Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Nifelhel in the lower world has its counterpart in Nifelheim in chaos. Gylfaginning identifies the two (ch. 6 and 34). Forspjallsljod does the same, and locates Nifelheim far to the north in the lower world (_nordr at Nifelheim_--str. 26), behind Ygdrasil's farthest root, under which the poem makes the goddess of night, after completing her journey around the heavens, rest for a new journey. When Night has completed such a journey and come to the lower world, she goes northward in the direction towards Nifelheim, to remain in her hall, until Dag with his chariot gets down to the western horizon and in his turn rides through the "horse doors" of Hades into the lower world.

From this it follows that Nifelhel is to be referred to the north of the mountain Hvergelmer, Hel to the south of it. Thus this mountain is the wall separating Hel from Nifelhel. On that mountain in the gate, or gates, which in the Gorm story separates Gudmund-Mimer's abode from those dwellings which resemble a "cloud of vapour," and up there is the death boundary, at which "halir" die for the second time, when they are transferred from Hel to Nifelhel.

The immense water-reservoir on the brow of the mountain, which stands under Ygdrasil's northern root, sends, as already stated, rivers down to both sides--to Nifelhel in the North and to Hel in the South. Of the most of these rivers we now know only the names. But those of which we do know more are characterised in such a manner that we find that it is a sacred land to which those flowing to the South towards Hel hasten their course, and that it is an unholy land which is sought by those which send their streams to the north down into Nifelhel. The rivers _Gjöll_ and _Leiptr_ fall down into Hel, and _Gjöll_ is, as already indicated, characterised by a bridge of gold, Leiptr by a shining, clear, and most holy water. Down there in the South are found the mystic Hodd-goda, surrounded by other Hel-rivers; Balder's and the _ásmegir's_ citadel (perhaps identical with Hodd-goda); Mimer's fountain, seven times overlaid with gold, the fountain of inspiration and of the creative force, over which the "overshadowing holy tree" spreads its branches (Völuspa), and around whose reed-wreathed edge the seed of poetry grows (Eilif Gudrunson); the Glittering Fields, with flowers which never fade and with harvests which never are gathered; Urd's fountain, over which Ygdrasil stands for ever green (Völuspa), and in whose silver-white waters swans swim; and the sacred thingstead of the Asas, to which they daily ride down over Bifrost. North of the mountain roars the weapon-hurling Slid, and doubtless is the same river as that in whose "heavy streams" the souls of nithings must wade. In the North _solú fjarri_ stands, also at Nastrands, that hall, the walls of which are braided of serpents (Völuspa). Thus Hel is described as an Elysium, Nifelhel with its subject regions as a realm of unhappiness.

Yet a few words about Hvergelmer, from and to which "all waters find their way." This statement in Grimnersmal is of course true of the greatest of all waters, the ocean. The myth about Hvergelmer and its subterranean connection with the ocean gave our ancestors the explanation of ebb- and flood-tide. High up in the northern channels the bottom of the ocean opened itself in a hollow tunnel, which led down to the "kettle-roarer," "the one roaring in his basin" (this seems to be the meaning of _Hvergelmir_: _hverr_ = kettle; _galm_ = Anglo-Saxon _gealm_, a roaring). When the waters of the ocean poured through this tunnel down into the Hades-well there was ebb-tide; when it returned water from its superabundance there was flood-tide (see Nos. 79, 80, 81).

Adam of Bremen had heard this tunnel mentioned in connection with the story about the Frisian noblemen who went by sea to the furthest north, came to the land of subterranean giants, and plundered their treasures (see No. 48). On the way up some of the ships of the Frisians got into the eddy caused by the tunnel, and were sucked with terrible violence down into the lower world.[8]

Charlemagne's contemporary, Paul Varnefrid (Diaconus), relates in his history of the Longobardians that he had talked with men who had been in Scandinavia. Among remarkable reports which they gave him of the regions of the far north was also that of a maelstrom, which swallows ships, and sometimes even casts them up again (see Nos. 15, 79, 80, 81).

Between the death-kingdom and the ocean there was, therefore, one connecting link, perhaps several. Most of the people who drowned did not remain with _Ran_. Ægir's wife received them hospitably, according to the Icelandic sagas of the middle age. She had a hall in the bottom of the sea, where they were welcomed and offered _sess ok rekkju_ (seat and bed). Her realm was only an ante-chamber to the realms of death (Kormak, Sonatorrek).

The demon Nidhog, which by Gylfaginning is thrown into Hvergelmer is, according to the ancient records, a winged dragon flying about, one of several similar monsters which have their abode in Nifelhel and those lower regions, and which seek to injure that root of the world-tree which is nearest to them, that is the northern one, which stands over Nifelhel and stretches its rootlets southward over Mount Hvergelmer and down into its great water-reservoir (Grimnersmal, 34, 35). Like all the Aryan mythologies, the Teutonic also knew this sort of monsters, and did so long before the word "dragon" (_drake_) was borrowed from southern kinsmen as a name for them. Nidhog abides now on Nastrands, where, by the side of a wolf-demon, it tortures _náir_ (corpses), now on the Nida Mountains, whence the vala in Völuspa sees him flying away with _náir_ under his wings. Nowhere (except in Gylfaginning) is it said that he lives in the well Hvergelmer, though it is possible that he, in spite of his wings, was conceived as an amphibious being which also could subsist in the water. Tradition tells of dragons who dwell in marshes and swamps.

The other two subterranean fountains, Urd's and Mimer's, and the roots of Ygdrasil standing over them, are well protected against the influence of the foes of creation, and have their separate guardians. Mimer, with his sons and the beings subject to him, protects and guards his root of the tree, Urd and her sisters hers, and to the latter all the victorious gods of Asgard come every day to hold counsel. Was the northern root of Ygdrasil, which spreads over the realms of the frost-giants, of the demons, and of the damned, and was Hvergelmer, which waters this root and received so important a position in the economy of the world-tree, left in the mythology without protection and without a guardian? Hvergelmer we know is situated on the watershed, where we have the death-borders between Hel and Nifelhel fortified with abysses and gates, and is consequently situated in the immediate vicinity of beings hostile to gods and men. Here, if anywhere, there was need of valiant and vigilant watchers. Ygdrasil needs its northern root as well as the others, and if Hvergelmer was not allowed undisturbed to conduct the circuitous flow of all waters, the world would be either dried up or drowned.

Already, long before the creation of the world, there flowed from Hvergelmer that broad river called _Elivágar_, which in its extreme north froze into that ice, which, when it melted, formed out of its dropping venom the primeval giant Ymer (Vafthr., 31; Gylfag., 5). After creation this river like Hvergelmer, whence it rises and Nifelhel, into which it empties, become integral parts of the northern regions of the lower world. _Elivágar_, also called _Hraunn Hrönn_, sends in its upper course, where it runs near the crust of the earth, a portion of its waters up to it, and forms between Midgard and the upper Jotunheim proper, the river Vimur, which is also called _Elivágar_ and _Hraunn_, like the parent stream (cp. Hymerskv., 5, 38; Grimnersm., 28; Skaldskaparm., ch. 3, 16, 18, 19, and Helg. Hj., 25). Elivágar separates the realm of the giants and frost-giants from the other "worlds."

South of Elivágar the gods have an "outgard," a "sæther" which is inhabited by valiant watchers--_snotrir vikingar_ they are called in Thorsdrapa, 8--who are bound by oaths to serve the gods. Their chief is Egil, the most famous archer in the mythology (Thorsdrapa, 1, 8; cp. Hymerskv., 7, 38; Skaldskap., ch. 16). As such he is also called Orvandel (the one busy with the arrow). This Egil is the guardian entrusted with the care of Hvergelmer and Elivágar. Perhaps it is for this reason that he has a brother and fellow-warrior who is called Ide (_Idi_ from _ida_, a fountain with eddying waters). The "sæter" is called "Ides sæter" (Thorsdrapa, 1). The services which he as watcher on Mt. Hvergelmer and on the Elivágar renders to the regions of bliss in the lower world are so great that, although he does not belong to the race of the gods by birth or by adoption, he still enjoys among the inhabitants of Hel so great honour and gratitude that they confer divine honours on him. He is "the one worshipped in Hel who scatters the clouds which rise storm-threatening over the mountain of the lower world," _helblotinn hneitr undir-fjálfrs bliku_ (Thorsdr., 19). The storm-clouds which Are, _Hræsvelgr_, and other storm-demons of Nifelheim send to the elysian fields of the death-kingdom, must, in order to get there, surmount Mt. Hvergelmer, but there they are scattered by the faithful watchman. Now in company with Thor, and now alone, Egil-Orvandel has made many remarkable journeys to Jotunheim. Next after Thor, he was the most formidable foe of the giants, and in connection with Heimdal he zealously watched their every movement. The myth in regard to him is fully discussed in the treatise on the Ivalde-sons which forms a part of this work, and there the proofs will be presented for the identity of Orvandel and Egil. I simply desire to point out here, in order to present complete evidence later, that Ygdrasil's northern root and the corresponding part of the lower world also had their defenders and watchmen, and I also wished to call attention to the manner in which the name _Hel_ is employed in the word _Helblótinn_. We find it to be in harmony with the use of the same word in those passages of the poetic Edda which we have hitherto examined.

[8] "Et ecce instabilis Oceani Euripus, ad initia quædam fontis sui arcana recurrens, infelices nautas jam desperatos, immo de morte sola cogitantes, vehementissimo impetu traxit ad Chaos. Hanc dicunt esse voraginem abyssi, illud profundum, in quo fama est omnes maris recursus, qui decrescere videntur, absorberi et denuo removi, quod fluctuatio dici solet" (_De situ Daniæ_, ed. Mad., p. 159).

60.

THE WORD HEL IN SKIRNERSMAL. DESCRIPTION OF NIFELHEL. THE
MYTHIC MEANING OF NÁR, NÁIR. THE HADES-DIVISION OF THE
FROST-GIANTS AND SPIRITS OF DISEASE.

In Skirnersmal (strophe 21) occurs the expression _horfa ok snugga Heljar til_. It is of importance to our theme to investigate and explain the connection in which it is found.

The poem tells that Frey sat alone, silent and longing, ever since he had seen the giant Gymer's wonderfully beautiful daughter Gerd. He wasted with love for her; but he said nothing, since he was convinced in advance that neither Asas nor Elves would ever consent to a union between him and her. But when the friend of his youth, who resided in Asgard, and in the poem is called Skirner, succeeded in getting him to confess the cause of his longing, it was, in Asgard, found necessary to do something to relieve it, and so Skirner was sent to the home of the giant to ask for the hand of Gerd on Frey's behalf. As bridal gifts he took with him eleven golden apples and the ring _Draupnir_. He received one of the best horses of Asgard to ride, and for his defence Frey's magnificent sword, "which fights of itself against the race of giants." In the poem this sword receives the epithets _Tams-vöndr_ (str. 26) and _Gambanteinn_ (str. 32). _Tams-vöndr_, means the "staff that subdues;" _Gambanteinn_ means the "rod of revenge" (see Nos. 105, 116). Both epithets are formed in accordance with the common poetic usage of describing swords by compound words of which the latter part is _vöndr_ or _teinn_. We find, as names for swords, _benvondr_, _blodvondr_, _hjaltvondr_, _hridvondr_, _hvitvondr_, _mordvondr_, _sarvondr_, _benteinn_, _eggteinn_, _hævateinn_, _hjorteinn_, _hræteinn_, _sarteinn_, _valteinn_, _mistelteinn_.

Skirner rides over damp fells and the fields of giants, leaps, after a quarrel with the watchman of Gymer's citadel, over the fence, comes in to Gerd, is welcomed with ancient mead, and presents his errand of courtship, supported by the eleven golden apples. Gerd refuses both the apples and the object of the errand. Skirner then offers her the most precious treasure, the ring _Draupnir_, but in vain. Then he resorts to threats. He exhibits the sword so dangerous to her kinsmen; with it he will cut off her head if she refuses her consent. Gerd answers that she is not to be frightened, and that she has a father who is not afraid to fight. Once more Skirner shows her the sword, which also may fell her father (_ser thu thenna mæki, mey_, &c.), and he threatens to strike her with the "subduing staff," so that her heart shall soften, but too late for her happiness, for a blow from the staff will remove her thither, where sons of men never more shall see her.

Tamsvendi ec thic drep,
enn ec thic temia mun,
mer! at minom munom;
thar skaltu ganga
er thic gumna synir
sithan eva se (str. 26).

This is the former threat of death repeated in another form. The former did not frighten her. But that which now overwhelms her with dismay is the description Skirner gives her of the lot that awaits her in the realm of death, whither she is destined--she, the giant maid, if she dies by the avenging wrath of the gods (_gamban-reidi_). She shall then come to that region which is situated below the Na-gates (_fyr nágrindr nethan_--str. 35), and which is inhabited by frost-giants who, as we shall find, do not deserve the name _mannasynir_, even though the word _menn_ be taken in its most common sense, and made to embrace giants of the masculine kind.

This phrase _fyr nágrindr nethan_ must have been a stereotyped eschatological term applied to a particular division, a particular realm in the lower world. In Lokasenna (str. 63), Thor says to Loke, after the latter has emptied his phials of rash insults upon the gods, that if he does not hold his tongue the hammer Mjolner shall send him to Hel _fyr nágrindr nethan_. Hel is here used in its widest sense, and this is limited by the addition of the words "below the Na-gates," so as to refer to a particular division of the lower world. As we find by the application of the phrase to Loke, this division is of such a character that it is intended to receive the foes of the Asas and the insulters of the gods.

The word _Nagrind_, which is always used in the plural, and accordingly refers to more than one gate of the kind, has as its first part _nár_ (pl. _náir_), which means corpse, dead body. Thus Na-gates means Corpse-gates.

The name must seem strange, for it is not dead bodies, but souls, released from their bodies left on earth, which descend to the kingdom of death and get their various abodes there. How far our heathen ancestors had a more or less _material_ conception of the soul is a question which it is not necessary to discuss here (see on this point No. 95). Howsoever they may have regarded it, the very existence of a Hades in their mythology demonstrates that they believed that a conscious and sentient element in man was in death separated from the body with which it had been united in life, and went down to the lower world. That the body from which this conscious, sentient element fled was not removed to Hades, but went in this upper earth to its disintegration, whether it was burnt or buried in a mound or sunk to the bottom of the sea, this our heathen ancestors knew just as well as we know it. The people of the stone-age already knew this.

The phrase Na-gates does not stand alone in our mythological eschatology. One of the abodes of torture lying within the Na-gate is called Nastrands (_Nástrandir_), and is described in Völuspa as filled with terrors. And the victims, which Nidhog, the winged demon of the lower world, there sucks, are called _náir framgenga_, "the corpses of those departed."

It is manifest that the word _nár_ thus used cannot have its common meaning, but must be used in a special mythological sense, which had its justification and its explanation in the heathen doctrine in regard to the lower world.

It not unfrequently happens that law-books preserve ancient significations of words not found elsewhere in literature. The Icelandic law-book Grágás (ii. 185) enumerates four categories within which the word _nár_ is applicable to a person yet living. Gallows-_nár_, can be called, even while living, the person who is hung; grave-_nár_, the person placed in a grave; skerry-_nár_ or rock-_nár_ may, while yet alive, he be called who has been exposed to die on a skerry or rock. Here the word _nár_ is accordingly applied to persons who are conscious and capable of suffering, but on the supposition that they are such persons as have been condemned to a punishment which is not to cease so long as they are sensitive to it.

And this is the idea on the basis of which the word _náir_ is mythologically applied to the damned and tortured beings in the lower world.

If we now take into account that our ancestors believed in a _second_ death, in a slaying of souls in Hades, then we find that this same use of the word in question, which at first sight could not but seem strange, is a consistent development of the idea that those banished from Hel's realms of bliss die a second time, when they are transferred across the border to Nifelhel and the world of torture. When they are overtaken by this second death they are for the second time _náir_. And, as this occurs at the gates of Nifelhel, it was perfectly proper to call the gates _nágrindr_.

We may imagine that it is terror, despair, or rage which, at the sight of the Na-gates, severs the bond between the damned spirit and his Hades-body, and that the former is anxious to soar away from its terrible destination. But however this may be, the avenging powers have runes, which capture the fugitive, put chains on his Hades-body, and force him to feel with it. The Sun-song, a Christian song standing on the scarcely crossed border of heathendom, speaks of damned ones whose breasts were risted (carved) with bloody runes, and Havamál of runes which restore consciousness to _náir_. Such runes are known by Odin. If he sees in a tree a gallows-nár (_virgil-nár_), then he can rist runes so that the body comes down to him and talks with him (see No. 70).

Ef ec se a tre uppi
vafa virgilná,
sva ec rist
oc i runom fác,
at sa gengr gumi
oc mælir vith mic (Havamál, 157).

Some of the subterranean _náir_ have the power of motion, and are doomed to wade in "heavy streams." Among them are perjurers, murderers, and adulterers (Völuspa, 38). Among these streams is Vadgelmer, in which they who have slandered others find their far-reaching retribution (Sigurdarkv., ii. 4). Other _náir_ have the peculiarity which their appellation suggests, and receive quiet and immovable, stretched on iron benches, their punishment (see below). Saxo, who had more elaborate descriptions of the Hades of heathendom than those which have been handed down to our time, translated or reproduced in his accounts of Hadding's and Gorm's journeys in the lower world the word _náir_ with _exsanguia simulacra_ (p. 426).

That place after death with which Skirner threatens the stubborn Gerd is also situated within the Na-gates, but still it has another character than Nastrands and the other abodes of torture which are situated below Nifelhel. It would also have been unreasonable to threaten a person who rejects a marriage proposal with those punishments which overtake criminals and nithings. The Hades division, which Skirner describes as awaiting the giant-daughter, is a subterranean Jotunheim, inhabited by deceased ancestors and kinsmen of Gerd.

Mythology has given to the giants as well as to men a life hereafter. As a matter of fact, mythology never destroys life. The horse which was cremated with its master on his funeral pyre, and was buried with him in his grave-mound, afterwards brings the hero down to Hel. When the giant who built the Asgard wall got into conflict with the gods, Thor's hammer sent him "down below Nifelhel" (_nidr undir Niflhel_--Gylfag., ch. 43.) King Gorm saw in the lower world the giant Geirrod and both his daughters. According to Grimnersmal (str. 31), frost-giants dwell under one of Ygdrasil's roots--consequently in the lower world; and Forspjallsljod says that hags (giantesses) and thurses (giants), _náir_, dwarfs, and swarthy elves go to sleep under the world-tree's farthest root on the north border of Jormungrund[9] (the lower world), when Dag on a chariot sparkling with precious stones leaves the lower world, and when Nat after her journey on the heavens has returned to her home (str. 24, 28). It is therefore quite in order if we, in Skirner's description of the realm which after death awaits the giant-daughter offending the gods, rediscover that part of the lower world to which the drowned primeval ancestors of the giant-maid were relegated when Bor's sons opened the veins of Ymer's throat (Sonatorr., str. 3) and then let the billows of the ocean wash clean the rocky ground of earth, before they raised the latter from the sea and there created the inhabitable Midgard.

The frost-giants (rimethurses) are the primeval giants (_gigantes_) of the Teutonic mythology, so called because they sprang from the frost-being Ymer, whose feet by contact with each other begat their progenitor, the "strange-headed" monster Thrudgelmer (Vafthr. 29, 33). Their original home in chaos was Nifelheim. From the Hvergelmer fountain there the Elivagar rivers flowed to the north and became hoar-frost and ice, which, melted by warmth from the south, were changed into drops of venom, which again became Ymer, called by the giants Aurgelmer (Vafthr., 31; Gylfag., 5). Thrudgelmer begat Bergelmer countless winters before the earth was made (Vafthr., 29; Gylf., ch. 7). Those members of the giant race living in Jotunheim on the surface of the earth, whose memory goes farthest back in time, can remember Bergelmer when he _a var ludr um lagidr_. At least Vafth-rudmer is able to do this (Vafthr., 35).

When the original giants had to abandon the fields populated by Bor's sons (Völuspa, 4), they received an abode corresponding as nearly as possible to their first home, and, as it seems, identical with it, excepting that Nifelheim now, instead of being a part of chaos, is an integral part of the cosmic universe, and the extreme north of its Hades. As a Hades-realm it is also called Nifelhel.

In the subterranean land with which Skirner threatens Gerd, and which he paints for her in appalling colours, he mentions three kinds of beings--(1) frost-giants, the ancient race of giants; (2) demons; (3) giants of the later race.

The frost-giants occupy together one abode, which, judging from its epithet, hall (_höll_), is the largest and most important there; while those members of the younger giant clan who are there, dwell in single scattered abodes, called gards.[10] Gerd is also there to have a separate abode (str. 28).

Two frost-giants are mentioned by name, which shows that they are representatives of their clan. One is named Rimgrimner (_Hrímgrimnir_--str. 35), the other Rimner (_Hrímnir_--str. 28).

Grimner is one of Odin's many surnames (Grimnersmal, 47, and several other places; cp. Egilsson's Lex. Poet.). Rimgrimner means the same as if Odin had said Rim-Odin, for Odin's many epithets could without hesitation be used by the poets in paraphrases, even when these referred to a giant. But the name Odin was too sacred for such a purpose. Upon the whole the skalds seem piously to have abstained from using that name in paraphrases, even when the latter referred to celebrated princes and heroes. Glum Geirason is the first known exception to the rule. He calls a king _Málm-Odinn_. The above epithet places Rimgrimner in the same relation to the frost-giants as Odin-Grimner sustains to the asas; it characterises him as the race-chief and clan-head of the former, and in this respect gives him the same place as Thrudgelmer occupies in Vafthrudnersmal. Ymer cannot be regarded as the special clan-chief of the frost-giants, since he is also the progenitor of other classes of beings (see Vafthr., 33, and Völuspa, 9; cp. Gylfag., ch. 14). But they have other points of resemblance. Thrudgelmer is "strange-headed" in Vafthrudnersmal; Rimgrimner is "three-headed" in Skirnersmal (str. 31; cp. with str. 35). Thus we have in one poem a "strange-headed" Thrudgelmer as progenitor of the frost-giants; in the other poem a "three-headed" Rimgrimner as progenitor of the same frost-giants. The "strange-headed" giant of the former poem, which is a somewhat indefinite or obscure phrase, thus finds in "three-headed" of the latter poem its further definition. To this is to be added a power which is possessed both by Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner, and also a weakness for which both Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner are blamed. Thrudgelmer's father begat children without possessing _gygjar gaman_ (Vafthr., 32). That Thrudgelmer inherited this power from his strange origin and handed it down to the clan of frost-giants, and that he also inherited the inability to provide for the perpetuation of the race in any other way, is evident from Allvismal, str. 2. If we make a careful examination, we find that Skirnersmal presupposes this same positive and negative quality in Rimgrimner, and consequently Thrudgelmer and Rimgrimner must be identical.

Gerd, who tries to reject the love of the fair and blithe Vana-god, will, according to Skirner's threats, be punished therefor in the lower world with the complete loss of all that is called love, tenderness, and sympathy. Skirner says that she either must live alone and without a husband in the lower world, or else vegetate in a useless cohabitation (_nara_) with the three-headed giant (str. 31). The threat is gradually emphasised to the effect that she _shall_ be possessed by Rimgrimner, and this threat is made immediately after the solemn conjuration (str. 34) in which Skirner invokes the inhabitants of Nifelhel and also of the regions of bliss, as witnesses, that she shall never gladden or be gladdened by a man in the physical sense of this word.

Hear, ye giants, Heyri iotnar,
Hear, frost-giants, heyri hrimthursar,
Ye sons of Suttung-- synir Suttunga,
Nay, thou race of the Asa-god![11]-- sjalfir áslithar
how I forbid, hve ec fyr byd,
how I banish hve ec fyrir banna
man's gladness from the maid, manna glaum mani
man's enjoyment from the maid! manna nyt mani.
Rimgrimner is the giant's name Hrímgrimner heiter thurs,
who shall possess thee er thic hafa scal
below the Na-gates. fyr nagrindr nedan.

More plainly, it seems to me, Skirner in speaking to Gerd could not have expressed the negative quality of Rimgrimner in question. Thor also expresses himself clearly on the same subject when he meets the dwarf Alvis carrying home a maid over whom Thor has the right of marriage. Thor says scornfully that he thinks he discovers in Alvis something which reminds him of the nature of thurses, although Alvis is a dwarf and the thurses are giants, and he further defines wherein this similarity consists: _thursa lici thicci mér á ther vera; erat thu till brudar borinn_: "Thurs' likeness you seem to me to have; you were not born to have a bride." So far as the positive quality is concerned it is evident from the fact that Rimgrimner is the progenitor of the frost-giants.

Descended to Nifelhel, Gerd must not count on a shadow of friendship and sympathy from her kinsmen there. It would be best for her to confine herself in the solitary abode which there awaits her, for if she but looks out of the gate, staring gazes shall meet her from Rimner and all the others down there; and she shall there be looked upon with more hatred than Heimdal, the watchman of the gods, who is the wise, always vigilant foe of the rime-thurses and giants. But whether she is at home or abroad, demons and tormenting spirits shall never leave her in peace. She shall be bowed to the earth by _tramar_ (evil witches). _Morn_ (a Teutonic Eumenides, the agony of the soul personified) shall fill her with his being. The spirits of sickness--such also dwell there; they once took an oath not to harm Balder (Gylf., ch. 50)--shall increase her woe and the flood of her tears. Tope (insanity), Ope (hysteria), Tjausul and Othale (constant restlessness), shall not leave her in peace. These spirits are also counted as belonging to the race of thurses, and hence it is said in the rune-song that _thurs veldr kvenna kvillu_, "thurs causes sickness of women." In this connection it should be remembered that the daughter of Loke, the ruler of Nifelhel, is also the queen of diseases. Gerd's food shall be more loathsome to her than the poisonous serpent is to man, and her drink shall be the most disgusting. Miserable she shall crawl among the homes of the Hades giants, and up to a mountain top, where Are, a subterranean eagle-demon has his perch (doubtless the same Are which, according to Völuspa [47], is to join with his screeches in Rymer's shield-song, when the Midgard-serpent writhes in giant-rage, and the ship of death, Naglfar, gets loose). Up there she shall sit early in the morning, and constantly turn her face in the same direction--in the direction where Hel is situated, that is, south over Mt. Hvergelmer, toward the subterranean regions of bliss. Toward Hel she shall long to come in vain:

Ara thufo á
scaltu ár sitja
horfa ok snugga Heljar til.

"On Are's perch thou shalt early sit, turn toward Hel, and long to get to Hel."

By the phrase _snugga Heljar til_, the skald has meant something far more concrete than to "long for death." Gerd is here supposed to be dead, and within the Na-gates. To long for death, she does not need to crawl up to "Are's perch." She must subject herself to these nightly exertions, so that when it dawns in the foggy Nifelhel, she may get a glimpse of that land of bliss to which she may never come; she who rejected a higher happiness--that of being with the gods and possessing Frey's love.

I have been somewhat elaborate in the presentation of this description in Skirnersmal, which has not hitherto been understood. I have done so, because it is the only evidence left to us of how life was conceived in the forecourt of the regions of torture, Nifelhel, the land situated below Ygdrasil's northern root, beyond and below the mountain, where the root is watered by Hvergelmer. It is plain that the author of Skirnersmal, like that of Vafthrudnersmal, Grimnersmal, Vegtamskvida, and Thorsdrapa (as we have already seen), has used the word Hel in the sense of a place of bliss in the lower world. It is also evident that with the root under which the frost-giant dwells that one, referred to by Gylfaginning, can impossibly be meant under which Mimer's glorious fountain, and Mimer's grove, and all his treasures stored for a future world, are situated.

[9] With this name of the lower world compare Gudmund-Mimer's abode _á Grund_ (see No. 45), and _Helligrund_ (Heliand., 44, 22), and _neowla grund_ (Caedmon, 267, 1, 270, 16).

[10] Compare the phrase _iotna gaurthum i_ (str. 30, 3) with _til hrimthursa hallar_ (30, 4).

[11] With race of the Asa-god _áslidar_ there can hardly be meant others than the _ásmegir_ gathered in the lower world around Balder. This is the only place where the word _áslidar_ occurs.

61.

THE WORD HEL IN VÖLUSPA. WHO THE INHABITANTS OF HEL ARE.

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 Allvism., 10, according to 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.

Skelfr Yggdrasils Quakes Ygdrasil's
askr standandi, Ash standing,
ymr hid alldna tre The old tree trembles,
enn iotunn losnar; The giant gets loose;
hrædaz allir All are frightened
a Helvegum On the Helways (in Hel's regions)
adr Surtar thann ere Surt's spirit (or kinsman)
sevi of gleypir. swallows him (namely, the giant).

Surt's spirit, or kinsman (_sevi_, _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_ and their protegés 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 fourth line (_iotunn_). There are in the strophe only two masculine words to which the masculine _thann_ can be referred--_iotunn_ and _Yggdrasils askr_. _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 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 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 naïve 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 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.

THE WORD HEL IN ALLVISMAL. THE CLASSES OF BEINGS IN HEL.

In Allvismal occurs 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--

Himinn among men,
Lyrner among gods,
Vindofner among Vans,
Uppheim among giants.
Elves say Fager-tak (Fairy-roof),
dwarfs Drypsal (dropping-hall) (str. 12).

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 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 very name _upregin_ suggests that it refers to beings of a 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 Allvismal employs the word 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.

THE WORD HEL IN OTHER PASSAGES. THE RESULT OF THE INVESTIGATION
FOR THE COSMOGRAPHY AND FOR THE MEANING OF THE WORD HEL. HEL IN
A LOCAL SENSE THE KINGDOM OF DEATH, PARTICULARLY ITS REALMS OF
BLISS. HEL IN A PERSONAL SENSE IDENTICAL WITH THE GODDESS OF
FATE AND DEATH, THAT IS, URD.

While a terrible winter is raging, the gods, according to Forspjallsljod,[12] send messengers, with Heimdal as chief, down to a lower-world goddess (dis), who is 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 of vissi_, _ártith_, _æfi_, _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.

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), Fjöllsvinnsmal (str. 25), and Grimnersmal (str. 31).

Völuspa (str. 42), 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 Spivdag 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 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 naïvely 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 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 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. _Othhrærir skyldi Urthar geyma mættk 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:

Thrir rætr standa Three roots stand
a thria vega on three ways
undan asci Yggdrasils: below Ygdrasil's ash:
Hel byr und einni, Hel dwells under one,
annari hrimthursar, under another frost-giants,
thridio mennzkir menn. under a third human-"men."

The root under which the frost-giants dwell we already know as the root over Hvergelmer and the Nifelhel inhabited by frost-giants.

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.