Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

33. Then Jima made the
enclosure.

39. Which are those lights,
thou just Ahuramazda, which
give light in the enclosures
made by Jima?

40. Ahuramazda answered:
Once (a year) the stars and
moon and the sun are there
seen to rise and set.

41. And they (who dwell within
Jima's enclosures) think that
one year is one day. Every
fortieth year two persons are
born by two persons. These
persons enjoy the greatest
bliss in the enclosures made
by Jima.

42. Just creator! Who
preached the pure faith in
the enclosures which Jima
made? Ahuramazda answered:
The bird Karshipta.

Jima's garden has accordingly been formed in connection with a terrible winter, which, in the first period of time, visited the earth, and it was planned to preserve that which is noblest and fairest and most useful within the kingdoms of organic beings. That the garden is situated in the lower world is not expressly stated in the above-quoted passages from Vendidad; though this seems to be presupposed by what is stated; for the stars, sun, and moon do not show themselves in Jima's garden excepting after long, defined intervals--_at their rising and setting_; and as the surface of the earth is devastated by the unparalleled frost, and as the valleys are no more protected therefrom than the mountains, we cannot without grave doubts conceive the garden as situated in the upper world. That it is subterranean is, however, expressly stated in _Bundehesh_, ch. 30, 10, where it is located under the mountain Damkan; and that it, in the oldest period of the myth, was looked upon as subterranean follows from the fact that the Jima of the ancient Iranian records is identical with Rigveda's Jama, whose domain and the scene of whose activities is the lower world, the kingdom of death.

As Jima's enclosed garden was established on account of the fimbul-winter, which occurred in time's morning, it continues to exist after the close of the winter, and preserves through all the historical ages those treasures of uncorrupted men, animals, and plants which in the beginning of time were collected there. The purpose of this is mentioned in Minokhird, a sort of catechism of the legends and morals of the Avesta religion. There it is said that after the conflagration of the world, and in the beginning of the regeneration, the garden which Jima made shall open its gate, and thence men, animals and plants shall once more fill the devastated earth.

The lower world, where Jima, according to the ancient Iranian records, founded this remarkable citadel, is, according to Rigveda, Jama's kingdom, and also the kingdom of death, of which Jama is king (Rigv., x. 16, 9; cp. i. 35, 6, and other passages). It is a glorious country, with inexhaustible fountains, and there is the home of the imperishable light (Rigv., ix. 7, 8,; ix. 113, 8). Jama dwells under a tree "with broad leaves." There he gathers around the goblet of mead the fathers of antiquity, and there he drinks with the gods (Rigv., x. 135, 1).

Roth, and after him Abel Bergaigne (Religion Ved., i. 88 ff.), regard Jama and Manu, mentioned in Rigveda, as identical. There are strong reasons, for the assumption, so far as certain passages of Rigveda are concerned; while other passages, particularly those which mention Manu by the side of Bhriga, refer to an ancient patriarch of human descent. If the derivation of the word _Mimer_, _Mimi_, pointed out by several linguists, last by Müllenhoff (_Deutsche Alt._, vol. v. 105, 106), is correct, then it is originally the same name as _Manu_, and like it is to be referred to the idea of thinking, remembering.

What the Aryan-Asiatic myth here given has in common with the Teutonic one concerning the subterranean persons in Mimer's grove can be summarised in the following words:

The lower world has a ruler, who does not belong to the group of immortal celestial beings, but enjoys the most friendly relations with the godhead, and is the possessor of great wisdom. In his kingdom flow inexhaustible fountains, and a tree grown out of its soil spreads its foliage over his dwelling, where he serves the mead of inspiration, which the gods are fond of and which he was the first to prepare. A terrible winter threatened to destroy everything on the surface of the earth. Then the ruler of the lower world built on his domain a well-fortified citadel, within which neither destructive storms, nor physical ills, nor moral evil, nor sickness, nor aging, nor death can come. Thither he transferred the best and fairest human beings to be found on earth, and decorated the enclosed garden with the most beautiful and useful trees and plants. The purpose of this garden is not simply to protect the beings collected there during the great winter; they are to remain there through all historical ages. When these come to an end, there comes a great conflagration and then a regeneration of the world. The renewed earth is to be filled with the beings who have been protected by the subterranean citadel. The people who live there have an instructor in the pure worship of the gods and in the precepts of morality, and in accordance with these precepts they are to live for ever a just and happy life.

It should be added that the two beings whom the Iranian ruler of the lower world is said to have honoured are found or have equivalents in the Teutonic mythology. Both are there put in theogonic connection with Mimer. The one is the celestial lord of the wind, Vayush, Rigveda's Vâyu-Vâta. Vâta is thought to be the same name as Wodan, Odinn (Zimmer, Haupt's Zeitschr., 1875; cp. Mannhardt and Kaegi). At all events, Vâta's tasks are the same as Odin's. The other is the primeval cow, whose Norse name or epithet, _Audhumla_ is preserved in Gylfag., 6. Andhunla liberates from the frost-stones in Chaos Bure, the progenitor of the Asa race, and his son Bor is married to Mimer's sister Bestla, and with her becomes the father of Odin (Havam., 140; Gylfag., 6).

[7] The outlines of the contents are given here from the interpretation found in Haug-West's _Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis_ (London, 1878).

55.

THE PURPOSE OF MIMER'S GROVE IN THE REGENERATION OF THE WORLD.

We now know the purpose of _Odainsakr_, Mimer's land and Mimer's grove in the world-plan of our mythology. We know who the inhabitants of the grove are, and why they, though dwellers in the lower world, must be _living persons_, who did not come there through the _gate of death_. They must be living persons of flesh and blood, since the human race of the regenerated earth must be the same.

Still the purpose of Mimer's land is not limited to being, through this epoch of the world, a protection for the fathers of the future world against moral and physical corruption, and a seminary where Balder educates them in virtue and piety. The grove protects, as we have seen, the _ásmegir_ during _Ragnarok_, whose flames do not penetrate thither. Thus the grove, and the land in which it is situated, exist after the flames of Ragnarok are extinguished. Was it thought that the grove after the regeneration was to continue in the lower world and there stand uninhabited, abandoned, desolate, and without a purpose in the future existence of gods, men and things?

The last moments of the existence of the crust of the old earth are described as a chaotic condition in which all elements are confused with each other. The sea rises, overflows the earth sinking beneath its billows, and the crests of its waves aspire to heaven itself (cp. Völusp., 54, 2--_Sigr fold i mar_, with Hyndlulj., 42, 1-3--_Haf gengr hridum vid himinn sialfann, lidr lond yfir_). The atmosphere, usurped by the sea, disappears, as it were (_loft bilar_--Hyndlulj., 42, 4). Its snow and winds (Hyndlulj., 42, 5-6) are blended with water and fire, and form with them heated vapours, which "play" against the vault of heaven (Völusp., 54, 7-8). One of the reasons why the fancy has made all the forces and elements of nature thus contend and blend was doubtless to furnish a sufficiently good cause for the dissolution and disappearance of the burnt crust of the earth. At all events, the earth is gone when the rage of the elements is subdued, and thus it is no impediment to the act of regeneration which takes its beginning beneath the waves.

This act of regeneration consists in the rising from the depths of the sea a new earth, which on its very rising possesses living beings and is clothed in green. The fact that it, while yet below the sea, could be a home for beings which need air in order to breathe and exist, is not necessarily to be regarded as a miracle in mythology. Our ancestors only needed to have seen an air-bubble rise to the surface of the water in order to draw the conclusion that air can be found under the water without mixing with it, but with the power of pushing water away while it rises to the surface. The earth rising from the sea has, like the old earth, the necessary atmosphere around it. Under all circumstances, the seeress in Völuspa sees after Ragnarok--

upp koma
audro sinni
iord or ægi
ithia græna (str. 56).

The earth risen from the deep has mountains and cascades, which, from their fountains in the fells, hasten to the sea. The waterfalls contain fishes, and above them soars the eagle seeking its prey (Völusp., 56, 5-8). The eagle cannot be a survivor of the beings of the old earth. It cannot have endured in an atmosphere full of fire and steam, nor is there any reason why the mythology should spare the eagle among all the creatures of the old earth. It is, therefore, of the same origin as the mountains, the cascades, and the imperishable vegetation which suddenly came to the surface.

The earth risen from the sea also contains human beings, namely, Lif and Leifthraser, and their offspring. Mythology did not need to have recourse to any hocus-pocus to get them there. The earth risen from the sea had been the lower world before it came out of the deep, and a paradise-region in the lower world had for centuries been the abode of Lif and Leifthraser. It is more than unnecessary to imagine that the lower world with this Paradise was duplicated by another with a similar Paradise, and that the living creatures on the former were by some magic manipulation transferred to the latter. Mythology has its miracles, but it also has its logic. As its object is to be trusted, it tries to be as probable and consistent with its premises as possible. It resorts to miracles and magic only when it is necessary, not otherwise.

Among the mountains which rise on the new earth are found those which are called _Nida fjöll_ (Völusp., 62), Nide's mountains. The very name Nide suggests the lower world. It means the "lower one." Among the abodes of Hades, mentioned in Völuspa, there is also a hall of gold on Nide's plains (_a Nitha vollum_--str. 36), and from _Solarljod_ (str. 56) we learn--a statement confirmed by much older records--that Nide is identical with Mimer (see No. 87). Thus, Nide's mountains are situated on Mimer's fields. Völuspa's seeress discovers on the rejuvenated earth Nidhog, the corpse-eating demon of the lower world, flying, with dead bodies under his wings, away from the rocks, where he from time immemorial had had his abode, and from which he carried his prey to Nastrands (Völusp., 39). There are no more dead bodies to be had for him, and his task is done. Whether the last line of Völuspa has reference to Nidhog or not, when it speaks of some one "who must sink," cannot be determined. Müllenhoff (_Deutsche Alt._) assumes this to be the case, and he is probably right; but as the text has _hon_ (she) not _han_ (he) [_nu mun hon seyquas_], and as I, in this work, do not base anything even on the most probable text emendation, this question is set aside, and the more so, since Völuspa's description of the regenerated earth under all circumstances shows that Nidhog has naught there to do but to fly thence and disappear. The existence of Nide's mountains on the new earth confirms the fact that it is identical with Mimer's former lower world, and that Lif and Leifthraser did not need to move from one world to another in order to get to the daylight of their final destination.

Völuspa gives one more proof of this.

In their youth, free from care, the Asas played with strange tablets. But they had the tablets only _i arladaga_, in the earliest time (Völusp., 8, 58). Afterwards, they must in some way or other have lost them. The Icelandic sagas of the middle ages have remembered this game of tablets, and there we learn, partly that its strange character consisted in the fact that it could itself take part in the game and move the pieces, and partly that it was preserved in the lower world, and that Gudmund-Mimer was in the habit of playing with tablets (Fornalder Sagas, i. 443; iii. 391-392; iii. 626, &c. In the last passages the game is mentioned in connection with the other subterranean treasure, the horn.) If, now, the mythology had no special reason for bringing the tablets from the lower world before Ragnarok, then they naturally should be found on the risen earth if the latter was Mimer's domain before. Völuspa (str. 58) also relates that they were found in its grass:

Thar muno eptir
undrsamligar
gullnar tavlor
i grasi finaz.

"There were the wonderful tablets found left in the grass (_finaz eptir_)."

Thus, the tablet-game was refound in the grass, in the meadows of the renewed earth, having from the earliest time been preserved in Mimer's realm. Lif and Leifthraser are found after Ragnarok on the earth of the regenerated world, having had their abode there for a long time in Mimer's domain. Nide's mountains, and Nidhog with them, have been raised out of the sea, together with the rejuvenated earth, since these mountains are located in Mimer's realm. The earth of the new era--the era of virtue and bliss--has, though concealed, existed through thousands of years below the sin-stained earth, as the kernel within the shell.

_Remark_--Völuspa (str. 56) calls the earth rising from the sea _idjagræna_:

Ser hon upp koma
audro sinni
iord or ægi
ithia græna.

The common interpretation is _ithia græna_, "the ever green" or "very green," and this harmonises well with the idea preserved in the sagas mentioned above, where it was stated that the winter was not able to devastate Gudmund-Mimer's domain. Thus the idea contained in the expression _Haddingjalands oskurna ax_ (see Nos. 72, 73) recurs in Völuspa's statement that the fields unsown yield harvests in the new earth. Meanwhile the composition _idja-græna_ has a perfectly abnormal appearance, and awakens suspicion. Müllenhoff (_Deutsche Alt._) reads _idja_, _græna_, and translates "the fresh, the green." As a conjecture, and without basing anything on the assumption; I may be permitted to present the possibility that _idja_ is an old genitive plural of _ida_, an eddying body of water. _Ida_ has originally had a _j_ in the stem (it is related to _id_ and _idi_), and this _j_ must also have been heard in the inflections. From various metaphors in the old skalds we learn that they conceived the fountains of the lower world as roaring and in commotion (e.g., _Odreris alda thytr_ in Einar Skalaglam and _Bodnar bára ter vaxa_ in the same skald). If the conjecture is as correct as it seems probable, then the new earth is characterised as "the green earth of the eddying fountains," and the fountains are those famous three which water the roots of the world-tree.

56.

THE COSMOGRAPHY. CRITICISM ON GYLFAGINNING'S COSMOGRAPHY.

In regard to the position of Ygdrasil and its roots in the universe, there are statements both in Gylfaginning and in the ancient heathen records. To get a clear idea, freed from conjectures and based in all respects on evidence, of how the mythology conceived the world-tree and its roots, is of interest not only in regard to the cosmography of the mythology, to which Ygdrasil supplies the trunk and the main outlines, but especially in regard to the mythic conception of the lower world and the whole eschatology; for it appears that each one of the Ygdrasil roots stands not alone above its particular fountain in the lower world but also over its peculiar lower-world domain, which again has its peculiar cosmological character and its peculiar eschatological end.

The first condition, however, for a fruitful investigation is that we consider the heathen or heathen-appearing records by themselves without mixing their statements with those of Gylfaginning. We must bear in mind that the author of Gylfaginning lived and wrote in the 13th century, more than 200 years after the introduction of Christianity in Iceland, and that his statements accordingly are to be made a link in that chain of documents which exist for the scholar, who tries to follow the fate of the myths during a Christian period and to study their gradual corruption and confusion.

This caution is the more important for the reason that an examination of Gylfaginning very soon shows that the whole cosmographical and eschatological structure which it has built out of fragmentary mythic traditions is based on a conception wholly foreign to Teutonic mythology, that is, on the conception framed by the scholars in Frankish cloisters, and then handed down from chronicle to chronicle, that the Teutons were descended from the Trojans, and that their gods were originally Trojan chiefs and magicians. This "learned" conception found its way to the North and finally developed its most luxurious and abundant blossoms in the Younger Edda preface and in certain other parts of that work.

Permit me to present in brief a sketch of how the cosmography and eschatology of Gylfaginning developed themselves out of this assumption:--The Asas were originally men, and dwelt in the Troy which was situated on the centre of the earth, and which was identical with Asgard (_thar næst gerdu their ser borg i midjum heimi, er kallat er Asgardr; that köllum ver Trója; thar bygdu gudin ok ættir theirra ok gjördust thadan af mörg tidindi ok greinir bædi á jord ok á lopti_--ch. 9).

The first mythic tradition which supplies material for the structure which Gylfaginning builds on this foundation is the bridge Bifrost. The myth had said that this bridge united the celestial abodes with a part of the universe situated somewhere below. Gylfaginning, which makes the Asas dwell in Troy, therefore makes the gods undertake an enterprise of the greatest boldness, that of building a bridge from Troy to the heavens. But they are extraordinary architects and succeed (_Gudin gjördu brú til himins af jördu_--ch. 13).

The second mythic tradition employed is Urd's fountain. The myth had stated that the gods daily rode from their celestial abodes on the bridge Bifrost to Urd's (subterranean) fountain. Thence Gylfaginning draws the correct conclusion that Asgard was supposed to be situated at one end of the bridge and Urd's fountain near the other. But from Gylfaginning's premises it follows that if Asgard-Troy is situated on the surface of the earth Urd's fountain must be situated in the heavens, and that the Asas accordingly when they ride to Urd's fountain must ride upward, not downward. The conclusion is drawn with absolute consistency ("_Hvern dag rida æsir thangat upp um Bifröst_"--ch. 15).

The third mythic tradition used as material is the world-tree, which went (down in the lower world) to Urd's fountain. According to Völuspa (19), this fountain is situated beneath the ash Ygdrasil. The conclusion drawn by Gylfaginning by the aid of its Trojan premises is that since Urd's fountain is situated in the heavens, and still under one of Ygdrasil's roots, this root must be located still further up in the heavens. The placing of the root is also done with consistency, so that we get the following series of wrong localisations:--Down on the earth, Asgard-Troy; thence up to the heavens the bridge Bifrost; above Bifrost, Urd's fountain; high above Urd's fountain, one of Ygdrasil's three roots (which in the mythology are all in the lower world).

Since one of Ygdrasil's roots thus had received its place far up in the heavens, it became necessary to place a second root on a level with the earth, and the third one was allowed to retain its position in the lower world. Thus was produced a just distribution of the roots among the three regions which in the conception of the middle ages constituted the universe, namely, the heavens, the earth, and hell.

In this manner two myths were made to do service in regard to one of the remaining Ygdrasil roots. The one myth was taken from Völuspa, where it was learned that Mimer's fountain is situated below the sacred world-tree; the other was Grimnismal (31), where we are told that frost-giants dwell under one of the three roots. At the time when Gylfaginning was written, and still later, popular traditions told that Gudmund-Mimer was of giant descent (see the middle-age sagas narrated above). From this Gylfaginning draws the conclusion that Mimer was a frost-giant, and it identifies the root which extends to the frost-giants with the root that extends to Mimer's fountain. Thus this fountain of creative power, of world-preservation, of wisdom, and of poetry receives from Gylfaginning its place in the abode of the powers of frost, hostile to gods and to men, in the land of the frost-giants, which Gylfaginning regards as being Jotunheim, bordering on the earth.

In this way Gylfaginning, with the Trojan hypothesis as its starting-point, has gotten so far that it has separated from the lower world with its three realms and three fountains Urd's realm and fountain, they being transferred to the heavens, and Mimer's realm and fountain, they being transferred to Jotunheim. In the mythology these two realms were the subterranean regions of bliss, and the third, Nifelhel, with the regions subject to it, was the abode of the damned. After these separations were made, Gylfaginning, to be logical, had to assume that the lower world of the heathens was exclusively a realm of misery and torture, a sort of counterpart of the hell of the Church. This conclusion is also drawn with due consistency, and Ygdrasil's third root, which in the mythology descended to the well Hvergelmer and to the lower world of the frost-giants, Nifelhel, Nifelheim, extends over the whole lower world, the latter being regarded as identical with Nifelheim and the places of punishment therewith connected.

This result carries with it another. The goddess of the lower world, and particularly of its domain of bliss, was in the mythology, as shall be shown below, the goddess of fate and death, Urd, also called Hel, when named after the country over which she ruled. In a local sense, the name Hel could be applied partly to the whole lower world, which rarely happened, partly to Urd's and Mimer's realms of bliss, which was more common, and Hel was then the opposite of Nifelhel, which was solely the home of misery and torture. Proofs of this shall be given below. But when the lower world had been changed to a sort of hell, the name Hel, both in its local and in its personal sense, must undergo a similar change, and since Urd (the real Hel) was transferred to the heavens, there was nothing to hinder Gylfaginning from substituting for the queen of the lower world Loke's daughter cast down into Nifelhel and giving her the name Hel and the sceptre over the whole lower world.

This method is also pursued by Gylfaginning's author without hesitation, although he had the best of reasons for suspecting its correctness. A certain hesitancy might here have been in order. According to the mythology, the pure and pious Asa-god Balder comes to Hel, that is to say, to the lower world, and to one of its realms of bliss. But after the transformation to which the lower world had been subjected in Gylfaginning's system, the descent of Balder to Hel must have meant a descent to and a remaining in the world of misery and torture, and a relation of subject to the daughter of Loke. This should have awakened doubts in the mind of the author of Gylfaginning. But even here he had the courage to be true to his premises, and without even thinking of the absurdity in which he involves himself, he goes on and endows the sister of the Midgard-serpent and of the Fenris-wolf with that perfect power which before belonged to Destiny personified, so that the same gods who before had cast the horrible child Loke down into the ninth region of Nifelhel are now compelled to send a minister-plenipotentiary to her majesty to treat with her and pray for Balder's liberation.

But finally, there comes a point where the courage of consistency fails Gylfaginning. The manner in which it has placed the roots of the world-tree makes us first of all conceive Ygdrasil as lying horizontal in space. An attempt to make this matter intelligible can produce no other picture of Ygdrasil, in accord with the statements of Gylfaginning, than the following:

The root over heaven
and over Urd's fountain.
-------------------------+
|
The root over Jotunheim |
and over Mimer's +-----------------------------
well. |
-------------------------+
|
The root over the lower +-----------------------------
world and over | Ygdrasil's trunk.
Hvergelmer's fountain. |
-------------------------+

But Gylfaginning is not disposed to draw this conclusion. On the contrary, it insists that Ygdrasil stands erect on its three roots. How we, then, are to conceive its roots as united one with the other and with the trunk of this it very prudently leaves us in ignorance, for this is beyond the range of human imagination.

The contrast between the mythological doctrine in regard to the three Ygdrasil roots, and Gylfaginning's view of the subject may easily be demonstrated by the following parallels:

_The Mythology._ _Gylfaginning._

1. Ygdrasil has three roots. 1. Ygdrasil has three roots.

2. All three roots are subterranean. 2. One is in the lower world;
a second stands over Jotunheim
on a level with the earth; a
third stands over the heavens.

3. To each root corresponds 3. To each root corresponds
a fountain and a realm in the a fountain and a realm; the
lower world. The lower world realms are the heavens,
consists of three realms, each Jotunheim, and the lower world,
with its fountain and each which are located each under
with its root. its root.

4. Under one of the subterranean 4. Under one of the roots,
roots dwells the goddess that is the one which stands
of death and fate, Urd, over heaven, dwells Urd the
who is also called Hel, and in goddess of fate, and there is
her realm is Urd's fountain. Urd's fountain.

5. Under the other (subterranean)
root dwells Mimer. In his realm is
Mimer's fountain and Mimer's grove,
where a subterranean race of men
are preserved for the future world.
This root may, therefore, be said
to stand over mennskir menn
(Grimnersmal).

It is said that one of the
roots stands over mennskir menn
(Grimnersmal). By this is meant,
according to Gylfaginning, not
the root over Mimer's well, but
the root over Urd's fountain,
near which the Asas hold their
assemblies, for the Asas are
in reality men who dwelt on
earth in the city of Troy.

6. Under the third (subterranean) 6. Under the third (and
root dwell frost-giants. Under only subterranean) root dwell
this root is the well Hvergelmer, the souls of sinners and those
and the realm of the frost-giants who have died from sickness
is Nifelhel (Nifelheim). Under and age. Under this root is
Nifelhel are nine regions of torture. the well Hvergelmer and
the whole lower world. The
lower world is called Nifelhel
or Nifelheim, and contains
nine places of torture.

7. The sister of the Midgard-serpent 7. The sister of the
and of the Fenris-wolf was cast by Midgard-serpent and of the
the gods into the regions of torture Fenris-wolf was cast by the gods
under Nifelhel, and received the into the regions of torture
rule over the places where the under Nifelhel, and received
damned are punished. the rule over the whole lower
world, which consists of
Nifelhel with the nine regions
of torture.

8. The name Hel can be applied to 8. As Hel means the lower
the whole lower world, but means world, and as the sister of the
particularly that region of bliss Midgard-serpent governs the
where Urd's fountain is situated, whole lower world, she is
for Urd is the personal Hel. The meant by the personal Hel.
Loke-daughter in Nifelhel is
her slave and must obey her
commands.

Gylfaginning does not stop with the above results. It continues the chain of its conclusions. After Hvergelmer has been selected by Gylfaginning as the only fountain in the lower world, it should, since the lower world has been made into a sort of hell, be a fountain of hell, and in this respect easily recognised by the Christian conception of the middle ages. In this new character Hvergelmer becomes the centre and the worst place in Gylfaginning's description of the heathen Gehenna. No doubt because the old dragon, which is hurled down into the abyss (Revelation, chap. 20), is to be found in the hell-fountain of the middle ages, Gylfaginning throws Nidhog down into Hvergelmer, which it also fills with serpents and dead bodies found in Grimnismal (Str. 34, 35), where they have no connection with Hvergelmer. According to Völuspa it is in Nastrands that Nidhog sucks and the wolf tears the dead bodies (_náir_). Gylfaginning follows Völuspa in speaking of the other terrors in Nastrands, but rejects Völuspa's statements about Nidhog and the wolf, and casts both these beasts down into the Hvergelmer fountain. As shall be shown below, the Hvergelmer of the mythology is the mother-fountain of all waters, and is situated on a high plain in the lower world. Thence its waters flow partly northward to Nifelheim, partly south to the elysian fields of heathendom, and the waves sent in the latter direction are shining, clear, and holy.

It was an old custom, at least in Iceland, that booths for the accommodation of the visitors were built around a remote thing-stead, or place for holding the parliament. Gylfaginning makes its Trojan Asas follow the example of the Icelanders, and put up houses around the thing-stead, which they selected near Urd's fountain, after they had succeeded in securing by Bifrost a connection between Troy and heaven. This done, Gylfaginning distributes as best it can the divine halls and abodes of bliss mentioned in the mythology between Troy on the earth and the thing-stead in heaven.

This may be sufficient to show that Gylfaginning's pretended account of the old mythological cosmography is, on account of its making Troy the starting-point, and doubtless also to some extent as a result of the Christian methods of thought, with which the author interpreted the heathen myths accessible to him, is simply a monstrous caricature of the mythology, a caricature which is continued, not with complacency and assurance, but in a confused and contradictory manner, in the eschatology of Gylfaginning.

My chief task will now be to review and examine all the passages in the Elder Edda's mythological songs, wherein the words Hel and Nifelhel occur, in order to find out in this manner in which sense or senses these words are there employed, and to note at the same time all the passages which may come in my way and which are of importance to the myth concerning the lower world.

57.

THE WORD HEL IN LINGUISTIC USAGE.

The Norse Hel is the same word as the Gothic _Halja_, the Old High German _Hella_, the Anglo-Saxon _Hellia_, and the English Hell. On account of its occurrence with similar signification in different Teutonic tongues in their oldest linguistic monuments, scholars have been able to draw the conclusion that the word points to a primitive Teutonic _Halja_, meaning lower world, lower world divinity. It is believed to be related to the Latin _oc-cul-ere_, _cel-are_, _clam_, and to mean the one who "hides," "conceals," "preserves."

When the books of the New Testament were for the first time translated into a Teutonic tongue, into a Gothic dialect, the translator, Ulfilas, had to find some way of distinguishing with suitable words between the two realms of the lower world mentioned in the New Testament, Hades and Gehenna (_geen a_).

Hades, the middle condition, and the locality corresponding to this condition, which contains both fields of bliss and regions of torture, he translated with Halja, doubtless because the signification of this word corresponded most faithfully with the meaning of the word Hades. For Gehenna, hell, he used the borrowed word _gaiainna_.

The Old High German translation also reproduces Hades with the word _Hella_. For Gehenna it uses two expressions compounded with Hella. One of these, Hellawisi, belongs to the form which afterwards predominated in Scandinavia. Both the compounds bear testimony that the place of punishment in the lower world could not be expressed with Hella, but it was necessary to add a word, which showed that a subterranean place _of punishment_ was meant. The same word for Gehenna is found among the Christian Teutons in England, namely, Hellewite; that is to say, _the_ Hellia, that part of the lower world where it is necessary to do penance (_vite_) for one's sins. From England the expression doubtless came to Scandinavia, where we find in the Icelandic _Helvíti_, in the Swedish _Hälvete_, and in the Danish _Helvede_. In the Icelandic literature it is found for the first time in Hallfred, the same skald who with great hesitation permitted himself to be persuaded by Olaf Trygveson to abandon the faith of his fathers.

Many centuries before Scandinavia was converted to Christianity, the Roman Church had very nearly obliterated the boundary line between the subterranean Hades and Gehenna of the New Testament. The lower world had, as a whole, become a realm of torture, though with various gradations. Regions of bliss were no longer to be found there, and for Hel in the sense in which Ulfilas used Halja, and the Old High German translation Hella, there was no longer room in the Christian conception. In the North, Hel was therefore permitted to remain a heathen word, and to retain its heathen signification as long as the Christian generations were able or cared to preserve it. It is natural that the memory of this signification should gradually fade, and that the idea of the Christian hell should gradually be transferred to the heathen _Hel_. This change can be pretty accurately traced in the Old Norse literature. It came slowly, for the doctrine in regard to the lower world in the Teutonic religion addressed itself powerfully to the imagination, and, as appears from a careful examination, far from being indefinite in its outlines, it was, on the contrary, described with the clearest lines and most vivid colours, even down to the minutest details. Not until the thirteenth century could such a description of the heathen Hel as Gylfaginning's be possible and find readers who would accept it. But not even then were the memories (preserved in fragments from the heathen days) in regard to the lower world doctrine so confused, but that it was possible to present a far more faithful (or rather not so utterly false) description thereof. Gylfaginning's representation of the heathen Hades is based less on the then existing confusion of the traditions than on the conclusions drawn from the author's own false premises.

In determining the question, how far Hel among the heathen Scandinavians has had a meaning identical with or similar to that which Halja and Hella had among their Gothic and German kinsmen--that is to say, the signification of a death-kingdom of such a nature that it could not with linguistic propriety be used in translating Gehenna--we must first consult that which really is the oldest source, the usage of the spoken language in expressions where Hel is found. Such expressions show by the very presence of Hel that they have been handed down from heathendom, or have been formed in analogy with old heathen phrases. One of these modes of speech still exists: _i hjäl_ (slå ihjäl, svälta ihjäl, frysa ihjäl, &c.), which is the Old Norse _i Hel_. We do not use this expression in the sense that a person killed by a weapon, famine, or frost is relegated to the abyss of torture. Still less could the heathens have used it in that sense. The phrase would never have been created if the word Hel had especially conveyed the notion of a place of punishment. Already in a very remote age _í Hel_ had acquired the abstract meaning _to death_, but in such a manner that the phrase easily suggested the concrete idea--the realm of death (an example of this will be given below). What there is to be said about _í Hel_ also applies to such phrases as _bida Heljar_, to await Hel (_death_); _buask til Heljar_, to become equipped for the journey to Hel (to be shrouded); _liggja milli heims ok Heljar_, to lie between this world and Hel (between life and death); _liggja á Heljar thremi_, to lie on Hel's threshold. A funeral could be called a _Helför_ (a Hel-journey); fatal illness _Helsótt_ (Hel-sickness); the deceased could be called _Helgengnir_ (those gone to Hel). Of friends it is said that Hel (death) alone could separate them (Fornm., vii. 233).

Thus it is evident that Hel, in the more general local sense of the word, referred to a place common for all the dead, and that the word was used without any additional suggestion of damnation and torture in the minds of those employing it.

58.

THE WORD HEL IN VEGTAMSKVIDA AND IN VAFTHRUDNERSMAL.

When Odin, according to Vegtamskvida, resolved to get reliable information in the lower world in regard to the fate which threatened Balder, he saddled his Sleipner and rode thither. On the way he took he came first to Nifelhel. While he was still in Nifelhel, he met on his way a dog bloody about the breast, which came from the direction where that division of the lower world is situated, which is called Hel. Thus the rider and the dog came from opposite directions, and the former continued his course in the direction whence the latter came. The dog turned, and long pursued Odin with his barking. Then the rider reached a _foldvegr_, that is to say, a road along grass-grown plains. The way resounded under the hoofs of the steed. Then Odin finally came to a high dwelling which is called _Heljarrann_ or _Heljar rann_. The name of the dwelling shows that it was situated in Hel, not in Nifelhel. This latter realm of the lower world Odin now had had behind him ever since he reached the green fields, and since the dog, evidently a watch of the borders between Nifelhel and Hel, had left him in peace. The high dwelling was decorated as for a feast, and mead was served. It was, Odin learned, the abode where the _ásmegir_ longingly waited for the arrival of Balder. Thus Vegtamskvida:

2. Ræid hann (Odin) nidr thathan
Niflhæljar til,
mætti hann hvælpi
theim ær or hæliu kom.

3. Sa var blodugr
urn briost framan
ok galldrs födur
gol um læengi.

4. Framm ræid Odinn,
foldvægr dundi,
ban kom at hafu
Hæliar ranni.

7. Her standr Balldri
of brugginn miödr.
Ok ásmegir
i ofvæno.

Vegtamskvida distinguishes distinctly between Nifelhel and Hel. In Hel is the dwelling which awaits the son of the gods, the noblest and most pious of all the Asas. The dwelling, which reveals a lavish splendour, is described as the very antithesis of that awful abode which, according to Gylfaginning, belongs to the queen of the lower world. In Vafthrudnersmal (43) the old giant says:

Fra iotna runom Of the runes of giants
oc allra goda and of all the gods
ec kann segia satt, I can speak truly;
thviat hvern hefi ec for I have been
heim um komit: in every world.
nio kom ec heima In nine worlds I came
fyr Niflhel nedan, below Nifelhel,
hinig deyja or Helio halir. thither die "halir" from Hel.

Like Vegtamskvida, so Vafthrudnersmal also distinguishes distinctly between Hel and Nifelhel, particularly in those most remarkable words that thither, _i.e._, to Nifelhel and the regions subject to it, _die_ "halir" from Hel. _Halir_ means men, human beings; applied to beings in the lower world _halir_ means dead men, the spirits of deceased human beings (cp. Allvism., 18, 6; 20, 6; 26, 6; 32, 6; 34, 6, with 28, 3). Accordingly, nothing less is here said than that deceased persons who have come to the realm called Hel, may there be subject to a second death, and that through this second death they come to Nifelhel. Thus the same sharp distinction is here made between life in Hel and in Nifelhel as between life on earth and that in Hel. These two subterranean realms must therefore represent very different conditions. What these different conditions are, Vafthrudnersmal does not inform us, nor will I anticipate the investigation on this point; still less will I appeal to Gylfaginning's assurance that the realms of torture lie under Nifelhel, and that it is wicked men (_vândir menn_) who are obliged to cross the border from Hel to Nifelhel. So far it must be borne in mind that it was in Nifelhel Odin met the bloody dog-demon, who barked at the Asa-majesty, though he could not hinder the father of the mighty and protecting sorceries from continuing his journey; while it was in Hel, on the other hand, that Odin saw the splendid abode where the _ásmegir_ had already served the precious subterranean mead for his son, the just Balder. This argues that they who through a second death get over the border from Hel to Nifelhel, do not by this transfer get a better fate than that to which Hel invites those who have died the first death. Balder in the one realm, the blood-stained kinsman of Cerberus in the other--this is, for the present, the only, but not unimportant weight in the balance which is to determine the question whether that border-line which a second death draws between Hel and Nifelhel is the boundary between a realm of bliss and a realm of suffering, and in this case, whether Hel or Nifelhel is the realm of bliss.

This expression in Vafthrudnersmal, _hinig deyja or Helio halir_, also forces to the front another question, which as long as it remains unanswered, makes the former question more complicated. If Hel is a realm of bliss, and if Nifelhel with the regions subject thereto is a realm of unhappiness, then why do not the souls of the damned go at once to their final destination, but are taken first to the realm of bliss, then to the realm of anguish and pain, that is, after they have died the second death on the boundary-line between the two? And if, on the contrary, Hel were the realm of unhappiness and Nifelhel offered a better lot, then why should they who are destined for a better fate, first be brought to it through the world of torture, and then be separated from the latter by a second death before they could gain the more happy goal? These questions cannot be answered until later on.

59.

THE WORD HEL IN GRIMNERSMAL. HVERGELMER'S FOUNTAIN AND ITS
DEFENDERS. THE BORDER MOUNTAIN BETWEEN HEL AND NIFELHEL. THE
WORD HELBLOTINN IN THORSDRAPA.

In Grimnersmal the word Hel occurs twice (str. 28, 31), and this poem is (together with Gylfaginning) the only ancient record which gives us any information about the well Hvergelmer under this name (str. 26, ff.).

From what is related, it appears that the mythology conceived Hvergelmer as a vast reservoir, the mother-fountain of all the waters of the world (_thadan eigo votn aull vega_). In the front rank are mentioned a number of subterranean rivers which rise in Hvergelmer, and seek their courses thence in various directions. But the waters of earth and heaven also come from this immense fountain, and after completing their circuits they return thither. The liquids or saps which rise in the world-tree's stem to its branches and leaves around Herfather's hall (Valhal) return in the form of rain to Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal, 26).

Forty rivers rising there are named. (Whether they were all found in the original text may be a subject of doubt. Interpolators may have added from their own knowledge.) Three of them are mentioned in other records--namely, _Slidr_ in Völuspa, 36, _Gjöll_ in that account of Hermod's journey to Hel's realm, which in its main outlines was rescued by the author of Gylfaginning (Gylfag., ch. 52), and _Leiptr_ in Helge Hund., ii. 31--and all three are referred to in such a way as to prove that they are subterranean rivers. Slid flows to the realms of torture, and whirls weapons in its eddies, presumably to hinder or frighten anybody from attempting to cross. Over _Gjöll_ there is a bridge of gold to Balder's subterranean abode. _Leiptr_ (which name means "the shining one") has clear waters which are holy, and by which solemn oaths are sworn, as by Styx. Of these last two rivers flowing out of Hvergelmer it is said that they flow down to Hel (_falla til Heljar_, str. 28). Thus these are all subterranean. The next strophe (29) adds four rivers--_Körmt_ and _Örmt_, and the two _Kerlögar_, of which it is said that it is over these Thor must wade every day when he has to go to the judgment-seats of the gods near the ash Ygdrasil. For he does not ride like the other gods when they journey down over Bifrost to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. The horses which they use are named in strophe 30, and are ten in number, like the asas, when we subtract Thor who walks, and Balder and _Hödr_ who dwell in Hel. Nor must Thor on these journeys, in case he wished to take the route by way of Bifrost, use the thunder-chariot, for the flames issuing from it might set fire to the Asa-bridge and make the holy waters glow (str. 29). That the thunder-chariot also is dangerous for higher regions when it is set in motion, thereof Thjodolf gives us a brilliant description in the poem Haustlaung. Thor being for this reason obliged to wade across four rivers before he gets to Urd's fountain, the beds of these rivers must have been conceived as crossing the paths travelled by the god journeying to the thingstead. Accordingly they must have their courses somewhere in Urd's realm, or on the way thither, and consequently they too belong to the lower world.

Other rivers coming from Hvergelmer are said to turn their course around a place called _Hodd-goda_ (str. 27 _ther hverfa um Hodd-goda_). This girdle of rivers, which the mythology unites around a single place, seems to indicate that this is a realm from which it is important to shut out everything that does not belong there. The name itself, _Hodd-goda_, points in the same direction. The word _hodd_ means that which is concealed (the treasure), and at the same time a protected sacred place. In the German poem _Heliand_ the word _hord_, corresponding to _hodd_, is used about the holiest of holies in the Jerusalem temple. As we already know, there is in the lower world a place to which these references apply, namely, the citadel guarded by Delling, the elf of dawn, and decorated by the famous artists of the lower world--a citadel in which the _ásmegir_ and Balder--and probably _Hodr_ too, since he is transferred to the lower world, and with Balder is to return thence--await the end of the historical time and the regeneration. The word _goda_ in Hodd-goda shows that the place is possessed by, or entrusted to, beings of divine rank.

From what has here been stated in regard to Hvergelmer it follows that the mighty well was conceived as situated on a high water-shed, far up in a subterranean mountain range, whence those rivers of which it is the source flow down in different directions to different realms of Hades. Of several of these rivers it is said that they in their upper courses, before they reach Hel, flow in the vicinity of mankind (_gumnom nær_--str. 28, 7), which naturally can have no other meaning than that the high land through which they flow after leaving Hvergelmer has been conceived as lying not very deep below the crust of Midgard (the earth). Hvergelmer and this high land are not to be referred to that division of the lower world which in Grimnersmal is called Hel, for not until after the rivers have flowed through the mountain landscape, where their source is, are they said to _falla til Heljar_.

Thus (1) there is in the lower world a mountain ridge, a high land, where is found Hvergelmer, the source of all waters; (2) this mountain, which we for the present may call Mount Hvergelmer, is the watershed of the lower world, from which rivers flow in different directions; and (3) that division of the lower world which is called Hel lies below one side of Mount Hvergelmer, and thence receives many rivers. What that division of the lower world which lies below the other side of Mount Hvergelmer is called is not stated in Grimnersmal. But from Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida we already know that Hel is bounded by Nifelhel. In Vegtamskvida Odin rides through Nifelhel to Hel; in Vafthrudnersmal _halir_ die from Hel to Nifelhel. Hel and Nifelhel thus appear to be each other's opposites, and to complement each other, and combined they form the whole lower world. Hence it follows that the land on the other side of the Hvergelmer mountain is Nifelhel.

It also seems necessary that both these Hades realms should in the mythology be separated from each other not only by an abstract boundary line, but also by a natural boundary--a mountain or a body of water--which might prohibit the crossing of the boundary by persons who neither had a right nor were obliged to cross. The tradition on which Saxo's account of Gorm's journey to the lower world is based makes Gorm and his men, when from Gudmund-Mimer's realm they wish to visit the abodes of the damned, first cross a river and then come to a boundary which cannot be crossed, excepting by _scalæ_, steps on the mountain wall, or ladders, above which the gates are placed, that open to a city "resembling most a cloud of vapour" (_vaporanti maxime nubi simile_--i. 425). This is Saxo's way of translating the name Nifelhel, just as he in the story about Hadding's journey to the lower world translated _Glæsisvellir_ (the Glittering Fields) with _loca aprica_.

In regard to the topography and eschatology of the Teutonic lower world, it is now of importance to find out on which opposite sides of the Hvergelmer mountain Hel and Nifelhel were conceived to be situated.

_Nifl_, an ancient word, related to _nebula_ and _nephek_ means fog, mist, cloud, darkness. Nifelhel means _that_ Hel which is enveloped in fog and twilight. The name _Hel_ alone has evidently had partly a more general application to a territory embracing the whole kingdom of death--else it could not be used as a part of the compound word _Nifelhel_--partly a more limited meaning, in which _Hel_, as in Vafthrudnersmal and Vegtamskvida, forms a sharp contrast to _Nifelhel_, and from the latter point of view it is that division of the lower world which is not enveloped in mist and fog.

According to the cosmography of the mythology there was, before the time when "Ymer lived," Nifelheim, a world of fog, darkness, and cold, north of Ginungagap, and an opposite world, that of fire and heat, south of the empty abyss. Unfortunately it is only Gylfaginning that has preserved for our time these cosmographical outlines, but there is no suspicion that the author of Gylfaginning invented them. The fact that his cosmographic description also mentions the ancient cow Audhumla, which is nowhere else named in our mythic records, but is not utterly forgotten in our popular traditions, and which is a genuine Aryan conception, this is the strongest argument in favour of his having had genuine authorities for his theo-cosmogony at hand, though he used them in an arbitrary manner. The Teutons may also be said to have been compelled to construct a cosmogony in harmony with their conception of that world with which they were best acquainted, their own home between the cold North and the warmer South.