly explain, the word heiptir with mein, which |
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“eat” their victims. It is in the nature of the myth to regard such forces as personal beings. We have already seen the spirits of disease appear in this manner (see No. 60). The heiptir were also personified. They were the Erinnyes of the Teutonic mythology, armed with scourges of thorns (see below). He who at the Thing particularly dispenses the law of requital is called magni. The word has a double meaning, which appears in the verb magna, which means both to make strong and to operate with supernatural means. From all this it must be sufficiently plain that the Thing here referred to is not the Althing in Iceland or the Gulathing in Norway, or any other Thing held on the surface of the earth. The thingstead here discussed must be situated in one of the mythical realms, between which the earth was established. And it must be superhuman beings of higher or lower rank who there occupy the judgment-seats and requite the sins of men with heiptir. But in Asgard men do not enter with their tongues sealed in death. For the einherjes who are invited to the joys of Valhal there are no heiptir prepared. Inasmuch as the mythology gives us information about only two thingsteads where superhuman beings deliberate and judge — namely, the Thing in Asgard and the Thing near Urd’s fountain — and inasmuch as it is, in fact, only in the latter that the gods act as judges, we are driven by all the evidences to the conclusion that Sigrdrifumal has described to us that very thingstead at which Hvedrung’s kinswoman summoned King Halfdan to appear after death. Sigrdrifumal, using the expression á thví, sharply distinguished |
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this thingstead or court from all others. The poem declares that it means that Thing where hosts of people go into full judgments. “Full” are those judgments against which no formal or real protests can be made — decisions which are irrevocably valid. The only kind of judgments of which the mythology speaks in this manner, that is, characterises as judgments that “never die,” are those “over each one dead.” This brings us to the well-known and frequently-quoted strophes in Havamál:
(77) “Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; one thing I know which never dies: the judgment on each one dead.” Hitherto these passages have been interpreted as if Odin or Havamál’s skald meant to say — What you have of earthly possessions is perishable; your kindred and |
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yourself shall die. But I know one thing that never dies: the reputation you acquired among men, the posthumous fame pronounced on your character and on your deeds: that reputation is immortal, that fame is imperishable. But can this have been the meaning intended to be conveyed by the skald? And could these strophes, which, as it seems, were widely known in the heathendom of the North, have been thus understood by their hearers and readers? Did not Havamál’s author, and the many who listened to and treasured in their memories these words of his, know as well as all other persons who have some age and experience, that in the great majority of cases the fame acquired by a person scarcely survives a generation, and passes away together with the very memory of the deceased? Could it have escaped the attention of the Havamál skald and his hearers that the number of mortals is so large and increases so immensely with the lapse of centuries that the capacity of the survivors to remember them is utterly insufficient? Was it not a well-established fact, especially among the Germans, before they got a written literature, that the skaldic art waged, so to speak, a desperate conflict with the power of oblivion, in order to rescue at least the names of the most distinguished heroes and kings, but that nevertheless thousands of chiefs and warriors were after the lapse of a few generations entirely forgotten? Did not Havamál’s author know that millions of men have, in the course of thousands of years, left this world |
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without leaving so deep footprints in the sands of time that they could last even through one generation? Every person of some age and experience has known this, and Havamál’s author too. The lofty strains above quoted do not seem to be written by a person wholly destitute of worldly experience. The assumption that Havamál with that judgment on each one dead, which is said to be imperishable, had reference to the opinion of the survivors in regard to the deceased attains its climax of absurdity when we consider that the poem expressly states that it means the judgment on every dead person — “domr um daudan hvern.” In the cottage lying far, far in the deep forest dies a child, hardly known by others than by its parents, who, too, are soon to be harvested by death. But the judgment of the survivors in regard to this child’s character and deeds is to be imperishable, and the good fame it acquired during its brief life is to live for ever on the lips of posterity! Perhaps it is the sense of the absurdity to which the current assumption leads on this point that has induced some of the translators to conceal the word hvern (every) and led them to translate the words domr um daudan hvern in an arbitrary manner with “judgment on the dead man.” If we now add that the judgment of posterity on one deceased, particularly if he was a person of great influence, very seldom is so unanimous, reliable, well-considered, and free from prejudice that in these respects it ought to be entitled to permanent validity, then we find that the words of the Havamál strophes attributed to Odin’s lips, when interpreted as hitherto, are not words of |
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wisdom, but the most stupid twaddle ever heard declaimed in a solemn manner. There are two reasons for the misunderstanding — the one is formal, and is found in the word ords-tirr (str. 76); the other reason is that Gylfaginning, which too long has had the reputation of being a reliable and exhaustive codification of the scattered statements of the mythic sources, has nothing to say about a court for the dead. It knows that, according to the doctrine of the heathen fathers, good people come to regions of bliss, the wicked to Nifelhel; but who he or they were who determined how far a dead person was worthy of the one fate or the other, on this point Gylfaginning has not a word to say. From the silence of this authority, the conclusion has been drawn that a court summoning the dead within its forum was not to be found in Teutonic mythology, although other Aryan and non-Aryan mythologies have presented such a judgment-seat, and that the Teutonic fancy, though always much occupied with the affairs of the lower world and with the condition of the dead in the various realms of death, never felt the necessity of conceiving for itself clear and concrete ideas of how and through whom the deceased were determined for bliss or misery. The ecclesiastical conception, which postpones the judgment to the last day of time, and permits the souls of the dead to be transferred, without any special act of judgment, to heaven, to purgatory, or to hell, has to some extent contributed to making us familiar with this idea which was foreign to the heathens. From this it followed that scholars have been blind to the passages in our mythical |
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records which speak of a court in the lower world, and they have either read them without sufficient attention (as, for instance, the above-quoted statements of Ynglingatal, which it is impossible to harmonise with the current conception), or interpreted them in an utterly absurd manner (which is the case with Sigrdrifumal, str. 12), or they have interpolated assumptions, which, on a closer inspection, are reduced to nonsense (as is the case with the Havamál strophes), or given them a possible, but improbable, interpretation (thus Sonatorrek, 19). The compound ordstirr is composed of ord, gen ords, and tirr. The composition is of so loose a character that the two parts are not blended into a new word. The sign of the gen. -s is retained, and shows that ordstirr, like lofstirr, is not in its sense and in its origin a compound, but is written as one word, probably on account of the laws of accentuation. The more original meaning of ordstirr is, therefore, to be found in the sense of ords tirr. Tirr means reputation in a good sense, but still not in a sense so decidedly good but that a qualifying word, which makes the good meaning absolute, is sometimes added. Thus in lofs-tirr, laudatory reputation; gódr tirr, good reputation. In the Havamál strophe 76, above-quoted, the possibility of an ords tirr which is not good is presupposed. See the last line of the strophe. So far as the meaning of ord is concerned, we must leave its relatively more modern and grammatical sense (word) entirely out of the question. Its older signification is an utterance (one which may consist of many “words” in a grammatical sense), a command, a result, a |
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judgment; and these older significations have long had a conscious existence in the language. Compare Fornmanna, ii. 237: “The first word: All shall be Christians; the second word: All heathen temples and idols shall be unholy,” &c. In Völuspa (str. 27) ord is employed in the sense of an established law or judgment among the divine powers, a gengoz eidar, ord oc sœri, where the treaties between the Asas and gods, solemnised by oaths, were broken. When ord occurs in purely mythical sources, it is most frequently connected with judgments pronounced in the lower world, and sent from Urd’s fountain to their destination. Urdar ord is Urd’s judgment, which must come to pass (Fjölsvinnsm., str. 48), no matter whether it concerns life or death. Feigdar ord, a judgment determining death, comes to Fjolnir, and is fulfilled “where Frode dwelt” (Yng.-tal, Heimskr., 14). Dauda ord, the judgment of death, awaited Dag the Wise, when he came to Vorvi (Yng.-tal, Heimskr., 21). To a subterranean judgment refers also the expression bana-ord, which frequently occurs. Vigfusson (Dict., 466) points out the possibility of an etymological connection between ord and Urdr. He compares word (ord) and wurdr (urdr), word and weird (fate, goddess of fate). Doubtless there was, in the most ancient time, a mythical idea-association between them. These circumstances are to be remembered in connection with the interpretation of ordstirr, ords-tirr in Havamál, 76. The real meaning of the phrase proves to be: reputation based on a decision, on an utterance of authority. |
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When ordstirr had blended into a compound word, there arose by the side of its literal meaning another, in which the accent fell so heavily on tirr that ord is superfluous and gives no additional meaning of a judgment on which this tirr is based. Already in Höfudlausn (str. 26) ordstirr is used as a compound, meaning simply honourable reputation, honour. There is mention of a victory which Erik Blood-axe won, and it is said that he thereby gained ordstirr (renown). In interpreting Havamál (76) it would therefore seem that we must choose between the proper and figurative sense of ordstirr. The age of the Havamál strophe is not known. If it was from it Eyvind Skaldaspiller drew his deyr fé, deyja frœndr, which he incorporated in his drapa on Hakon the Good, who died in 960, then the Havamál strophe could not be composed later than the middle of the tenth century. Hofudlausn was composed by Egil Skallagrimson in the year 936 or thereabout. From a chronological point of view there is therefore nothing to hinder our applying the less strict sense, “honourable reputation, honour,” to the passage in question. But there are other hindrances. If the Havamál skald with ords-tirr meant “honourable reputation, honour,” he could not, as he has done, have added the condition which he makes in the last line of the strophe: hveim er ser godan getr, for the idea “good” would then already be contained in ordstirr. If in spite of this we would take the less strict sense, we must subtract from ordstirr the meaning of honourable reputation, honour, and conceive the expression to mean simply reputation in general, a meaning which the word never had. |
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We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the meaning of court-decision, judgment, which ord has not only in Ynglingatal and Fjölsvinnsmal, but also in linguistic usage, was clear to the author of the Havamál strophe, and that he applied ords tirr in its original sense and was speaking of imperishable judgments. It should also have been regarded as a matter of course that the judgment which, according to the Havamál strophe (77), is passed on everyone dead, and which itself never dies, must have been prepared by a court whose decision could not be questioned or set aside, and that the judgment must have been one whose influence is eternal, for the infinity of the judgment itself can only depend on the infinity of its operation. That the more or less vague opinions sooner or later committed to oblivion in regard to a deceased person should be supposed to contain such a judgment, and to have been meant by the immortal doom over the dead, I venture to include among the most extraordinary interpretations ever produced. Both the strophes are, as is evident from the first glance, most intimately connected with each other. Both begin: deyr fœ, deyja frœndr. Ord in the one strophe corresponds to dómur in the other. The latter strophe declares that the judgment on every dead person is imperishable, and thus completes the more limited statement of the foregoing strophe, that the judgment which gives a good renown is everlasting. The former strophe speaks of only one category of men who have been subjected to an ever-valid judgment, namely, of that category to whose honour the eternal judgment is pronounced. The second |
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strophe speaks of both the categories, and assures us that the judgment on the one as on the other category is everlasting. The strophes are by the skald attributed to Odin’s lips. Odin pronounces judgment every day near Urd’s fountain at the court to which King Halfdan was summoned, and where hosts of people with fettered tongues await their final destiny (see above). The assurances in regard to the validity of the judgment on everyone dead are thus given by a being who really may be said to know what he talks about (ec veit, &c.), namely, by the judge himself. In the poem Sonatorrek the old Egil Skallagrimson laments the loss of sons and kindred, and his thoughts are occupied with the fate of his children after death. When he speaks of his son Gunnar, who in his tender years was snatched away by a sickness, he says (str. 19):
“A fatal fire of disease (fever?) snatched from this world a son of mine, of whom I know that he, careful as he was in regard to sinful deeds, took care of himself for námœli.” To understand this strophe correctly, we must know that the skald in the preceding 17th, as in the succeeding 20th, strophe, speaks of Gunnar’s fate in the lower world. |
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The word námœli occurs nowhere else, and its meaning is not known. It is of importance to our subject to find it out. In those compounds of which the first part is ná-, ná may be the abverbial prefix, which means near by, by the side of, or it may be the substantive nár, which means a corpse, dead body, and in a mythical sense one damned, one who dies for the second time and comes to Nifelhel (see No. 60). The question is now, to begin with, whether it is the adverbial prefix or the substantive ná- which we have in námœli. Compounds which have the adverbial ná as the first part of the word are very common. In all of them the prefix ná- implies nearness in space or in kinship, or it has the signification of something correct or exact. (1) In regard to space: nábúd, nábúi, nábýli, nágranna, nágranni, nágrennd, nágrenni, nákommin, nákvœma, nákvœmd, nákvœmr, náleid, nálœgd, nálœgjast, nálœgr, námunda, násessi, náseta, násettr, násœti, návera, náverukona, náverandi, návist, návistarkona, návistarmadr, návistarvitni. (2) In regard to friendship: náborinn, náfrœndi, náfrœndkona, námágr, náskyldr, nástœdr, náongr. (3) In regard to correctness, exactness: nákvœmi, nákvœmlega, nákvœmr. The idea of correctness comes from the combination of ná- and kvœmi, kvœmlega, kvœmr. The exact meaning is — that which comes near to, and which in that sense is precise, exact, to the point. These three cases exhaust the meanings of the adverbial |
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prefix ná-. I should consider it perilous, and as the abandoning of solid ground under the feet, if we, without evidence from the language, tried, as has been done, to give it another hitherto unknown signification. But none of these meanings can be applied to námœli. In analogy with the words under (1) it can indeed mean “An oration held near by”; but this signification produces no sense in the above passage, the only place where it is found. In another group of words the prefix ná- is the noun nár. Here belong nábjargir, nábleikr, nágrindur, nágöll, náreid, nástrandir, and other words. Mæli means a declamation, an oration, an utterance, a reading, or the proclamation of a law. Mœla, mœlandi, formœlandi, formœli, nýmœli, are used in legal language. Formœlandi is a defendant in court. Formœli is his speech or plea. Nymœli is a law read or published for the first time. Mœli can take either a substantive or adjective as prefix. Examples: Gudmæli, fullmæli. Ná from nár can be used as a prefix both to a noun and to an adjective. Examples: nágrindr, nábleikr. Námœli should accordingly be an oration, a declaration, a proclamation, in regard to nár. From the context we find that námœli is something dangerous, something to look out for. Gunnar is dead and is gone to the lower world, which contains not only happiness but also terrors; but his aged father, who in another strophe of the poem gives to understand that he had adhered faithfully to the religious doctrines of his fathers, is convinced that his son |
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has avoided the dangers implied in námœli, as he had no sinful deed to blame himself for. In the following strophe (20) he expressed his confidence that the deceased had been adopted by Gauta spjalli, a friend of Odin in the lower world, and had landed in the realm of happiness. (In regard to Gauta spjalli, see further on. The expression is applicable both to Mimer and Honer.) Námœli must, therefore, mean a declaration (1) that is dangerous; (2) which does not affect a person who has lived a blameless life; (3) which refers to the dead and affects those who have not been vamma varir, on the look-out against blameworthy and criminal deeds. The passage furnishes additional evidence that the dead in the lower world make their appearance in order to be judged, and it enriches our knowledge of the mythological eschatology with a technical term (námœli) for that judgment which sends sinners to travel through the Na-gates to Nifelhel. The opposite of námœli is ords tirr, that judgment which gives the dead fair renown, and both kinds of judgments are embraced in the phrase domr um daudan. Námœli is a proclamation for náir, just as nágrindr are gates, and nástrandr are strands for náir. 71. Those hosts which are conducted by their psychopomps |
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to the Thing near Urd’s fountain proceed noiselessly. It is a silent journey. The bridge over Gjöll scarcely resounds under the feet of the death-horses and of the dead (Gylfaginning). The tongues of the shades are sealed (see No. 70). This thingstead has, like all others, had its judgment-seats. Here are seats (in Völuspa called rökstólar) for the holy powers acting as judges. There is also a rostrum (á thularstóli at Urdar brunni — Havam., 111) and benches or chairs for the dead (compare the phrase falla á Helpalla — Fornald., i. 397, and the sitting of the dead one, á nornastóli — Solarlj., 51). Silent they must receive their doom unless they possess mal-runes (see No. 70). The dead should come well clad and ornamented. Warriors bring their weapons of attack and defence. The women and children bring ornaments that they were fond of in life. Hades-pictures of those things which kinsmen and friends placed in the grave-mounds accompany the dead (Hakonarm., 17; Gylfaginning, 52) as evidence to the judge that they enjoyed the devotion and respect of their survivors. The appearance presented by the shades assembled in the Thing indicates to what extent the survivors heed the law, which commands respect for the dead and care for the ashes of the departed. Many die under circumstances which make it impossible for their kinsmen to observe these duties. Then strangers should take the place of kindred. The condition in which these shades come to the Thing shows best whether piety prevails in Midgard; for noble minds take |
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to heart the advices found as follows in Sigrdrifumal, 33, 34: “Render the last service to the corpses you find on the ground, whether from sickness they have died, or are drowned, or are from weapons dead. Make a bath for those who are dead, wash their hands and their head, comb them and wipe them dry, ere in the coffin you lay them, and pray for their happy sleep.” It was, however, not necessary to wipe the blood off from the byrnie of one fallen by the sword. It was not improper for the elect to make their entrance in Valhal in a bloody coat of mail. Eyvind Skaldaspiller makes King Hakon come all stained with blood (allr i dreyra drifinn) into the presence of Odin. When the gods have arrived from Asgard, dismounted from their horses (Gylfag.) and taken their judges’ seats, the proceedings begin, for the dead are then in their places, and we may be sure that their psychopomps have not been slow on their Thing-journey. Somewhere on the way the Hel-shoes must have been tried; those who ride to Valhal must then have been obliged to dismount. The popular tradition first pointed out by Walter Scott and J. Grimm about the need of such shoes for the dead and about a thorn-grown heath, which they have to cross, is not of Christian but of heathen origin. Those who have shown mercy to fellow-men that in this life, in a figurative sense, had to travel thorny paths, do not need to fear torn shoes and bloody feet (W. Scott, Minstrelsy, ii.); and when they are seated on Urd’s benches, their very shoes are, by their condition, a conspicuous proof in the eyes of the court that they who have exercised mercy are worthy of mercy. |
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Müllenhoff, D. Alt., v. 113, 114). These are all mythic traditions, but little corrupted by time and change of religion. That in the lower world itself Hel-shoes were to be had for those who were not supplied with them, but still deserved them, is probably a genuine mythological idea. Proofs and witnesses are necessary before the above-named tribunal, for Odin is far from omniscient. He is not even the one who knows the most among the beings of mythology. Urd and Mimer know more than he. With judges on the one hand who, in spite of all their loftiness, and with all their superhuman keenness, nevertheless are not infallible, and with defendants on the other hand whose tongues refuse to serve them, it might happen, if there were no proofs and witnesses, that a judgment, everlasting in its operations, not founded on exhaustive knowledge and on well-considered premises, might be proclaimed. But the judgment on human souls proclaimed by their final irrevocable fate could not in the sight of the pious and believing bear the stamp of uncertain justice. There must be no doubt that the judicial proceedings in the court of death were so managed that the wisdom and justice of the dicta were raised high above every suspicion of being mistaken. The heathen fancy shrank from the idea of a knowledge able of itself to embrace all, the greatest and the least, that which has been, is doing, and shall be in the world of thoughts, purposes, and deeds. It hesitated at all events to endow its gods made in the image of man with omniscience. It was easier to conceive a divine insight |
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which was secured by a net of messengers and spies stretched throughout the world. Such a net was cast over the human race by Urd, and it is doubtless for this reason that the subterranean Thing of the gods was located near her fountain and not near Mimer’s. Urd has given to every human soul, already before the hour of birth, a maid-servant, a hamingje, a norn of lower rank, to watch over and protect its earthly life. And so there was a wide-spread organisation of watching and protecting spirits, each one of whom knew the motives and deeds of a special individual. As such an organisation was at the service of the court, there was no danger that the judgment over each one dead would not be as just as it was unappealable and everlasting. The hamingje hears of it before anyone else when her mistress has announced dauda ord — the doom of death, against her favourite. She (and the gipte, heille, see No. 64) leaves him then. She is horfin, gone, which can be perceived in dreams (Balder’s Dream, 4) or by revelations in other ways, and this is an unmistakable sign of death. But if the death-doomed person is not a nithing, whom she in sorrow and wrath has left, then she by no means abandons him. They are like members of the same body, which can only be separated by mortal sins (see below). The hamingje goes to the lower world, the home of her nativity (see No. 64), to prepare an abode there for her favourite, which also is to belong to her (Gisle Surson’s saga). It is as if a spiritual marriage was entered into between her and the human soul. But on the dictum of the court of death it depends |
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where the dead person is to find his haven. The judgment, although not pronounced on the hamingje, touches her most closely. When the most important of all questions, that of eternal happiness or unhappiness, is to be determined in regard to her favourite, she must be there, where her duty and inclination bid her be — with him whose guardian-spirit she is. The great question for her is whether she is to continue to share his fate or not. During his earthly life she has always defended him. It is of paramount importance that she should do so now. His lips are sealed, but she is able to speak, and is his other ego. And she is not only a witness friendly to him, but, from the standpoint of the court, she is a more reliable one than he would be himself. In Atlamal (str. 28) there occurs a phrase which has its origin in heathendom, where it has been employed in a clearer and more limited sense than in the Christian poem. The phrase is ec qued aflima ordnar ther disir, and it means, as Atlamal uses it, that he to whom the dises (the hamingje and gipte) have become aflima is destined, in spite of all warnings, to go to his ruin. In its very nature the phrase suggests that there can occur between the hamingje and the human soul another separation than the accidental and transient one which is expressed by saying that the hamingje is horfin. Aflima means “amputated,” separated by a sharp instrument from the body of which one has been a member. The person from whom his dises have been cut off has no longer any close relation with them. He is for ever separated from them, and his fate is no longer theirs. Hence there are |
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persons doomed to die and persons dead who do not have hamingjes by them. They are those whom the hamingjes in sorrow and wrath have abandoned, and with whom they are unable to dwell in the lower world, as they are nithings and are awaited in Nifelhel. The fact that a dead man sat á nornastóli or á Helpalli without having a hamingje to defend him doubtless was regarded by the gods as a conclusive proof that he had been a criminal. If we may judge from a heathen expression preserved in strophe 16 of Atlakvida, and there used in an arbitrary manner, then the hamingjes who were “cut off” from their unworthy favourites continue to feel sorrow and sympathy for them to the last. The expression is nornir gráta nái, “the norns (hamingjes) bewail the náir“. If the námœli, the ná-dictum, the sentence to Nifelhel which turns dead criminals into náir, in the eschatological sense of the word, has been announced, the judgment is attended with tears on the part of the former guardian-spirits of the convicts. This corresponds, at all events, with the character of the hamingjes. Those fallen on the battlefield are not brought to the fountain of Urd while the Thing is in session. This follows from the fact that Odin is in Valhal when they ride across Bifrost, and sends Asas or einherjes to meet them with the goblet of mead at Asgard’s gate (Eiriksm., Hakonarmal). But on the way there has been a separation of the good and bad elements among them. Those who have no hamingjes must, á nornastóli, wait for the next Thing-day and their judgment. The Christian age |
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well remembered that brave warriors who had committed nithing acts did not come to Valhal (see Hakon Jarl’s words in Njála). The heathen records confirm that men slain by the sword who had lived a wicked life were sent to the world of torture (see Harald Harfager’s saga, ch. 27 — the verses about the viking Thorir Wood-beard, who fell in a naval battle with Einar Rognvaldson, and who had been a scourge to the Orkneyings). The high court must have judged very leniently in regard to certain human faults and frailties. Sitting long by and looking diligently into the drinking-horn certainly did not lead to any punishment worth mentioning. The same was the case with fondness for female beauty, if care was taken not to meddle with the sacred ties of matrimony. With a pleasing frankness, and with much humour, the Asa-father has told to the children of men adventures which he himself has had in that line. He warns against too much drinking, but admits without reservation and hypocrisy that he himself once was drunk, nay, very drunk, at Fjalar’s, and what he had to suffer, on account of his uncontrollable longing for Billing’s maid, should be to men a hint not to judge each other too severely in such matters (see Havamál). All the less he will do so as judge. Those who are summoned to the Thing, and against whom there are no other charges, may surely count on a good ords tirr, if they in other respects have conducted themselves in accordance with the wishes of Odin and his associate judges: if they have lived lives free from deceit, honourable, helpful, and without fear of death. This, in connection with respect for the gods, |
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for the temples, for their duties to kindred and to the dead, is the alpha and the omega of the heathen Teutonic moral code, and the sure way to Hel’s regions of bliss and to Valhal. He who has observed these virtues may, as the old skald sings of himself, “glad, with serenity and without discouragement, wait for Hel.”
If the judgment on the dead is lenient in these respects, it is inexorably severe in other matters. Lies uttered to injure others, perjury, murder (secret murder, assassination, not justified as blood-revenge), adultery, the profaning of temples, the opening of grave-mounds, treason, cannot escape their awful punishment. Unutterable terrors await those who are guilty of these sins. Those psychopomps that belong to Nifelhel await the adjournment of the Thing in order to take them to the world of torture, and Urd has chains (Heljar reip — Solarljod, 27; Des Todes Seil — J. Grimm, D. Myth., 805) which make every escape impossible. 72. Before the dead leave the thingstead near Urd’s fountain, something which obliterated the marks of earthly death has happened to those who are judged happy. |
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Pale, cold, mute, and with the marks of the spirits of disease, they left Midgard and started on the Hel-way. They leave the death-Thing full of the warmth of life, with health, with speech, and more robust than they were on earth. The shades have become corporal. When those slain by the sword ride over the Gjoll to Urd’s fountain, scarcely a sound is heard under the hoofs of their horses; when they ride away from the fountain over Bifrost, the bridge resounds under the trampling horses. The sagas of the middle ages have preserved, but at the same time demonised, the memory of how Hel’s inhabitants were endowed with more than human strength (Gretla, 134, and several other passages). The life of bliss presupposes health, but also forgetfulness of the earthly sorrows and cares. The heroic poems and the sagas of the middle ages have known that there was a Hades-potion which brings freedom from sorrow and care, without obliterating dear memories or making one forget that which can be remembered without longing or worrying. In the mythology this drink was, as shall be shown, one that produced at the same time vigour of life and the forgetfulness of sorrows. In Saxo, and in the heroic poems of the Elder Edda, which belong to the Gjukung group of songs, there reappear many mythical details, though they are sometimes taken out of their true connection and put in a light which does not originally belong to them. Among the mythical reminiscences is the Hades-potion. In his account of King Gorm’s and Thorkil’s journey to the lower world, Saxo (see No. 46) makes Thorkil warn |
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his travelling companions from tasting the drinks offered them by the prince of the lower world, for the reason that they produce forgetfulness, and make one desire to remain in Gudmund’s realm (Hist. Dan., i. 424 — amissa memoria . . . pocalis abstinendum edocuit). The Gudrun song (ii. 21) places the drinking-horn of the lower world in Grimhild’s hands. In connection with later additions, the description of this horn and its contents contains purely mythical and very instructive details in regard to the pharmakon nepenthes of the Teutonic lower world.
“On the horn were all kinds of staves engraved and |
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painted, which I could not interpret: the Hadding-land’s long heath-fish, unharvested ears of grain, and animals’ entrances.” The Hadding-land is, as Sv. Egilsson has already pointed out, a paraphrase of the lower world. The paraphrase is based on the mythic account known and mentioned by Saxo in regard to Hadding’s journey in Hel’s realm (see No. 47). Heath-fish is a paraphrase of the usual sort for serpent, dragon. Hence a lower-world dragon was engraved on the horn. More than one of the kind has been mentioned already: Nidhog, who has his abode in Nifelhel, and the dragon, which, according to Erik Vidforle’s saga, obstructs the way to Odain’s-acre. The dragon engraved on the horn is that of the Hadding-land. Hadding-land, on the other hand, does not mean the whole lower world, but the regions of bliss visited by Hadding. Thus the dragon is such an one as Erik Vidforle’s saga had in mind. That the author did not himself invent his dragon, but found it in mythic records extant at the time, is demonstrated by Solarljod (54), where it is said that an immense subterranean dragon comes flying from the west — the opposite direction of that the shades have to take when they descend into the lower world — and obstruct “the street of the prince of splendour” (glœvalds götu). The ruler of splendour is Mimer, the prince of the Glittering Fields (see Nos. 45-51). The Hadding-land’s “unharvested ears of grain” belong to the flora inaccessible to the devastations of frost, the flowers seen by Hadding in the blooming meadows of |
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the world below (see No. 47). The expression refers to the fact that the Hadding-land has not only imperishable flowers and fruits, but also fields of grain which do not require harvesting. Compare herewith what Völuspa says about the Odain’s-acre which in the regeneration of the earth rises from the lap of the sea: “unsown shall the fields yield the grain.” Beside the heath-fish and the unharvested ears of grain, there were also seen on the Hadding-land horn dyra-innleid. Some interpreters assume that “animal entrails” are meant by this expression; others have translated it with “animal gaps.” There is no authority that innleid ever meant entrails, nor could it be so used in a rhetorical-poetical sense, except by a very poor poet. Where we meet with the word it means a way, a way in, in contrast with útleid, a way out. As both Gorm’s saga and that of Erik Vidforle use it in regard to animals watching entrances in the lower world this gives the expression its natural interpretation. So much for the staves risted on the horn. They all refer to the lower world. Now as to the drink which is mixed in this Hades-horn. It consists of three liquids:
Son has already been mentioned above (No. 21) as one of the names of Mimer’s fountain, the well of creative power and of poetry. Of Son Eilif Gudrunson sings that |
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it is enwreathed by bulrushes and is surrounded by a border of meadow on which grows the seed of poetry. As Urd’s strength is a liquid mixed in the horn, nothing else can be meant thereby than the liquid in Urd’s fountain, which gives the warmth of life to the world-tree, and gives it strength to resist the cold (see No. 63). From this it is certain that at least two of the three subterranean fountains made their contributions to the drink. There remains the well Hvergelmer, and the question now is, whether it and the liquid it contains can be recognised as the cool-cold sea. Hvergelmer is, as we know, the mother-fountain of all waters, even of the ocean (see No. 59). That this immense cistern is called a sea is not strange, since also Urd’s fountain is so styled (in Völuspa, 20, Cod. Reg., 19). Hvergelmer is situated under the northern root of the world-tree near the borders of the subterranean realm of the rime-thurses — that is, the powers of frost; and the Elivogar rivers flowing thence formed the ice in Nifelheim. Cool (Svöl) is the name of one of the rivers which have their source in Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal). Cool-cold sea is therefore the most suitable word with which to designate Hvergelmer when its own name is not to be used. All those fountains whose liquids are sucked up by the roots of the world-tree, and in its stem blend into the sap which gives the tree imperishable strength of life, are accordingly mixed in the lower-world horn (cp. No. 21). That Grimhild, a human being dwelling on earth, should have access to and free control of these fountains is, of course, from a mythological standpoint, an absurdity. |
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From the standpoint of the Christian time the absurdity becomes probable. The sacred things and forces of the lower world are then changed into deviltry and arts of magic, which are at the service of witches. So the author of Gudrunarkvida (ii.) has regarded the matter. But in his time there was still extant a tradition, or a heathen song, which spoke of the elements of the drink which gave to the dead who had descended to Hel, and were destined for happiness, a higher and more enduring power of life, and also soothed the longing and sorrow which accompanied the recollection of the life on earth, and this tradition was used in the description of Grimhild’s drink of forgetfulness. Magn is the name of the liquid from Urd’s fountain, since it magnar, gives strength. The word magna has preserved from the days of heathendom the sense of strengthening in a supernatural manner by magical or superhuman means. Vigfusson (Dict., 408) gives a number of examples of this meaning. In Heimskringla (ch. 8) Odin “magns” Mimer’s head, which is chopped off, in such a manner that it recovers the power of speech. In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) Odin himself is, as we have seen, called magni, “the one magning,” as the highest judge of the lower world, who gives magn to the dead from the Hades-horn. The author of the second song about Helge Hundingsbane has known of dyrar veilgar, precious liquids, of which those who have gone to Hel partake. The dead Helge says that when his beloved Sigrun is to share them with him, then it is of no consequence that they have lost |
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earthly joy and kingdoms, and that no one must lament that his breast was tortured with wounds (Helge Hund., ii. 46). The touching finale of this song, though preserved only in fragments, and no doubt borrowed from a heathen source, shows that the power of the subterranean potion to allay longing and sorrow had its limits. The survivors should mourn over departed loved ones with moderation, and not forget that they are to meet again, for too bitter tears of sorrow fall as a cold dew on the breast of the dead one and penetrate it with pain (str. 45). 73. In Sonatorrek (str. 18) the skald (Egil Skallagrimson) conceives himself with the claims of a father to keep his children opposed to a stronger power which has also made a claim on them. This power is firm in its resolutions against Egil (stendr á föstum thokk á hendi mér); but, at the same time, it is lenient toward his children, and bestows on them the lot of happiness. The mythic person who possesses this power is by the skald called Fáns hrosta hilmir, “the lord of Fánn’s brewing.” Fánn is a mythical serpent and dragon-name (Younger Edda, ii. 487, 570). The serpent or dragon which possessed this name in the myths or sagas must have been one which was engraved or painted somewhere. This is |
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evident from the word itself, which is a contraction of fáinn, engraved, painted (cp. Egilsson’s Lex. Poet., and Vigfusson’s Dict., sub voce). Its character as such does not hinder it from being endowed with a magic life (see below). The object on which it was engraved or painted must have been a drinking-horn, whose contents (brewing) is called by Egil Fánn’s either because the serpent encircled the horn which contained the drink, or because the horn, on which it was engraved, was named after it. In no other way can the expression, Fánn’s brewing, be explained, for an artificial serpent or dragon is neither the one who brews the drink nor the malt from which it is brewed. The possessor of the horn, embellished with Fánn’s image, is the mythical person who, to Egil’s vexation, has insisted on the claim of the lower world to his sons. If the skald has paraphrased correctly, that is to say, if he has produced a paraphrase which refers to the character here in question of the person indicated by the paraphrase, then it follows that “Fánn’s brewing” and Fánn himself, like their possessor, must have been in some way connected with the lower world. From the mythic tradition in Gudrunarkvida (ii), we already know that a serpent, “a long heath-fish,” is engraved and painted on the subterranean horn, whose sorrow-allaying mead is composed of the liquids of the three Hades-fountains. When King Gorm (Hist., Dan., 427; cp. No. 46) made his journey of discovery in the lower world, he saw a vast ox-horn (ingens bubali cornu) there. It lay near |
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the gold-clad mead-cisterns, the fountains of the lower world. Its purpose of being filled with their liquids is sufficiently clear from its location. We are also told that it was carved with figures (nec cœlaturœ artificio vacuum), like the subterranean horn in Gudrunarkvida. One of Gorm’s men is anxious to secure the treasure. Then the horn lengthens into a dragon who kills the would-be robber (cornu in draconem extractum sui spiritum latoris eripuit). Like Slidringtanne and other subterranean treasures, the serpent or dragon on the drinking-horn of the lower world is endowed with life when necessary, or the horn itself acquires life in the form of a dragon, and punishes with death him who has no right to touch it. The horn itself is accordingly a Fánn, an artificial serpent or dragon, and its contents is Fánn’s hrosti (Fánn’s brewing). The Icelandic middle-age sagas have handed down the memory of an aurocks-horn (úrarhorn), which was found in the lower world, and was there used to drink from (Fornald., iii. 616). Thus it follows that the hilmir Fán’s hrosta, “the lord of Fán’s brewing,” mentioned by Egil, is the master of the Hades-horn, he who determines to whom it is to be handed, in order that they may imbibe vigour and forgetfulness of sorrow from “Urd’s strength, cool sea, and Son’s liquid.” And thus the meaning of the strophe here discussed (Sonatorrek, 18) is made perfectly clear. Egil’s deceased sons have drunk from this horn, and thus they have been initiated as dwellers for ever in the lower world. Hence the skald can say that Hilmir Fán’s hrosta was |
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inexorably firm against him, their father, who desired to keep his sons with him.* From Völuspa (str. 28, 29), and from Gylfaginning (ch. 15), it appears that the mythology knew of a drinking-horn which belonged at the same time, so to speak, both to Asgard and to the lower world. Odin is its possessor, Mimer its keeper. A compact is made between the Asas dwelling in heaven and the powers dwelling in the lower world, and a security (ved) is given for the keeping of the agreement. On the part of the Asas and their clan patriarch Odin, the security given is a drinking-horn. From this “Valfather’s pledge” Mimer every morning drinks mead from his fountain of wisdom (Völuspa, 29), and from the same horn he waters the root of the world-tree (Völuspa, 28). As Müllenhoff has already pointed out (D. Alterth., v. 100 ff.), this drinking-horn is not to be confounded with Heimdal’s war-trumpet, the Gjallarhorn, though Gylfaginning is also guilty of this mistake. * The interpretation of the passage, which has hitherto prevailed, begins with a text emendation. Fánn is changed to Finn. Finn is the name of a dwarf. Finns hrosti is “the dwarf’s drink,” and “the dwarf’s drink” is, on the authority of the Younger Edda, synonymous with poetry. The possessor of Finns hrosti is Odin, the lord of poetry. With text emendations of this sort (they are numerous, are based on false notions in regard to the adaptability of the Icelandic Christian poetics to the heathen poetry, and usually quote Gylfaginning as authority) we can produce anything we like from the statements of the ancient records. Odin’s character as the lord of poetry has not the faintest idea in common with the contents of the strophe. His character as judge at the court near Urd’s fountain, and as the one who, as the judge of the dead, has authority over the liquor in the subterranean horn, is on the other hand closely connected with the contents of the strophe, and is alone able to make it consistent and intelligible. Further on in the poem, Egil speaks of Odin as the lord of poetry. Odin, he says, has not only been severe against him (in the capacity of hilmir Fáns hrosta), but he has also been kind in bestowing the gift of poetry, and therewith consolation in sorrow (bölva bœtr). The paraphrase here used by Egil for Odin’s name is Mims vinr (Mimer’s friend). From Mimer Odin received the drink of inspiration, and thus the paraphrase is in harmony with the sense. As hilmir Fáns hrosta Odin has wounded Egil’s heart; as Mims vinr (Mimer’s friend) he has given him balsam for the wounds inflicted. This two-sided conception of Odin’s relation to the poet permeates the whole poem. |
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Thus the drinking-horn given to Mimer by Valfather represents a treaty between the powers of heaven and of the lower world. Can it be any other than the Hades-horn, which, at the thingstead near Urd’s fountain, is employed in the service both of the Asa-gods and of the lower world? The Asas determine the happiness or unhappiness of the dead, and consequently decide what persons are to taste the strength-giving mead of the horn. But the horn has its place in the lower world, is kept there — there performs a task of the greatest importance, and gets its liquid from the fountains of the lower world. What Mimer gave Odin in exchange is that drink of wisdom, without which he would not have been able to act as judge in matters concerning eternity, but after receiving the which he was able to find and proclaim the right decisions (ord) (ord mér af ordi ordz leitadi — Hav., 141). Both the things exchanged are, therefore, used at the Thing near Urd’s fountain. The treaty concerned the lower world, and secured to the Asas the power necessary, in connection with their control of mankind and with their claim to be worshipped, to dispense happiness and unhappiness in accordance with the laws of religion and morality. Without this power the Asas would have been of but little significance. Urd and Mimer would have been supreme. With the dyrar veigar (precious liquids), of which the dead Helge speaks, we must compare the skirar veigar (clear liquids), which, according to Vegtamskvida, awaited the dead Balder in the lower world. After tasting of it, the god who had descended to Hades regained |
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his broken strength, and the earth again grew green (see No. 53). In dyrar veigar, skirar veigar, the plural form must not be passed over without notice. The contents of one and the same drink are referred to by the plural veigar —
which can only be explained as referring to a drink prepared by a mixing of several liquids, each one of which is a veig. Originally veigar seems always to have designated a drink of the dead, allaying their sorrows and giving them new life. In Hyndluljod (50) dyrar veigar has the meaning of a potion of bliss which Ottar, beloved by Freyja, is to drink. In strophe 48, Freyja threatens the sorceress Hyndla with a fire, which is to take her hence for ever. In strophe 49, Hyndla answers the threat with a similar and worse one. She says she already sees the conflagration of the world; there shall nearly all beings “suffer the loss of life” (verda flestir fjörlausn thola), Freyja and her Ottar of course included, and their final destiny, according to Hyndla’s wish, is indicated by Freyja’s handing Ottar a pain-foreboding, venomous drink. Hyndla invokes on Freyja and Ottar the flames of Ragnarok and damnation. Freyja answers by including Ottar in the protection of the gods, and foretelling that he is to drink dyrar veigar. Besides in these passages veigar occurs in a strophe composed by Ref Gestson, quoted in Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2. |
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Only half of the strophe is quoted, so that it is impossible to determine definitely the meaning of the veigar referred to by the skald. We only see that they are given by Odin, and that “we” must be grateful to him for them. The half strophe is possibly a part of a death-song which Ref Gestson is known to have composed on his foster-father, Gissur. Veig in the singular means not only drink, but also power, strength. Perhaps Bugge is right in claiming that this was the original meaning of the word. The plural veigar accordingly means strengths. That this expression “strengths” should come to designate in a rational manner a special drink must be explained by the fact that “the strengths” was the current expression for the liquids of which the invigorating mythical drink was composed. The three fountains of the lower world are the strength-givers of the universe, and, as we have already seen, it is the liquids of these wells that are mixed into the wonderful brewing in the subterranean horn. When Eilif Gudrunson, the skald converted to Christianity, makes Christ, who gives the water of eternal life, sit near Urd’s fountain, then this is a Christianised heathen idea, and refers to the power of this fountain’s water to give, through the judge of the world, to the pious a less troublesome life than that on earth. The water which gives warmth to the world-tree and heals its wounds is to be found in the immediate vicinity of the thingstead, and has also served to strengthen and heal the souls of the dead. To judge from Hyndluljod (49), those doomed to |
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unhappiness must also partake of some drink. It is “much mixed with venom (eitri blandinn miok), and forebodes them evil (illu heilli). They must, therefore, be compelled to drink it before they enter the world of misery, and accordingly, no doubt, while they sit á nornastoli on the very thingstead. The Icelandic sagas of the middle ages know the venom drink as a potion of misery. It appears that this potion of unhappiness did not loosen the speechless tongues of the damned. Eitr means the lowest degree of cold and poison at the same time, and would not, therefore, be serviceable for that purpose, since the tongues were made speechless with cold. In Saxo’s descriptions of the regions of misery in the lower world, it is only the torturing demons that speak. The dead are speechless, and suffer their agonies without uttering a sound; but, when the spirits of torture so desire, and force and egg them on, they can produce a howl (mugitus). There broods a sort of muteness over the forecourt of the domain of torture, the Nifelheim inhabited by the frost-giants, according to Skirnersmal’s description thereof (see No. 60). Skirner threatens Gerd that she, among her kindred there, shall be more widely hated than Heimdal himself; but the manner in which they express this hate is with staring eyes, not with words (a thic Hrimnir hari, a thic hotvetna stari — str. 28). 74. When a deceased who has received a good ords tirr |
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leaves the Thing, he is awaited in a home which his hamingje has arranged for her favourite somewhere in “the green worlds of the gods.” But what he first has to do is to leita kynnis, that is, visit kinsmen and friends who have gone before him to their final destination (Sonatorr., 17). Here he finds not only those with whom he became personally acquainted on earth, but he may also visit and converse with ancestors from the beginning of time, and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the history of all past generations, told by persons who were eye-witnesses. The ways he travels are munvegar (Sonatorr., 10), paths of pleasure, where the wonderful regions of Urd’s and Mimer’s realms lie open before his eyes. Those who have died in their tender years are received by a being friendly to children, which Egil Skallagrimson (Sonatorrek, 20) calls Gauta spjalli. The expression means “the one with whom Odin counsels,” “Odin’s friend.” As the same poem (str. 22) calls Odin Mimer’s friend, and as in the next place Gauta spjalli is characterised as a ruler in Godheim (compare grœnar heimar goda — Hakonarmal, 12), he must either be Mimer, who is Odin’s friend and adviser from his youth until his death, or he must be Hænir, who also is styled Odin’s friend, his sessi and máli. That Mimer was regarded as the friend of dead children corresponds with his vocation as the keeper in his grove of immortality, Mimisholt, of the Asa-children, the ásmegir, who are to be the mankind of the regenerated world. But Honer too has an important calling in regard to children (see No. 95), and it must therefore be left undecided which one of the two is here meant. |
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Egil is convinced that his drowned son Bodvar found a harbour in the subterranean regions of bliss.* The land to which Bodvar comes is called by Egil “the home of the bee-ship” (býskips bœr). The poetical figure is taken from the experience of seamen, that birds who have grown tired on their way across the sea alight on ships to recuperate their strength. In Egil’s paraphrase the bee corresponds to the bird, and the honey-blossom where the bee alights corresponds to the ship. The fields of bliss are the haven of the ship laden with honey. The figure may be criticised on the point of poetic logic, but is of a charming kind on the lips of the hardy old viking, and it is at the same time very appropriate in regard to a characteristic quality ascribed to the fields of bliss. For they are the proper home of the honey-dew which falls early in the morning from the world-tree into the dales near Urd’s fountain (Völuspa). Lif and Leifthraser live through ages on this dew (see Nos. 52, 53), and doubtless this same Teutonic ambrosia is the food of the happy dead. The dales of the earth also unquestionably get their share of the honey-dew, which was regarded as the fertilising and nourishing element of the ground. But the earth gets her share directly from Rimfaxe, the steed of the Hades-goddess Nat. This steed, satiated with the grass of the subterranean meadows, produces with his mouth a froth which is honey-dew, and from his bridle the dew drops “in the dales” in the morning (Vafthr., 14). The same is true of the horses of the valkyries coming
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from the lower world. From their manes, when they shake them, falls dew “in deep dales,” and thence come harvests among the peoples (Helge Hjorv., 28). 75. When the na-dictum (the judgment of those who have committed sins unto death) has been proclaimed, they must take their departure for their terrible destination. They cannot take flight. The locks and fetters of the norns (Urdar lokur, Heljar reip) hold them prisoners, and amid the tears of their former hamingjes (nornir gráta nái) they are driven along their path by heiptir, armed with rods of thorns, who without mercy beat their lazy heels. The technical term for these instruments of torture is limar, which seems to have become a word for eschatological punishment in general. In Sigrdrifumal (23) it is said that horrible limar shall fall heavy on those who have broken oaths and promises, or betrayed confidence. In Sigurd Fafnesb. (ii. 3) it is stated that everyone who has lied about another shall long be tortured with limar. Both the expressions troll brutu hris i hœla theim and troll vísi ydr til búrs have their root in the recollection of the myth concerning the march of the damned under the rod of the Eumenides to Nifelhel (see further on this point Nos. 91 and 123). Their way from Urd’s well goes to the north (see No. 63) through Mimer’s domain. It is ordained that before |
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their arrival at the home of torture they are to see the regions of bliss. Thus they know what they have forfeited. Then their course is past Mimer’s fountain, the splendid dwellings of Balder and the ásmegir, the golden hall of Sindre’s race (see Nos. 93, 94), and to those regions where mother Nat rests in a hall built on the southern spur of the Nida mountains (Forspjallsljod). The procession proceeds up this mountain region through valleys and gorges in which the rivers flowing from Hvergelmer find their way to the south. The damned leave Hvergelmer in their rear and cross the border rivers Hraunn (the subterranean Elivagar rivers, see No. 59), on the other side of which rise Nifelhel’s black, perpendicular mountain-walls (Saxo, Hist., Dan.; see No. 46). Ladders or stairways lead across giddying precipices to the Na-gates. Howls and barking from the monstrous Nifelheim dogs watching the gates (see Nos. 46, 58) announce the arrival of the damned. Then hasten, in compact winged flocks, monsters, Nifelheim’s birds of prey, Nidhog, Are, Hrœsvelger, and their like to the south, and alight on the rocks around the Na-gates (see below). When the latter are opened on creaking hinges, the damned have died their second death. To that event, which is called “the second death,” and to what this consists of, I shall return below (see No. 95). Those who have thus marched to a terrible fate are sinners of various classes. Below Nifelheim there are nine regions of punishment. That these correspond to nine kinds of unpardonable sins is in itself probable, and is to some extent confirmed by Solarljod, if this poem, standing |
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almost on the border-line between heathendom and Christianity, may be taken as a witness. Solarljod enumerates nine or ten kinds of punishments for as many different kinds of sins. From the purely heathen records we know that enemies of the gods (Loke), perjurers, murderers, adulterers (see Völuspa), those who have violated faith and the laws, and those who have lied about others, are doomed to Nifelhel for ever, or at least for a very long time (oflengi — Sig. Fafn., ii. 3). Of the unmerciful we know that they have already suffered great agony on their way to Urd’s fountain. Both in reference to them and to others, it doubtless depended on the investigation at the Thing whether they could be ransomed or not. The sacredness of the bond of kinship was strongly emphasised in the eschatological conceptions. Niflgódr, “good for the realm of damnation,” is he who slays kinsmen and sells the dead body of his brother for rings (Sonatorrek, 15); but he who in all respects has conducted himself in a blameless manner toward his kinsmen, and is slow to take revenge if they have wronged him, shall reap advantage therefrom after death (Sigrdr., 22). When the damned come within the Na-gates, the winged demons rush at the victims designated for them, press them under their wings, and fly with them through Nifelheim’s foggy space to the departments of torture appointed for them. The seeress in Völuspa (str. 62) sees Nidhog, loaded with náir under his wings, soar away from the Nida mountains. Whither he was accustomed to fly with them appears from strophe 38, where he in Nastrands is sucking his prey. When King Gorm, beyond |
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the above-mentioned boundary river, and by the Nida mountains’ ladders, had reached the Na-gates opened for him, he sees dismal monsters (larvœ atrœ; cp. Völuspa’s inn dimmi dreki) in dense crowds, and hears the air filled with their horrible screeches (cp. Völuspa’s Ari hlaccar, slitr nai neffaulr, 47). When Solarljod’s skald enters the realm of torture he sees “scorched” birds, which are not birds but souls (sálir), flying “numerous as gnats.” 76. The regions over which the flock of demons fly are the same as those which the author of Skirnersmal has in view when Skirner threatens Gerd with sending her to the realms of death. It is the home of the frost-giants, of the subterranean giants, and of the spirits of disease. Here live the offspring of Ymer’s feet, the primeval giants strangely born and strangely bearing, who are waiting for the quaking of Ygdrasil and for the liberation of their chained leader, in order that they may take revenge on the gods in Ragnarok, and who in the meantime contrive futile plans of attack on Hvergelmer’s fountain or on the north end of the Bifrost bridge. Here the demons of restless uneasiness, of mental agony, of convulsive weeping, and of insanity (Othale, Morn, Ope, and Tope) have their home; and here dwells also their queen, Loke’s daughter, Leikin, whose threshold is precipice and whose bed is disease. According to the authority used by Saxo in the description of Gorm’s journey, the country is |
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thickly populated. Saxo calls it urbs, oppidum (cp. Skirnersmal’s words about the giant-homes, among which Gerd is to drag herself hopeless from house to house). The ground is a marsh with putrid water (putidum cœnum), which diffuses a horrible stench. The river Slid flowing north out of Hvergelmer there seeks its way in a muddy stream to the abyss which leads down to the nine places of punishment. Over all hovers Nifelheim’s dismal sky. The mortals who, like Gorm and his men, have been permitted to see these regions, and who have conceived the idea of descending into those worlds which lie below Nifelheim, have shrunk back when they have reached the abyss in question and have cast a glance down into it. The place is narrow, but there is enough daylight for its bottom to be seen, and the sight thereof is terrible. Still, there must have been a path down to it, for when Gorm and his men had recovered from the first impression, they continued their journey to their destination (Geirrod’s place of punishment), although the most terrible vapour (teterrimus vapor) blew into their faces. The rest that Saxo relates is unfortunately wanting both in sufficient clearness and in completeness. Without the risk of making a mistake, we may, however, consider it as mythically correct that some of the nine worlds of punishment below Nifelheim, or the most of them, are vast mountain caves, mutually united by openings broken through the mountain walls and closed with gates, which do not, however, obstruct the course of Slid to the Nastrands and to the sea outside. Saxo speaks of a perfractam scopuli partem, “a pierced part of the mountain,” through which travellers |
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come from one of the subterranean caves to another, and between the caves stand gatekeepers (janitores). Thus there must be gates. At least two of these “homes” have been named after the most notorious sinner found within them. Saxo speaks of one called the giant Geirrod’s, and an Icelandic document of one called the giant Geitir’s. The technical term for such a cave of torture was guyskuti (clamour-grotto). Saxo translates skúti with conclave saxeum. “To thrust anyone before Geitir’s clamour-grotto” — reka einn fyrir Geitis guyskuta — was a phrase synonymous with damning a person to death and hell. The gates between the clamour-grottos are watched by various kinds of demons. Before each gate stand several who in looks and conduct seem to symbolise the sins over whose perpetrators they keep guard. Outside of one of the caves of torture Gorm’s men saw club-bearers who tried their weapons on one another. Outside of another gate the keepers amused themselves with “a monstrous game” in which they “mutually gave their ram-backs a curved motion.” It is to be presumed that some sort of perpetrators of violence were tortured within the threshold, which was guarded by the club-bearers, and that the ram-shaped demons amused themselves outside of the torture-cave of debauchees. It is also probable that the latter is identical with the one called Geitir’s. The name Geitir comes from geit, goat. Saxo, who Latinised Geitir into Götharus, tells adventures of his which show that this giant had tried to get possession of Freyja, and that he is identical with Gymer, Gerd’s father. According to |
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Skirnersmal (35), there are found in Nifelhel goats, that is to say, trolls in goat-guise, probably of the same kind as those above-mentioned, and it may be with an allusion to the fate which awaits Gymer in the lower world, or with a reference to his epithet Geitir, that Skirner threatens Gerd with the disgusting drink (geita hland) which will there be given her by “the sons of misery” (vélmegir). One of the lower-world demons, who, as his name indicates, was closely connected with Geitir, is called “Geitir’s Howl-foot” (Geitis Guýfeti); and the expression “to thrust anyone before Geitir’s Howl-foot” thus has the same meaning as to send him to damnation. Continuing their journey, Gorm and his men came to Geirrod’s skúti (see No. 46). We learn from Saxo’s description that in the worlds of torture there are seen not only terrors, but also delusions which tempt the eyes of the greedy. Gorm’s prudent captain Thorkil (see No. 46) earnestly warns his companions not to touch these things, for hands that come in contact with them are fastened and are held as by invisible bonds. The illusions are characterised by Saxo as œdis supellectilis, an expression which is ambiguous, but may be an allusion that they represented things pertaining to temples. The statement deserves to be compared with Solarljod’s strophe 65, where the skald sees in the lower world persons damned, whose hands are riveted together with burning stones. They are the mockers at religious rites (they who minst vildu halda helga daga) who are thus punished. In the mythology it was probably profaners of temples who suffered this punishment. |
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The Nastrands and the hall there are thus described in Völuspa:
“A hall she saw standing far from the sun on the Nastrands; the doors opened to the north. Venom-drops fell through the roof-holes. Braided is that hall of serpent-backs.” “There she saw perjurers, murderers, and they who seduce the wife of another (adulterers) wade through heavy streams. There Nidhog sucked the náir of the dead. And the wolf tore men into pieces.” Gylfaginning (ch. 52) assumes that the serpents, whose backs, wattled together, form the hall, turn their heads into the hall, and that they, especially through the openings in the roof (according to Codex Ups. and Codex Hypnones.), vomit forth their floods of venom. The |
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latter assumption is well founded. Doubtful seems, on the other hand, Gylfaginning’s assumption that “the heavy streams,” which the damned in Nastrands have to wade through, flow out over the floor of the hall. As the very name Nastrands indicates that the hall is situated near a water, then this water, whether it be the river Slidr with its eddies filled with weapons or some other river, may send breakers on shore and thus produce the heavy streams which Völuspa mentions. Nevertheless Gylfaginning’s view may be correct. The hall of Nastrands, like its counterpart Valhal, has certainly been regarded as immensely large. The serpent-venom raining down must have fallen on the floor of the hall, and there is nothing to hinder the venom-rain from being thought sufficiently abundant to form “heavy streams” thereon (see below). Saxo’s description of the hall in Nastrands — by him adapted to the realm of torture in general — is as follows: “The doors are covered with the soot of ages; the walls are bespattered with filth; the roof is closely covered with barbs; the floor is strewn with serpents and bespawled with all kinds of uncleanliness.” The last statement confirms Gylfaginning’s view. As this bespawling continues without ceasing through ages, the matter thus produced must grow into abundance and have an outlet. Remarkable is also Saxo’s statement, that the doors are covered with the soot of ages. Thus fires must be kindled near these doors. Of this more later. |
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Without allowing myself to propose any change of text in the Völuspa strophes above quoted, and in pursuance of the principle which I have adopted in this work, not to base any conclusions on so-called text-emendations, which invariably are text-debasings, I have applied these strophes as they are found in the texts we have. Like Müllenhoff (D. Alterth., v. 121) and other scholars, I am, however, convinced that the strophe which begins sá hon thar vada, &c., has been corrupted. Several reasons, which I shall present elsewhere in a special treatise on Völuspa, make this probable; but simply the circumstance that the strophe has ten lines is sufficient to awaken suspicions in anyone’s mind who holds the view that Völuspa originally consisted of exclusively eight-lined strophes — a view which cannot seriously be doubted. As we now have the poem, it consists of forty-seven strophes of eight lines each, one of four lines, two of six lines each, five of ten lines each, four of twelve lines each, and two of fourteen lines each — in all fourteen not eight-lined strophes against forty-seven eight-lined ones; and, while all the eight-lined ones are intrinsically and logically well constructed, it may be said of the others that have more than eight lines each, partly that we can cancel the superfluous lines without injury to the sense, and partly that they look like loosely-joined conglomerations of scattered fragments of strophes and of interpolations. The most recent effort |
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to restore perfectly the poem to its eight-lined strophes has been made by Müllenhoff (D. Alterth., v.); and although this effort may need revision in some special points, it has upon the whole given the poem a clearness, a logical sequence and symmetry, which of themselves make it evident that Müllenhoff’s premises are correct. In the treatise on Völuspa which I shall publish later, this subject will be thoroughly discussed. Here I may be permitted to say, that in my own efforts to restore Völuspa to eight-lined strophes, I came to a point where I had got the most of the materials arranged on this principle, but there remained the following fragment:
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this poem. The dwarf-list is a colossal interpolation of this kind. If we hypothetically omit this line for the present, and also the one immediately preceding (söxum ok sverdum), then there remains as many lines as are required in a regular eight-line strophe. It is further to be remarked that among all the eight-lined Völuspa strophes there is not one so badly constructed that a verb in the first half-strophe has a direct object in the first line of the second half-strophe, as is the case in that of the present text:
and, upon the whole, such a construction can hardly ever have occurred in a tolerably passable poem. If these eight lines actually belonged to one and the same strophe, the latter would have to be restored according to the following scheme:
and in one of the dotted lines the verb must have been found which governed the accusative object thann. |
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The lines which should take the place of the dots have, in their present form, the following appearance:
The verb which governed thann must then be áfellr, that is to say, the verb fellr united with the preposition á. But in that case á is not the substantive á, a river, a running water, and thus the river which falls from the east around venom dales has its source in an error. Thus we have, under this supposition, found that there is something that fellr á, falls on, streams down upon, him who seduces the wife of another. This something must be expressed by a substantive, which is now concealed behind the adverb austan, and must have resembled it sufficiently in sound to be transformed into it. Such a substantive, and the only one of the kind, is austr. This means something that can falla á, stream down upon; for austr is bail-water (from ausa, to bail), waste-water, water flowing out of a gutter or shoot. A test as to whether there originally stood austr or not is to be found in the following substantive, which now has the appearance of eitrdala. For if there was written austr, then there must, in the original text, have followed a substantive (1) which explained the kind of waste-water meant, (2) which had sufficient resemblance to eitrdala to become corrupted into it. The sea-faring Norseman distinguished between two kinds of austr: byttu-austr and dœlu-austr. The bail-water in a ship could be removed either by bailing it out |
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with scoops directly over the railing, or it could be scooped into a dœla, a shoot or trough laid over the railing. The latter was the more convenient method. The difference between these two kinds of austr became a popular phrase; compare the expression thá var byttu-austr, eigi dœlu-austr. The word dœla was also used figuratively; compare láta dœluna ganga, to let the shoots (troughs) run (Gretla, 98), a proverb by which men in animated conversation are likened unto dœlur, troughs, which are opened for flowing conversation. Under such circumstances we might here expect after the word austr the word dœla, and, as venom here is in question, eitr-dœla. Eitr-dœla satisfies both the demands above made. It explains what sort of waste-water is meant, and it resembles eitr-dala sufficiently to be corrupted into it. Thus we get á fellr austr eitrdœla: “On (him who seduces another man’s wife) falls the waste-water of the venom-troughs.” Which these venom-troughs are, the strophe in its entirety ought to define. This constitutes the second test of the correctness of the reading. It must be admitted that if á fellr austr eitrdœla is the original reading, then a corruption into á fellr austan eitrdala had almost of necessity to follow, since the preposition á was taken to be the substantive á, a river, a running stream. How near at hand such a confounding of these words lies is demonstrated by another Völuspa strophe, where the preposition á in á ser hon ausaz aurgom forsi was long interpreted as the substantive á. We shall now see whether the expression á fellr austr |
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eitrdœla makes sense, when it is introduced in lieu of the dotted lines above:
“There saw she heavy streams (of venom) flow upon (or through) perjurers and murderers. The waste-water of the venom-troughs (that is, the waste-water of the perjurers and murderers after the venom-streams had rushed over them) falls upon him who seduces the wife of another man.” Thus we get not only a connected idea, but a very remarkable and instructive passage. The verb vada is not used only about persons who wade through a water. The water itself is also able to vada (cp. eisandi udr vedr undan — Rafns S. Sveinb.), to say nothing of arrows that wade i fólk (Havam., 150), and of banners which wade in the throng of warriors. Here the venom wades through the crowds of perjurers and murderers. The verb vada has so often been used in this sense, that it has also acquired the meaning of rushing, running, rushing through. Heavy venom-streams run through the perjurers and murderers before they fall on the adulterers. The former are the venom-troughs, which pour their waste-water upon the latter. We now return to Saxo’s description of the hall of |
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Nastrands, to see whether the Völuspa strophe thus hypothetically restored corresponds with, or is contradicted by, it. Disagreeable as the pictures are which we meet with in this comparison, we are nevertheless compelled to take them into consideration. Saxo says that the wall of the hall is bespattered with liquid filth (paries obductus illuvie). The Latin word, and the one used by Saxo for venom, is venenum, not illuvies, which means filth that has been poured or bespattered on something. Hence Saxo does not mean venom-streams of the kind which, according to Völuspa, are vomited by the serpents down through the roof-openings, but the reference is to something else, which still must have an upper source, since it is bespattered on the wall of the hall. Saxo further says that the floor is bespawled with all sorts of impurity: pavimentum omni sordium genere respersum. The expression confirms the idea, that unmixed venom is not meant here, but everything else of the most disgusting kind. Furthermore, Saxo relates that groups of damned are found there within, which groups he calls consessus. Consessus means “a sitting together,” and, in a secondary sense, persons sitting together. The word “sit” may here be taken in a more or less literal sense. Consessor, “the one who sits together with,” might be applied to every participator in a Roman dinner, though the Romans did not actually sit, but reclined at the table. As stated, several such consessus, persons sitting or lying together, are found in the hall. The benches upon |
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which they sit or lie are of iron. Every consessus has a locus in the hall; and as both these terms, consessus and locus, in Saxo united in the expression consessuum loca, together mean rows of benches in a theatre or in a public place, where the seats rise in rows one above the other, we must assume that these rows of the damned sitting or lying together are found in different elevations between the floor and ceiling. This assumption is corroborated by what Saxo tells, viz., that their loca are separated by leaden hurdles (plumbeœ crates). That they are separated by hurdles must have some practical reason, and this can be none other than that something flowing down may have an unobstructed passage from one consessus to the other. That which flows down finally reaches the floor, and is then omne sordium genus, all kinds of impurity. It must finally be added that, according to Saxo, the stench in this room of torture is well-nigh intolerable (super omnia perpetui fætoris asperitas tristes lacessebat olfactus). Who is not able to see that Völuspa’s and Saxo’s descriptions of the hall in Nastrands confirm, explain, and complement each other? From Völuspa’s words, we conclude that the venom-streams come from the openings in the roof, not from the walls. The wall consists, in its entirety, of the backs of serpents wattled together (sá er undinn salr orma hryggjom). The heads belonging to these serpents are above the roof, and vomit their venom down through the roof-openings — “the ljors” (fellu eitrdropar inn um ljóra). Below these, and between them and the floor, there are, as we have seen in Saxo, |
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rows of iron seats, the one row below the other, all furnished with leaden hurdles, and on the iron seats sit or lie perjurers and murderers, forced to drink the venom raining down in “heavy streams.” Every such row of sinners becomes “a trough of venom” for the row immediately below it, until the disgusting liquid thus produced falls on those who have seduced the dearest and most confidential friends of others. These seducers either constitute the lowest row of the seated delinquents, or they wade on the floor in that filth and venom which there flows. Over the hall broods eternal night (it is sólu fjarri). What there is of light, illuminating the terrors, comes from fires (see below) kindled at the doors which open to the north (nordr horfa dyrr). The smoke from the fires comes into the hall and covers the door-posts with the “soot of ages” (postes longœva fuligine illitœ). With this must be compared what Tacitus relates concerning the views and customs of the Germans in regard to crime and punishment. He says: “The nature of the crime determines the punishment. Traitors and deserters they hang on trees. Cowards and those given to disgraceful debauchery they smother in filthy pools and marshes, casting a hurdle (crates) over them. The dissimilarity in these punishments indicates a belief that crime should be punished in such a way that the penalty is visible, while scandalous conduct should be punished in such a way that the debauchee is removed from the light of day” (Germania, xii.). This passage in Germania is a commentary on Saxo’s descriptions, and on the Völuspa strophe in the form resulting |
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from my investigation. What might naturally seem probable is corroborated by Germania’s words: that the same view of justice and morality, which obtained in the camp of the Germans, found its expression, but in gigantic exaggeration, in their doctrines concerning eschatological rewards and punishments. It should, perhaps, also be remarked that a similar particularism prevailed through centuries. The hurdle (crates) which Saxo mentions as being placed over the venom and filth-drinking criminals in the hall of Nastrands has its earthly counterpart in the hurdle (also called crates), which, according to the custom of the age of Tacitus, was thrown over victims smothered in the cesspools and marshes (ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames cœno ac palude injecta insuper crate mergunt). Those who were sentenced to this death were, according to Tacitus, cowards and debauchees. Among those who received a similar punishment in the Teutonic Gehenna were partly those who in a secret manner had committed murder and tried to conceal their crime (such were called mordvorgr), partly debauchees who had violated the sacredness of matrimony. The descriptions in the Völuspa strophe and in Saxo show that also in the hall of the Nastrands the punishment is in accordance with the nature of the crime. All are punished terribly; but there is a distinction between those who had to drink the serpent venom unmixed and those who receive the mixed potion, and finally those who get the awful liquid over themselves and doubtless within themselves. In closing this chapter I will quote a number of Völuspa |
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strophes, which refer to Teutonic eschatology. In parallel columns I print the strophes as they appear in Codex Regius, and in the form they have assumed as the result of an investigation of which I shall give a full account in the future. I trust it will be found that the restoration of á fellr austan um eitrdala into á fellr austr eitrdœla, and the introducing of these words before thanns annars glepr eyrarúna not only restores to the strophe in which these words occur a regular structure and a sense which is corroborated by Saxo’s eschatological sources and by the Germania of Tacitus, but also supplies the basis and conditions on which other strophes may get a regular structure and intelligible contents.
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