Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

In the former a council is held and resolutions passed in such matters as pertain more particularly to the clan of the Asas and to their relation to other divine clans and other powers. When Balder is visited by ugly dreams, Valfather assembles the gods to hold counsel, and all the Asas assemble _á thingi_, and all the asynjes _á máli_ (Vegtamskv., 1; Balder's Dr., 4). In assemblies here the gods resolved to exact an oath from all things for Balder's safety, and to send a messenger to the lower world to get knowledge partly about Balder, partly about future events. On this thingstead efforts are made of reconciliation between the Asas and the Vans, after Gulveig had been slain in Odin's hall (Völuspa, 23, 24). Hither (á thing goda) comes Thor with the kettle captured from Hymer, and intended for the feasts of the gods (Hymerskv., 39); and here the Asas hold their last deliberations, when Ragnarok is at hand (Völuspa, 49: _Æsir 'ro a thingi_). No matters are mentioned as discussed in this thingstead in which any person is interested who does not dwell in Asgard, or which are not of such a nature that they have reference to how the gods themselves are to act under particular circumstances. That the thingstead where such questions are discussed must be situated in Asgard itself is a matter of convenience, and is suggested by the very nature of the case.

It follows that the gods assemble in the Asgard thingstead more for the purpose of discussing their own interests than for that of judging in the affairs of others. They also gather there to amuse themselves and to exercise themselves in arms (Gylfaginning, 50).

Of the other thingstead of the Asas, of the one in the lower world, it is on the other hand expressly stated that they go thither to sit in judgment, to act as judges; and there is no reason for taking this word _dæma_, when as here it means activity at a thingstead, in any other than its judicial and common sense.

What matters are settled there? We might take this to be the proper place for exercising Odin's privilege of choosing heroes to be slain by the sword, since this right is co-ordinate with that of the norns to determine life and dispense fate, whence it might seem that the domain of the authority of the gods and that of the norns here approached each other sufficiently to require deliberations and decisions in common. Still it is not on the thingstead at Urd's fountain that Odin elects persons for death by the sword. It is expressly stated that it is in his own home in Valhal that Odin exercises his right of electing (Grimnersmal, 8), and this right he holds so independently and so absolutely that he does not need to ask for the opinion of the norns. On the other hand, the gods have no authority to determine the life and death of the other mortals. This belongs exclusively to the norns. The norns elect for every other death but that by weapons, and their decision in this domain is never called a decision by the gods, but _norna domr, norna kvidr, freigdar ord, Dauda ord_.

If Asas and norns did have a common voice in deciding certain questions which _could_ be settled in Asgard, then it would not be in accordance with the high rank given to the Asas in mythology to have them go to the norns for the decision of such questions. On the contrary, the norns would have to come to them. Urd and her sisters are beings of high rank, but nevertheless they are of giant descent, like Mimer. The power they have is immense; and on a closer investigation we find how the mythology in more than one way has sought to maintain in the fancy of its believers the independence (at least apparent and well defined, within certain limits) of the gods--an independence united with the high rank which they have. It may have been for this very reason that the youngest of the dises of fate, Skuld, was selected as a valkyrie, and as a maid-servant both of Odin and of her sister Urd.

The questions in which the Asas are judges near Urd's fountain must be such as _cannot_ be settled in Asgard, as the lower world is their proper forum, where both the parties concerned and the witnesses are to be found. The questions are of great importance. This is evident already from the fact that the journey to the thingstead is a troublesome one for the gods, at least for Thor, who, to get thither, must wade across four rivers. Moreover, the questions are of such a character that they occur every day (Grimnersmal, 29, 31).

At this point of the investigation the results hitherto gained from the various premises unite themselves in the following manner:

The Asas _daily_ go to the thingstead near Urd's fountain. At the thingstead near Urd's fountain there _daily_ arrive hosts of the dead.

The task of the Asas near Urd's fountain is to judge in questions of which the lower world is the proper forum. When the dead arrive at Urd's fountain their final doom is not yet sealed. They have not yet been separated into the groups which are to be divided between Asgard, Hel, and Nifelhel.

The question now is, Can we conceive that the daily journey of the Asas to Urd's fountain and the daily arrival there of the dead have no connection with each other?--That the judgments daily pronounced by the Asas at this thingstead, and that the daily event in accordance with which the dead at this thingstead are divided between the realms of bliss and those of torture have nothing in common?

That these mythological facts should have no connection with each other is hard to conceive for anyone who, in doubtful questions, clings to that which is probable rather than to the opposite. The probability becomes a certainty by the following circumstances:

Of the kings Vanlande and Halfdan, Ynglingatal says that after death they met Odin. According to the common view presented in our mythological text-books, this should not have happened to either of them, since both of them died from disease. One of them was visited and fetched by that choking spirit of disease called _vitta vættr_, and in this way he was permitted "to meet Odin" (_kom a vit Vilja brodur_). The other was visited by _Hvedrungs mær_, the daughter of Loke, who "called him from this world to Odin's Thing."

Ok til things
thridja jöfri
Hvedrungs mær
or heimi baud.

_Thing-bod_ means a legal summons to appear at a Thing, at the seat of judgment. _Bjoda til things_ is to perform this legal summons. Here it is Hvedrung's kinswoman who comes with sickness and death and _thing-bod_ to King Halfdan, and summons him to appear before the judgment-seat of Odin. As, according to mythology, all the dead, and as, according to the mythological text-books, at least all those who have died from disease must go to Hel, then certainly King Halfdan, who died from disease, must descend to the lower world; and as there is a Thing at which Odin and the Asas daily sit in judgment, it must have been this to which Halfdan was summoned. Otherwise we would be obliged to assume that Hvedrung's kinswoman, Loke's daughter, is a messenger, not from the lower world and Urd, but from Asgard, although the strophe further on expressly states that she comes to Halfdan on account of "the doom of the norns;" and furthermore we would be obliged to assume that the king, who had died from sickness, after arriving in the lower world, did not present himself at Odin's court there, but continued his journey to Asgard, to appear at some of the accidental deliberations which are held at the thingstead there. The passage proves that at least those who have died from sickness have to appear at the court which is held by Odin in the lower world.

70.

THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (_continued_). SPEECH-RUNES ORDS TÍRR
NÁMÆLI.

In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) we read:

Málrunar skaltu kunna,
vilt-ar magni ther
heiptom gjaldi harm;
thær um vindr,
thær um vefr,
thær um setr allar saman
a thvi thingi,
er thjothir scolo
i fulla doma fara.

"Speech-runes you must know, if you do not wish that the strong one with consuming woe shall requite you for the injury you have caused. All those runes you must wind, weave, and place together in that Thing where the host of people go into the full judgments."

In order to make the significance of this passage clear, it is necessary to explain the meaning of speech-runes or mal-runes.

Several kinds of runes are mentioned in Sigrdrifumal, all of a magic and wonderful kind. Among them are mal-runes (speech-runes). They have their name from the fact that they are able to restore to a tongue mute or silenced in death the power to _mæla_ (speak). Odin employs mal-runes when he rists _i runom_, so that a corpse from the gallows comes and _mælir_ with him (Havam., 157). According to Saxo (i. 38), Hadding places a piece of wood risted with runes under the tongue of a dead man. The latter then recovers consciousness and the power of speech, and sings a terrible song. This is a reference to mal-runes. In Gudrunarkvida (i.) it is mentioned how Gudrun, mute and almost lifeless (_hon gordiz at deyja_), sat near Sigurd's dead body. One of the kinswomen present lifts the napkin off from Sigurd's head. By the sight of the features of the loved one Gudrun awakens again to life, bursts into tears, and is able to speak. The evil Brynhild then curses the being (_vettr_) which "gave mal-runes to Gudrun," that is to say, freed her tongue, until then sealed as in death.

Those who are able to apply these mighty runes are very few. Odin boasts that he knows them. Sigrdrifva, who also is skilled in them, is a dis, not a daughter of man. The runes which Hadding applied were risted by Hardgrep, a giantess who protected him. But within the court here in question men come in great numbers (_thjódir_), and among them there must be but a small number who have penetrated so deeply into the secret knowledge of runes. For those who have done so it is of importance and advantage. For by them they are able to defend themselves against complaints, the purpose of which is "to requite with consuming woe the harm they have done." In the court they are able to _mæla_ (speak) in their own defence.

Thus it follows that those hosts of people who enter this thingstead stand there with speechless tongues. They are and remain mute before their judges unless they know the mal-runes which are able to loosen the fetters of their tongues. Of the dead man's tongue it is said in Solarljod (44) that it is _til trés metin ok kolnat alt fyr utan_.

The sorrow or harm one has caused is requited in this Thing by _heiptir_, unless the accused is able--thanks to the mal-runes--to speak and give reasons in his defence. In Havamál (151) the word _heiptir_ has the meaning of something supernatural and magical. It has a similar meaning here, as Vigfusson has already pointed out. The magical mal-runes, wound, woven, and placed together, form as it were a garb of protection around the defendant against the magic _heiptir_. In the Havamál strophe mentioned the skald makes Odin paraphrase, or at least partly explain, the word _heiptir_ with _mein_, which "eat" their victims. It is in the nature of the myth to regard such forces as personal beings. We have already seen the spirits of disease appear in this manner (see No. 60). The _heiptir_ were also personified. They were the Erinnyes of the Teutonic mythology, armed with scourges of thorns (see below).

He who at the Thing particularly dispenses the law of requital is called _magni_. The word has a double meaning, which appears in the verb _magna_, which means both to make strong and to operate with supernatural means.

From all this it must be sufficiently plain that the Thing here referred to is not the Althing in Iceland or the Gulathing in Norway, or any other Thing held on the surface of the earth. The thingstead here discussed must be situated in one of the mythical realms, between which the earth was established. And it must be superhuman beings of higher or lower rank who there occupy the judgment-seats and requite the sins of men with _heiptir_. But in Asgard men do not enter with their tongues sealed in death. For the einherjes who are invited to the joys of Valhal there are no _heiptir_ prepared. Inasmuch as the mythology gives us information about only two thingsteads where superhuman beings deliberate and judge--namely, the Thing in Asgard and the Thing near Urd's fountain--and inasmuch as it is, in fact, only in the latter that the gods act as judges, we are driven by all the evidences to the conclusion that Sigrdrifumal has described to us that very thingstead at which Hvedrung's kinswoman summoned King Halfdan to appear after death.

Sigrdrifumal, using the expression _á thvi_, sharply distinguished this thingstead or court from all others. The poem declares that it means _that_ Thing where hosts of people go into _full_ judgments. "Full" are those judgments against which no formal or real protests can be made--decisions which are irrevocably valid. The only kind of judgments of which the mythology speaks in this manner, that is, characterises as judgments that "never die," are those "over each one dead."

This brings us to the well-known and frequently-quoted strophes in Havamál:

Str. 76.

Deyr fæ,
deyja frændr,
deyr sialfr it sama;
enn orztirr
deyr aldregi
hveim er ser godan getr.

Str. 77.

Deyr fæ,
deyja frændr,
deyr sialfr it sama;
ec veit einn
at aldri deyr:
domr um daudan hvern.

(76) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; but the fair fame of him who has earned it never dies."

(77) "Your cattle shall die; your kindred shall die; you yourself shall die; one thing I know which never dies: the judgment on each one dead."

Hitherto these passages have been interpreted as if Odin or Havamál's skald meant to say--What you have of earthly possessions is perishable; your kindred and yourself shall die. But I know one thing that never dies: the reputation you acquired among men, the posthumous fame pronounced on your character and on your deeds: that reputation is immortal, that fame is imperishable.

But can this have been the meaning intended to be conveyed by the skald? And could these strophes, which, as it seems, were widely known in the heathendom of the North, have been thus understood by their hearers and readers? Did not Havamál's author, and the many who listened to and treasured in their memories these words of his, know as well as all other persons who have some age and experience, that in the great majority of cases the fame acquired by a person scarcely survives a generation, and passes away together with the very memory of the deceased?

Could it have escaped the attention of the Havamál skald and his hearers that the number of mortals is so large and increases so immensely with the lapse of centuries that the capacity of the survivors to remember them is utterly insufficient?

Was it not a well-established fact, especially among the Germans, before they got a written literature, that the skaldic art waged, so to speak, a desperate conflict with the power of oblivion, in order to rescue at least the names of the most distinguished heroes and kings, but that nevertheless thousands of chiefs and warriors were after the lapse of a few generations entirely forgotten?

Did not Havamál's author know that millions of men have, in the course of thousands of years, left this world without leaving so deep footprints in the sands of time that they could last even through one generation?

Every person of some age and experience has known this, and Havamál's author too. The lofty strains above quoted do not seem to be written by a person wholly destitute of worldly experience.

The assumption that Havamál with that judgment on each one dead, which is said to be imperishable, had reference to the opinion of the survivors in regard to the deceased attains its climax of absurdity when we consider that the poem expressly states that it means the judgment on _every_ dead person--"_domr um daudan hvern_." In the cottage lying far, far in the deep forest dies a child, hardly known by others than by its parents, who, too, are soon to be harvested by death. But the judgment of the survivors in regard to this child's character and deeds is to be imperishable, and the good fame it acquired during its brief life is to live for ever on the lips of posterity! Perhaps it is the sense of the absurdity to which the current assumption leads on this point that has induced some of the translators to conceal the word _hvern_ (every) and led them to translate the words _domr um daudan hvern_ in an arbitrary manner with "judgment on the dead man."

If we now add that the judgment of posterity on one deceased, particularly if he was a person of great influence, very seldom is so unanimous, reliable, well-considered, and free from prejudice that in these respects it ought to be entitled to permanent validity, then we find that the words of the Havamál strophes attributed to Odin's lips, when interpreted as hitherto, are not words of wisdom, but the most stupid twaddle ever heard declaimed in a solemn manner.

There are two reasons for the misunderstanding--the one is formal, and is found in the word _ords-tirr_ (str. 76); the other reason is that Gylfaginning, which too long has had the reputation of being a reliable and exhaustive codification of the scattered statements of the mythic sources, has nothing to say about a court for the dead. It knows that, according to the doctrine of the heathen fathers, good people come to regions of bliss, the wicked to Nifelhel; but who he or they were who determined how far a dead person was worthy of the one fate or the other, on this point Gylfaginning has not a word to say. From the silence of this authority, the conclusion has been drawn that a court summoning the dead within its forum was not to be found in Teutonic mythology, although other Aryan and non-Aryan mythologies have presented such a judgment-seat, and that the Teutonic fancy, though always much occupied with the affairs of the lower world and with the conditions of the dead in the various realms of death, never felt the necessity of conceiving for itself clear and concrete ideas of how and through whom the deceased were determined for bliss or misery. The ecclesiastical conception, which postpones the judgment to the last day of time and permits the souls of the dead to be transferred, without any special act of judgment, to heaven, to purgatory, or to hell, has to some extent contributed to making us familiar with this idea which was foreign to the heathens. From this it followed that scholars have been blind to the passages in our mythical records which speak of a court in the lower world, and they have either read them without sufficient attention (as, for instance, the above-quoted statements of Ynglingatal, which it is impossible to harmonise with the current conception), or interpreted them in an utterly absurd manner (which is the case with Sigrdrifumal, str. 12), or they have interpolated assumptions, which, on a closer inspection, are reduced to nonsense (as is the case with the Havamál strophes), or given them a possible, but improbable, interpretation (thus Sonatorrek, 19). The compound _ordstirr_ is composed of _ord_, _gen_, _ords_, and _tirr_. The composition is of so loose a character that the two parts are not blended into a _new_ word. The sign of the gen. _-s_ is retained, and shows that _ordstirr_, like _lofstirr_, is not in its sense and in its origin a compound, but is written as one word, probably on account of the laws of accentuation. The more original meaning of _ordstirr_ is, therefore, to be found in the sense of _ords tirr_.

_Tirr_ means reputation in a good sense, but still not in a sense so decidedly good but that a qualifying word, which makes the good meaning absolute, is sometimes added. Thus in _lofs-tirr_, laudatory reputation; _gódr tirr_, good reputation. In the Havamál strophe 76, above-quoted, the possibility of an _ords tirr_ which is not good is presupposed. See the last line of the strophe.

So far as the meaning of _ord_ is concerned, we must leave its relatively more modern and grammatical sense (word) entirely out of the question. Its older signification is an utterance (one which may consist of many "words" in a grammatical sense), a command, a result, a judgment; and these older significations have long had a conscious existence in the language. Compare Fornmanna, ii. 237: "The first word: All shall be Christians; the second word: All heathen temples and idols shall be unholy," &c.

In Völuspa (str. 27) _ord_ is employed in the sense of an established law or judgment among the divine powers, _a gengoz eidar, ord oc særi_, where the treaties between the Asas and gods, solemnised by oaths, were broken.

When _ord_ occurs in purely mythical sources, it is most frequently connected with judgments pronounced in the lower world, and sent from Urd's fountain to their destination. _Urdar ord_ is Urd's judgment, which must come to pass (Fjölsvinnsm., str. 48), no matter whether it concerns life or death. _Feigdar ord_, a judgment determining death, comes to Fjolner, and is fulfilled "where Frode dwelt" (Yng.-tal, Heimskr., 14). _Dauda ord_, the judgment of death, awaited Dag the Wise, when he came to Vorva (Yng.-tal, Heimskr., 21). To a subterranean judgment refers also the expression _bana-ord_, which frequently occurs.

Vigfusson (Dict., 466) points out the possibility of an etymological connection between _ord_ and _Urdr_. He compares _word_ (_ord_) and _wurdr_ (_urdr_), _word_ and _weird_ (fate, goddess of fate). Doubtless there was, in the most ancient time, a mythical idea-association between them.

These circumstances are to be remembered in connection with the interpretation of _ordstirr_, _ords-tirr_ in Havamál, 76. The real meaning of the phrase to be; reputation based on a decision, on an utterance of authority.

When _ordstirr_ had blended into a compound word, there arose by the side of its literal meaning another, in which the accent fell so heavily on _tirr_ that _ord_ is superfluous and gives no additional meaning of a judgment on which this _tirr_ is based. Already in Hofudlausn (str. 26) _ordstirr_ is used as a compound, meaning simply honourable reputation, honour. There is mention of a victory which Erik Blood-axe won, and it is said that he thereby gained _ordstirr_ (renown).

In interpreting Havamál (76) it would therefore seem that we must choose between the proper and figurative sense of _ordstirr_. The age of the Havamál strophe is not known. If it was from it Eyvind Skaldaspiller drew his _deyr fé, deyja frændr_, which he incorporated in his drapa on Hakon the Good, who died in 960, then the Havamál strophe could not be composed later than the middle of the tenth century. Hofudlausn was composed by Egil Skallagrimson in the year 936 or thereabout. From a chronological point of view there is therefore nothing to hinder our applying the less strict sense, "honourable reputation, honour," to the passage in question.

But there are other hindrances. If the Havamál skald with _ords-tirr_ meant "honourable reputation, honour," he could not, as he has done, have added the condition which he makes in the last line of the strophe: _hveim er ser godan getr_, for the idea "good" would then already be contained in ordstirr. If in spite of this we would take the less strict sense, we must subtract from _ordstirr_ the meaning of _honourable_ reputation, _honour_, and conceive the expression to mean simply reputation in general, a meaning which the word never had.

We are therefore forced to the conclusion that the meaning of court-decision, judgment, which _ord_ has not only in Ynglingatal and Fjölsvinnsmal, but also in linguistic usage, was clear to the author of the Havamál strophe, and that he applied _ords tirr_ in its original sense and was speaking of imperishable judgments.

It should also have been regarded as a matter of course that the judgment which, according to the Havamál strophe (77), is passed on everyone dead, and which itself never dies, must have been prepared by a court whose decision could not be questioned or set aside, and that the judgment must have been one whose influence is eternal, for the infinity of the judgment itself can only depend on the infinity of its operation. That the more or less vague opinions sooner or later committed to oblivion in regard to a deceased person should be supposed to contain such a judgment, and to have been meant by the immortal doom over the dead, I venture to include among the most extraordinary interpretations ever produced.

Both the strophes are, as is evident from the first glance, most intimately connected with each other. Both begin: _deyr fæ, deyja frændr_. _Ord_ in the one strophe corresponds to _domr_ in the other. The latter strophe declares that the judgment on _every_ dead person is imperishable, and thus completes the more limited statement of the foregoing strophe, that the judgment which gives a good renown is everlasting. The former strophe speaks of only _one_ category of men who have been subjected to an ever-valid judgment, namely of that category to whose honour the eternal judgment is pronounced. The second strophe speaks of both the categories, and assures us that the judgment on the one as on the other category is everlasting.

The strophes are by the skald attributed to Odin's lips. Odin pronounces judgment every day near Urd's fountain at the court to which King Halfdan was summoned, and where hosts of people with fettered tongues await their final destiny (see above.) The assurances in regard to the validity of the judgment on everyone dead are thus given by a being who really may be said to know what he talks about (_ec veit_, &c.), namely, by the judge himself.

In the poem Sonatorrek the old Egil Skallagrimson laments the loss of sons and kindred, and his thoughts are occupied with the fate of his children after death. When he speaks of his son Gunnar, who in his tender years was snatched away by a sickness, he says (str. 19):

Son minn
sóttar brimi
heiptuligr
ór heimi nam,
thann ec veit
at varnadi
vamma varr
vid námæli.

"A fatal fire of disease (fever?) snatched from this world a son of mine, of whom I know that he, careful as he was in regard to sinful deeds, took care of himself for _námæli_."

To understand this strophe correctly, we must know that the skald in the preceding 17th, as in the succeeding 20th, strophe, speaks of Gunnar's fate in the lower world.

The word _námæli_ occurs nowhere else, and its meaning is not known. It is of importance to our subject to find it out.

In those compounds of which the first part is _ná-_, _ná_ may be the adverbial prefix, which means _near by_, _by the side of_, or it may be the substantive _nár_, which means a corpse, dead body, and in a mythical sense one damned, one who dies for the second time and comes to Nifelhel (see No. 60). The question is now, to begin with, whether it is the adverbial prefix or the substantive _ná-_ which we have in _námæli_.

Compounds which have the adverbial _ná_ as the first part of the word are very common. In all of them the prefix _ná-_ implies nearness in space or in kinship, or it has the signification of some thing correct or exact.

(1) In regard to space: _nábúd_, _nábúi_, _nábýli_, _nágranna_, _nágranni_, _nágrennd_, _nágrenni_, _nákommin_, _nákvæma_, _nákvæmd_, _nákvæmr_, _náleid_, _nálægd_, _nálægjast_, _nálægr_, _námunda_, _násessi_, _náseta_, _násettr_, _násæti_, _návera_, _náverukona_, _náverandi_, _návist_, _návistarkona_, _návistarmadr_, _návistarvitni_.

(2) In regard to friendship: _náborinn_, _náfrændi_, _náfrændkona_, _námagr_, _náskyldr_, _nástædr_, _náongr_.

(3) In regard to correctness, exactness: _nákvæmi_, _nákvæmliga_, _nákvæmr_.

The idea of correctness comes from the combination of _ná-_ and _kvæmi_, _kvæmliga_, _kvæmr_. The exact meaning is--_that which comes near to_, and which in that sense is precise, exact, to the point.

These three cases exhaust the meanings of the adverbial prefix _ná_-. I should consider it perilous, and as the abandoning of solid ground under the feet, if we, without evidence from the language tried, as has been done, to give it another hitherto unknown signification.

But none of these meanings can be applied to _námæli_. In analogy with the words under (1) it can indeed mean "An oration held near by;" but this signification produces no sense in the above passage, the only place where it is found.

In another group of words the prefix _ná_-is the noun _nár_. Here belong _nábjargir_, _nábleikr_, _nágrindr_, _nágöll_, _náreid_, _nástrandir_, and other words.

_Mæli_ means a declamation, an oration, an utterance, a reading, or the proclamation of a law. _Mæla_, _mælandi_, _formælandi_, _formæli_, _nymæli_, are used in legal language. _Formælandi_ is a defendant in court. _Formæli_ is his speech or plea. _Nymæli_ is a law read or published for the first time.

_Mæli_ can take either a substantive or adjective as prefix. Examples: _Gudmæli_, _fullmæli_. _Ná_ from _nár_ can be used as a prefix both to a noun and to an adjective. Examples: _nágrindr_, _nábleikr_.

_Námæli_ should accordingly be an oration, a declaration, a proclamation, in regard to _nár_. From the context we find that _námæli_ is something dangerous, something to look out for. Gunnar is dead and is gone to the lower world, which contains not only happiness but also terrors; but his aged father, who in another strophe of the poem gives to understand that he had adhered faithfully to the religious doctrines of his fathers, is convinced that his son has avoided the dangers implied in _námæli_, as he had no sinful deed to blame himself for. In the following strophe (20) he expressed his confidence that the deceased had been adopted by _Gauta spjalli_, a friend of Odin in the lower world, and had landed in the realm of happiness. (In regard to _Gauta spjalli_ see further on. The expression is applicable both to Mimer and Honer).

_Námæli_ must, therefore, mean a declaration (1) that is dangerous; (2) which does not affect a person who has lived a blameless life; (3) which refers to the dead and affects those who have not been _vamma varir_, on the look-out against blameworthy and criminal deeds.

The passage furnishes additional evidence that the dead in the lower world make their appearance in order to be judged, and it enriches our knowledge of the mythological eschatology with a technical term (_námæli_) for that judgment which sends sinners to travel through the Na-gates to Nifelhel. The opposite of _námæli_ is _ords tirr_, that judgment which gives the dead fair renown, and both kinds of judgments are embraced in the phrase _domr um daudan_. _Námæli_ is a proclamation for _náir_, just as _nágrindr_ are gates and _nástrandir_ are strands for _náir_.

71.

THE DOOM OF THE DEAD (_continued_). THE LOOKS OF THE
THINGSTEAD. THE DUTY OF TAKING CARE OF THE ASHES OF THE DEAD.
THE HAMINGJE AT THE JUDGMENT. SINS OF WEAKNESS. SINS UNTO DEATH.

Those hosts which are conducted by their psychopomps to the Thing near Urd's fountain proceed noiselessly. It is a silent journey. The bridge over _Gjöll_ scarcely resounds under the feet of the death-horses and of the dead (Gylfaginning). The tongues of the shades are sealed (see No. 70).

This thingstead has, like all others, had its judgment-seats. Here are seats (in Völuspa called _rökstólar_) for the holy powers acting as judges. There is also a rostrum (_á thularstóli at Urdar brunni_--Havam., 111) and benches or chairs for the dead (compare the phrase, _falla á Helpalla_--Fornald., i. 397, and the sitting of the dead one, _á nornastóli_--Solarlj., 51). Silent they must receive their doom unless they possess mal-runes (see No. 70).

The dead should come well clad and ornamented. Warriors bring their weapons of attack and defence. The women and children bring ornaments that they were fond of in life. Hades-pictures of those things which kinsmen and friends placed in the grave-mounds accompany the dead (Hakonarm., 17; Gylfaginning, 52) as evidence to the judge that they enjoyed the devotion and respect of their survivors. The appearance presented by the shades assembled in the Thing indicates to what extent the survivors heed the law, which commands respect for the dead and care for the ashes of the departed.

Many die under circumstances which make it impossible for their kinsmen to observe these duties. Then strangers should take the place of kindred. The condition in which these shades come to the Thing shows best whether piety prevails in Midgard; for noble minds take to heart the advices found as follows in Sigrdrifumal, 33, 34: "Render the last service to the corpses you find on the ground, whether from sickness they have died, or are drowned, or are from weapons dead. Make a bath for those who are dead, wash their hands and their head, comb them and wipe them dry, ere in the coffin you lay them, and pray for their happy sleep."

It was, however, not necessary to wipe the blood off from the byrnie of one fallen by the sword. It was not improper for the elect to make their entrance in Valhal in a bloody coat of mail. Eyvind Skaldaspiller makes King Hakon come all stained with blood (_allr i dreyra drifinn_) into the presence of Odin.

When the gods have arrived from Asgard, dismounted from their horses (Gylfag.) and taken their judges' seats, the proceedings begin, for the dead are then in their places, and we may be sure that their psychopomps have not been slow on their Thing-journey. Somewhere on the way the Hel-shoes must have been tried; those who ride to Valhal must then have been obliged to dismount. The popular tradition first pointed out by Walter Scott and J. Grimm about the need of such shoes for the dead and about a thorn-grown heath, which they have to cross, is not of Christian but of heathen origin. Those who have shown mercy to fellowmen that in this life, in a figurative sense, had to travel thorny paths, do not need to fear torn shoes and bloody feet (W. Scott, _Minstrelsy_, ii.); and when they are seated on Urd's benches, their very shoes are, by their condition, a conspicuous proof in the eyes of the court that they who have exercised mercy are worthy of mercy.

The Norse tradition preserved in Gisle Surson's saga in regard to the importance for the dead to be provided with shoes reappears as a popular tradition, first in England, and then several places (Müllenhoff, _Deutsche Alt._, v. 1, 114; J. Grimm., _Myth._, iii. 697; nachtr., 349; Weinhold, _Altn. Leb._, 494; Mannhardt in _zeitschr. f. deutsch. Myth._, iv. 420; Simrock, _Myth._, v. 127). _Visio Godeschalci_ describes a journey which the pious Holstein peasant Godeskalk, belonging to the generation immediately preceding that which by Vicelin was converted to Christianity, believed he had made in the lower world. There is mentioned an immensely large and beautiful linden-tree hanging full of shoes, which were handed down to such dead travellers as had exercised mercy during their lives. When the dead had passed this tree they had to cross a heath two miles wide, thickly grown with thorns, and then they came to a river full of irons with sharp edges. The unjust had to wade through this river, and suffered immensely. They were cut and mangled in every limb; but when they reached the other strand, their bodies were the same as they had been when they began crossing the river. Compare with this statement Solarljod, 42, where the dying skald hears the roaring of subterranean streams mixed with much blood--_Gylfar straumar grenjudu, blandnir mjök ved blód_. The just are able to cross the river by putting their feet on boards a foot wide and fourteen feet long, which floated on the water. This is the first day's journey. On the second day they come to a point where the road forked into three ways--one to heaven, one to hell, and one between these realms (compare Müllenhoff, _D. Alt._, v. 113, 114). These are all mythic traditions, but little corrupted by time and change of religion. That in the lower world itself Hel-shoes were to be had for those who were not supplied with them, but still deserved them, is probably a genuine mythological idea.

Proofs and witnesses are necessary before the above-named tribunal, for Odin is far from omniscient. He is not even the one who knows the most among the beings of mythology. Urd and Mimer know more than he. With judges on the one hand who, in spite of all their loftiness, and with all their superhuman keenness, nevertheless are not infallible, and with defendants on the other hand whose tongues refuse to serve them, it might happen, if there were no proofs and witnesses, that a judgment, everlasting in its operations, not founded on exhaustive knowledge and on well-considered premises, might be proclaimed. But the judgment on human souls proclaimed by their final irrevocable fate could not in the sight of the pious and believing bear the stamp of uncertain justice. There must be no doubt that the judicial proceedings in the court of death were so managed that the wisdom and justice of the _dicta_ were raised high above every suspicion of being mistaken.

The heathen fancy shrank from the idea of a knowledge able of itself to embrace all, the greatest and the least, that which has been, is doing, and shall be in the world of thoughts, purposes, and deeds. It hesitated at all events to endow its gods made in the image of man with omniscience. It was easier to conceive a divine insight which was secured by a net of messengers and spies stretched throughout the world. Such a net was cast over the human race by Urd, and it is doubtless for this reason that the subterranean Thing of the gods was located near her fountain and not near Mimer's. Urd has given to every human soul, already before the hour of birth, a maid-servant, a hamingje, a norn of lower rank, to watch over and protect its earthly life. And so there was a wide-spread organization of watching and protecting spirits, each one of whom knew the motives and deeds of a special individual. As such an organisation was at the service of the court, there was no danger that the judgment over each one dead would not be as just as it was unappealable and everlasting.

The hamingje hears of it before anyone else when her mistress has announced _dauda ord_--the doom of death, against her favourite. She (and the _gipte, heille_, see No. 64) leaves him then. She is _horfin_, gone, which can be perceived in dreams (Balder's Dream, 4) or by revelations in other ways, and this is an unmistakable sign of death. But if the death-doomed person is not a nithing, whom she in sorrow and wrath has left, then she by no means abandons him. They are like members of the same body, which can only be separated by mortal sins (see below). The hamingje goes to the lower world, the home of her nativity (see No. 64), to prepare an abode there for her favourite, which also is to belong to her (Gisle Surson's saga.) It is as if a spiritual marriage was entered into between her and the human soul.

But on the dictum of the court of death it depends where the dead person is to find his haven. The judgment, although not pronounced on the hamingje, touches her most closely. When the most important of all questions, that of eternal happiness or unhappiness, is to be determined in regard to her favourite, she must be there where her duty and inclination bid her be--with him whose guardian-spirit she is. The great question for her is whether she is to continue to share his fate or not. During his earthly life she has always defended him. It is of paramount importance that she should do so now. His lips are sealed, but she is able to speak, and is his other ego. And she is not only a witness friendly to him, but, from the standpoint of the court, she is a more reliable one than he would be himself.

In Atlamal (str. 28) there occurs a phrase which has its origin in heathendom, where it has been employed in a clearer and more limited sense than in the Christian poem. The phrase is _ec qued aflima ordnar ther disir_, and it means, as Atlamal uses it, that he to whom the dises (the hamingje and gipte) have become _aflima_ is destined, in spite of all warnings, to go to his ruin. In its very nature the phrase suggests that there can occur between the hamingje and the human soul another separation than the accidental and transient one which is expressed by saying that the hamingje is _horfin_. _Aflima_ means "amputated," separated by a sharp instrument from the body of which one has been a member. The person from whom his dises have been cut off has no longer any close relation with them. He is for ever separated from them, and his fate is no longer theirs. Hence there are persons doomed to die and persons dead who do not have hamingjes by them. They are those whom the hamingjes in sorrow and wrath have abandoned, and with whom they are unable to dwell in the lower world, as they are nithings and are awaited in Nifelhel.

The fact that a dead man sat _á nornastóli_ or _á Helpalli_ without having a hamingje to defend him doubtless was regarded by the gods as a conclusive proof that he had been a criminal.

If we may judge from a heathen expression preserved in strophe 16 of Atlakvida, and there used in an arbitrary manner, then the hamingjes who were "cut off" from their unworthy favourite continue to feel sorrow and sympathy for them to the last. The expression is _nornir gráta nái_, "the norns (hamingjes) bewail the _náir_." If the _námæli_, the na-dictum, the sentence to Nifelhel which turns dead criminals into _náir_, in the eschatological sense of the word, has been announced, the judgment is attended with tears on the part of the former guardian-spirits of the convicts. This corresponds, at all events, with the character of the hamingjes.

Those fallen on the battlefield are not brought to the fountain of Urd while the Thing is in session. This follows from the fact that Odin is in Valhal when they ride across Bifrost, and sends Asas or einherjes to meet them with the goblet of mead at Asgard's gate (Eiriksm., Hakonarmal). But on the way there has been a separation of the good and bad elements among them. Those who have no hamingjes must, _á nornastóli_, wait for the next Thing-day and their judgment. The Christian age well remembered that brave warriors who had committed nithing acts did not come to Valhal (see Hakon Jarl's word in Njála). The heathen records confirm that men slain by the sword who had lived a wicked life were sent to the world of torture (see Harald Harfager's saga, ch. 27--the verses about the viking Thorer Wood-beard, who fell in a naval battle with Einar Ragnvaldson, and who had been scourge to the Orkneyings).

The high court must have judged very leniently in regard to certain human faults and frailties. Sitting long by and looking diligently into the drinking-horn certainly did not lead to any punishment worth mentioning. The same was the case with fondness for female beauty, if care was taken not to meddle with the sacred ties of matrimony. With a pleasing frankness, and with much humour, the Asa-father has told to the children of men adventures which he himself has had in that line. He warns against too much drinking, but admits without reservation and hypocrisy that he himself once was drunk, nay, very drunk, at Fjalar's and what he had to suffer, on account of his uncontrollable longing for Billing's maid, should be to men a hint not to judge each other too severely in such matters (see Havamál.) All the less he will do so as judge. Those who are summoned to the Thing and against whom there are no other charges, may surely count on a good _ords tirr_, if they in other respects have conducted themselves in accordance with the wishes of Odin and his associate judges: if they have lived lives free from deceit, honourable, helpful, and without fear of death. This, in connection with respect for the gods, for the temples, for their duties to kindred and to the dead, is the alpha and the omega of the heathen Teutonic moral code, and the sure way to Hel's regions of bliss and to Valhal. He who has observed these virtues may, as the old skald sings of himself, "glad, with serenity and without discouragement, wait for Hel."

Skal ek thó gladr
med godan vilja
ok úhryggr
Heljar bida (Sonatorrek, 24).

If the judgment on the dead is lenient in these respects, it is inexorably severe in other matters. Lies uttered to injure others, perjury, murder (secret murder, assassination, not justified as blood-revenge), adultery, the profaning of temples, the opening of grave-mounds, treason, cannot escape their awful punishment. Unutterable terrors await those who are guilty of these sins. Those psychopomps that belong to Nifelhel await the adjournment of the Thing in order to take them to the world of torture, and Urd has chains (_Heljar reip_--Solarljod, 27; _Des Todes Seil_--J. Grimm, _D. Myth._, 805) which make every escape impossible.

72.

THE HADES-DRINK.

Before the dead leave the thingstead near Urd's fountain, something which obliterated the marks of earthly death has happened to those who are judged happy. Pale, cold, mute, and with the marks of the spirits of disease, they left Midgard and started on the Hel-way. They leave the death-Thing full of the warmth of life, with health, with speech, and more robust than they were on earth. The shades have become corporal. When those slain by the sword ride over the Gjoll to Urd's fountain, scarcely a sound is heard under the hoofs of their horses; when they ride away from the fountain over Bifrost, the bridge resounds under the trampling horses. The sagas of the middle ages have preserved, but at the same time demonised, the memory of how Hel's inhabitants were endowed with more than human strength (Gretla, 134, and several other passages).

The life of bliss presupposes health, but also forgetfulness of the earthly sorrows and cares. The heroic poems and the sagas of the middle ages have known that there was a Hades-potion which brings freedom from sorrow and care, without obliterating dear memories or making one forget that which can be remembered without longing or worrying. In the mythology this drink was, as shall be shown, one that produced at the same time vigour of life and the forgetfulness of sorrows.

In Saxo, and in the heroic poems of the Elder Edda, which belong to the Gjukung group of songs, there reappear many mythical details, though they are sometimes taken out of their true connection and put in a light which does not originally belong to them. Among the mythical reminiscences is the Hades-potion.

In his account of King Gorm's and Thorkil's journey to the lower world, Saxo (see No 46) makes Thorkil warn his travelling companions from tasting the drinks offered them by the prince of the lower world, for the reason that they produce forgetfulness, and make one desire to remain in Gudmund's realm (_Hist., Dan._, i. 424--_amissa memoria ... pocalis abstinendum edocuit_).

The Gudrun song (ii. 21) places the drinking-horn of the lower world in Grimhild's hands. In connection with later additions, the description of this horn and its contents contains purely mythical and very instructive details in regard to the _pharmakon nepenthes_ of the Teutonic lower world.

Str. 21.

Færdi mer Grimildr
full at drecka
svalt oc sarlict,
ne ec sacar mundac;
thar var um aukit
Urdar magni,
svalcauldom sæ
oc Sonar dreyra.

Str. 22.

Voro i horni
hverskyns stafir
ristnir oc rodnir
ratha ec ne mattac,
lyngfiscr langr
lands Haddingja,
ax oscorit,
innleid dyra.

"Grimhild handed me in a filled horn to drink a cool, bitter drink, in order that I might forget my past afflictions. This drink was prepared from _Urd's strength, cool-cold sea, and the liquor of Son_."

"On the horn were all kinds of staves engraved and painted, which I could not interpret: _the Hadding-land's long heath-fish, unharvested ears of grain, and animals' entrances_."

The Hadding-land is, as Sv. Egilsson has already pointed out, a paraphrase of the lower world. The paraphrase is based on the mythic account known and mentioned by Saxo in regard to Hadding's journey in Hel's realm (see No. 47).

Heath-fish is a paraphrase of the usual sort for serpent, dragon. Hence a lower-world dragon was engraved on the horn. More than one of the kind has been mentioned already: Nidhog, who has his abode in Nifelhel, and the dragon, which, according to Erik Vidforle's saga, obstructs the way to Odain's-acre. The dragon engraved on the horn is that of the Hadding-land. Hadding-land, on the other hand, does not mean the whole lower world, but the regions of bliss visited by Hadding. Thus the dragon is such an one as Erik Vidforle's saga had in mind. That the author did not himself invent his dragon, but found it in mythic records extant at the time, is demonstrated by Solarljod (54), where it is said that immense subterranean dragons come flying from the west--the opposite direction of that the shades have to take when they descend into the lower world--and obstruct "the street of the prince of splendour" (_glævalds götu_). The ruler of splendour is Mimer, the prince of the Glittering Fields (see Nos. 45-51).

The Hadding-land's "unharvested ears of grain" belong to the flora inaccessible to the devastations of frost, the flowers seen by Hadding in the blooming meadows of the world below (see No. 47). The expression refers to the fact that the Hadding-land has not only imperishable flowers and fruits, but also fields of grain which do not require harvesting. Compare herewith what Völuspa says about the Odain's-acre which in the regeneration of the earth rises from the lap of the sea: "unsown the fields yield the grain."

Beside the heath-fish and the unharvested ears of grain, there were also seen on the Hadding-land horn _dyrainnleid_. Some interpreters assume that "animals entrails" are meant by this expression; others have translated it with "animal gaps." There is no authority that _innleid_ ever meant entrails, nor could it be so used in a rhetorical-poetical sense, except by a very poor poet. Where we meet with the word it means a way, a way in, in contrast with _útleid_, a way out. As both Gorms saga and that of Erik Vidforle use it in regard to animals watching entrances in the lower world, this gives the expression its natural interpretation.

So much for the staves risted on the horn. They all refer to the lower world. Now as to the drink which is mixed in this Hades-horn. It consists of three liquids:

Urdar Magn, Urd's strength,
svalkaldr sær, cool-cold sea,
Sonar dreyri. Son's liquid.

Son has already been mentioned above (No. 21) as one of the names of Mimer's fountain, the well of creative power and of poetry. Of Son Eilif Gudrunson sings that it is enwreathed by bulrushes and is surrounded by a border of meadow on which grows the seed of poetry.

As Urd's strength is a liquid mixed in the horn, nothing else can be meant thereby than the liquid in Urd's fountain, which gives the warmth of life to the world-tree, and gives it strength to resist the cold (see No. 63).

From this it is certain that at least two of the three subterranean fountains made their contributions to the drink. There remains the well Hvergelmer, and the question now is, whether it and the liquid it contains can be recognised as the _cool-cold sea_. Hvergelmer is, as we know, the mother-fountain of all waters, even of the ocean (see No. 59). That this immense cistern is called a sea is not strange, since also Urd's fountain is so styled (in Völuspa, Cod. Reg., 19.) Hvergelmer is situated under the northern root of the world-tree near the borders of the subterranean realm of the rime-thurses--that is, the powers of frost; and the Elivagar rivers flowing thence formed the ice in Nifelheim. Cool (_Svöl_) is the name of one of the rivers which have their source in Hvergelmer (Grimnersmal). Cool-cold sea is therefore the most suitable word with which to designate Hvergelmer when its own name is not to be used.