THE MYTH IN REGARD TO THE LOWER WORLD. (Part IV. Continued from Volume I.) (continued 3)

The psychopomps of those fallen by the sword are, as we have seen, stately dises, sitting high in the saddle, with helmet, shield, and spear. To those not destined to fall by the sword Urd sends other maid-servants, who, like the former, may come on horseback, and who, as it appears, are of very different appearance, varying in accordance with the manner of death of those persons whose departure they attend. She who comes to those who sink beneath the weight of years has been conceived as a very benevolent dis, to judge from the solitary passage where she is characterised, that is in Ynglingatal and in Ynglingasaga, ch. 49, where it is said of the aged and just king Halfdan Whiteleg, that he was taken hence by the woman, who is helpful to those bowed and stooping (hallvarps hlífinauma). The burden which Elli (age), Utgard-Loke's foster-mother (Gylfag., 47), puts on men, and which gradually gets too heavy for them to bear, is removed by this kind-hearted dis.

Other psychopomps are of a terrible kind. The most of them belong to the spirits of disease dwelling in Nifelhel (see No. 60). King Vanlande is tortured to death by a being whose epithet, vitta vættr and trollkund, shows that she belongs to the same group as Heidr, the prototype of witches, and who is contrasted with the valkyrie Hild by the appellation ljóna lids bága Grimhildr (Yngl., ch. 16). The same vitta vættr came to King Adils when his horse fell and he himself struck his head against a stone (Yngl., ch. 33). Two kings, who die on a bed of straw, are mentioned in Ynglingasaga's Thjodolf-strophes (ch. 20 and 52) as visited by a being called in the one instance Loke's kinswoman (Loka mær), and in the other Hvedrung's kinswoman (Hvedrungs mær). That this Loke's kinswoman has no authority to determine life and death, but only carries out the dispensations of the norns, is definitely stated in the Thjodolf-strophe (ch. 52), and also that her activity, as one who brings the invitation to the realm of death, does not imply that the person invited is to be counted among the damned, although she herself, the kinswoman of Loke, the daughter of Loke, surely does not belong to the regions of bliss.

Ok til things thridja jöfri hvedrungs mær or heimi baud, thá er Hálfdan, sa er á Holti bjó norna dóms um notit hafdi.

As all the dead, whether they are destined for Valhal or for Hel (in the sense of the subterranean realms of bliss), or for Nifelhel, must first report themselves in Hel, their psychopomps, whether they dwell in Valhal, Hel, or Nifelhel, must do the same. This arrangement is necessary also from the point of view that the unhappy who "die from Hel into Nifelhel" (Grimnersmal) must have attendants who conduct them from the realms of bliss to the Na-gates, and thence to the realms of torture. Those dead from disease, who have the subterranean kinswoman of Loke as a guide, may be destined for the realms of bliss—then she delivers them there; or be destined for Nifelhel—then they die under her care and are brought by her through the Na-gates to the worlds of torture in Nifelhel.

Far down in Christian times the participle leikinn was used in a manner which points to something mythical as the original reason for its application. In Biskupas, (i. 464) it is said of a man that he was leikinn by some magic being (flagd). Of another person who sought solitude and talked with himself, it is said in Eyrbyggja (270) that he was believed to be leikinn. Ynglingatal gives us the mythical explanation of this word.

In its strophe about King Dyggve, who died from disease, this poem says (Yngling., ch. 20) that, as the lower world dis had chosen him, Loke's kinswoman came and made him leikinn (Allvald Yngva thjodar Loka mær um leikinn hefir). The person who became leikinn is accordingly visited by Loke's kinswoman, or, if others have had the same task to perform, by some being who resembled her, and who brought psychical or physical disease.

In our mythical records there is mention made of a giantess whose very name, Leikin, Leikn, is immediately connected with that activity which Loke's kinswoman—and she too is a giantess—exercises when she makes a person leikinn. Of this personal Leikin we get the following information in our old records:

1. She is, as stated, of giant race (Younger Edda, i. 552).

2. She has once fared badly at Thor's hands. He broke her leg (Leggi brauzt thu Leiknar—Skaldsk., ch. 4, after a song by Vetrlidi).

3. She is kveldrida. The original and mythological meaning of kveldrida is a horsewoman of torture or death (from kvelja, to torture, to kill). The meaning, a horsewoman of the night, is a misunderstanding. Compare Vigfusson's Dict., sub voce "Kveld."

4. The horse which this woman of torture and death rides is black, untamed, difficult to manage (styggr), and ugly-grown (ljótvaxinn). It drinks human blood, and is accompanied by other horses belonging to Leikin, black and bloodthirsty like it. (All this is stated by Hallfred Vandradaskald.)[13] Perhaps these loose horses are intended for those persons whom the horsewomen of torture causes to die from disease, and whom she is to conduct to the lower world.

Popular traditions have preserved for our times the remembrance of the "ugly-grown" horse, that is, of a three-legged horse, which on its appearance brings sickness, epidemics, and plagues. The Danish popular belief (Thiele i. 137, 138) knows this monster and the word Hel-horse has been preserved in the vocabulary of the Danish language. The diseases brought by the Hel-horse are extremely dangerous, but not always fatal. When they are not fatal the convalescent is regarded as having ransomed his life with that tribute of loss of strength and of torture which the disease caused him, and in a symbolic sense he has then "given death a bushel of oats" (that is, to its horse). According to popular belief in Slesvik (Arnkiel, i. 55; cp. J. Grimm, Deutsche Myth, 804), Hel rides in the time of a plague on a three-legged horse and kills people. Thus the ugly-grown horse is not forgotten in traditions from the heathen time.

Völuspa inform us that in the primal age of man, the sorceress Heid went from house to house and was a welcome guest with evil women, since she seid Leikin (sida means to practise sorcery). Now, as Leikin is the "horsewoman of torture and death," and rides the Hel-horse, then the expression sida Leikin can mean nothing else than by sorcery to send Leikin, the messenger of disease and death, to those persons who are the victims of the evil wishes of "evil women;" or, more abstractly, to bring by sorcery dangerous diseases to men.[14]

From all this follows that Leikin is either a side-figure to the daughter of Loke, and like her in all respects, or she and the Loke-daughter are one and the same person. To determine the question whether they are identical, we must observe (1) the definitely representative manner in which Völuspa, by the use of the name Leikin, makes the possessor of this name a mythic person, who visits men with diseases and death; (2) the manner in which Ynglingatal characterises the activity of Loke's daughter with a person doomed to die from disease; she makes him leikinn, an expression which, without doubt, is in its sense connected with the feminine name Leikn, and which was preserved in the vernacular far down in Christian times, and there designated a supernatural visitation bringing the symptoms of mental or physical illness; (3) the Christian popular tradition in which the deformed and disease-bringing horse, which Leikin rides in the myth, is represented as the steed of "death" or "Hel;" (4) that change of meaning by which the name Hel, which in the mythical poems of the Elder Edda designates the whole heathen realm of death, and especially its regions of bliss, or their queen, got to mean the abode of torture and misery and its ruler—a transmutation by which the name Hel, as in Gylfaginning and in the Slesvik traditions, was transferred from Urd to Loke's daughter.

Finally, it should be observed that it is told of Leikin, as of Loke's daughter, that she once fared badly at the hands of the gods, who did not, however, take her life. Loke's daughter is not slain, but is cast into Nifelhel (Gylfaginning, ch. 34). From that time she is gnúpleit—that is to say, she has a stooping form, as if her bones had been broken and were unable to keep her in an upright position. Leikin is not slain, but gets her legs broken.

All that we learn of Leikin thus points to the Loke-maid, the Hel, not of the myth, but of Christian tradition.

68.

THE WAY TO HADES COMMON TO THE DEAD.

It has already been demonstrated that all the dead must go to Hel—not only they whose destination is the realm of bliss, but also those who are to dwell in Asgard or in the regions of torture in Nifelheim. Thus the dead tread at the outset the same road. One and the same route is prescribed to them all, and the same Helgate daily opens for hosts of souls destined for different lots. Women and children, men and the aged, they who have practised the arts of peace and they who have stained the weapons with blood, those who have lived in accordance with the sacred commandments of the norns and gods and they who have broken them—all have to journey the same way as Balder went before them, down to the fields of the fountains of the world. They come on foot and on horseback—nay, even in chariots, if we may believe Helreid Brynhildar, a very unreliable source—guided by various psychopomps: the beautifully equipped valkyries, the blue-white daughter of Loke, the sombre spirits of disease, and the gentle maid-servant of old age. Possibly the souls of children had their special psychopomps. Traditions of mythic origin seem to suggest this; but the fragments of the myths themselves preserved to our time give us no information on this subject.

The Hel-gate here in question was situated below the eastern horizon of the earth. When Thor threatens to kill Loke he says (Lokas., 59) that he will send him á austrvega. When the author of the Sol-song sees the sunset for the last time, he hears in the opposite direction—that is, in the east—the Hel-gate grating dismally on its hinges (str. 39). The gate has a watchman and a key. The key is called gillingr, gyllingr (Younger Edda, ii. 494); and hence a skald who celebrates his ancestors in his songs, and thus recalls to those living the shades of those in Hades, may say that he brings to the light of day the tribute paid to Gilling (yppa gillings gjöldum. See Eyvind's strophe, Younger Edda, i. 248. The paraphrase has hitherto been misunderstood, on account of the pseudo-myth Bragarædur about the mead.) From the gate the highway of the dead went below the earth in a westerly direction through deep and dark dales (Gylfag., ch. 52), and it required several days—for Hermod nine days and nights—before they came to light regions and to the golden bridge across the river Gjoll, flowing from north to south (see No. 59). On the other side of the river the roads forked. One road went directly north. This led to Balder's abode (Gylfag., ch. 52); in other words, to Mimer's realm, to Mimer's grove, and to the sacred citadel of the ásmegir, where death and decay cannot enter (see No. 53). This northern road was not, therefore, the road common to all the dead. Another road went to the south. As Urd's realm is situated south of Mimer's (see Nos. 59, 63), this second road must have led to Urd's fountain and to the thingstead of the gods there. From the Sun-song we learn that the departed had to continue their journey by that road. The deceased skald of the Sun-song came to the norns, that is to say, to Urd and her sisters, after he had left this road behind him, and he sat for nine days and nights á norna stoli before he was permitted to continue his journey (str. 51). Here, then, is the end of the road common to all, and right here, at Urd's fountain and at the thingstead of the gods something must happen, on which account the dead are divided into different groups, some destined for Asgard, others for the subterranean regions of bliss, and a third lot for Nifelhel's regions of torture. We shall now see whether the mythic fragments preserved to our time contain any suggestions as to what occurs in this connection. It must be admitted that this dividing must take place somewhere in the lower world, that it was done on the basis of the laws which in mythological ethics distinguish between right and wrong, innocence and guilt, that which is pardonable and that which is unpardonable, and that the happiness and unhappiness of the dead is determined by this division.

69.

THE TWO THINGSTEADS OF THE ASAS. THE EXTENT OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE ASAS AND OF THE DIS OF FATE. THE DOOM OF THE DEAD.

The Asas have two thingsteads: the one in Asgard, the other in the lower world.

In the former a council is held and resolutions passed in such matters as pertain more particularly to the clan of the Asas and to their relation to other divine clans and other powers. When Balder is visited by ugly dreams, Valfather assembles the gods to hold counsel, and all the Asas assemble á thingi, and all the asynjes á máli (Vegtamskv., 1; Balder's Dr., 4). In assemblies here the gods resolved to exact an oath from all things for Balder's safety, and to send a messenger to the lower world to get knowledge partly about Balder, partly about future events. On this thingstead efforts are made of 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, svalkaldr sær, Sonar dreyri. Urd's strength, cool-cold sea, 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.

All those fountains whose liquids are sucked up by the roots of the world-tree, and in its stem blend into the sap which gives the tree imperishable strength of life, are accordingly mixed in the lower-world horn (cp. No. 21).

That Grimhild, a human being dwelling on earth, should have access to and free control of these fountains is, of course, from a mythological standpoint, an absurdity. From the standpoint of the Christian time the absurdity becomes probable. The sacred things and forces of the lower world are then changed into deviltry and arts of magic, which are at the service of witches. So the author of Gudrunarkvida (ii.) has regarded the matter. But in his time there was still extant a tradition, or a heathen song, which spoke of the elements of the drink which gave to the dead who had descended to Hel, and were destined for happiness, a higher and more enduring power of life, and also soothed the longing and sorrow which accompanied the recollection of the life on earth, and this tradition was used in the description of Grimhild's drink of forgetfulness.

Magn is the name of the liquid from Urd's fountain, since it magnar, gives strength. The word magna has preserved from the days of heathendom the sense of strengthening in a supernatural manner by magical or superhuman means. Vigfusson (Dict., 408) gives a number of examples of this meaning. In Heimskringla (ch. 8) Odin "magns" Mimer's head, which is chopped off, in such a manner that it recovers the power of speech. In Sigrdrifumal (str. 12) Odin himself is, as we have seen, called magni, "the one magning," as the highest judge of the lower world, who gives magn to the dead from the Hades-horn.

The author of the second song about Helge Hundingsbane has known of dyrar veilgar, precious liquids of which those who have gone to Hel partake. The dead Helge says that when his beloved Sigrun is to share them with him, then it is of no consequence that they have lost earthly joy and kingdoms, and that no one must lament that his breast was tortured with wounds (Helge Hund., ii. 46.) The touching finale of this song, though preserved only in fragments, and no doubt borrowed from a heathen source, shows that the power of the subterranean potion to allay longing and sorrow had its limits. The survivors should mourn over departed loved ones with moderation, and not forget that they are to meet again, for too bitter tears of sorrow fall as a cold dew on the breast of the dead one and penetrate it with pain (str. 45).

73.

THE HADES-DRINK (continued), THE HADES-HORN EMBELLISHED WITH SERPENTS.

In Sonatorrek (str. 18) the skald (Egil Skallagrimson) conceives himself with the claims of a father to keep his children opposed to a stronger power which has also made a claim on them. This power is firm in its resolutions against Egil (stendr á föstum thokk á hendi mér); but, at the same time, it is lenient toward his children, and bestows on them the lot of happiness. The mythic person who possesses this power is by the skald called Fáns hrosta hilmir, "the lord of Fánn's brewing."

Fánn is a mythical serpent-and dragon-name (Younger Edda, ii. 487, 570). The serpent or dragon which possessed this name in the myths or sagas must have been one which was engraved or painted somewhere. This is evident from the word itself, which is a contraction of fáinn, engraved, painted (cp. Egilsson's Lex. Poet., and Vigfusson's Dict., sub voce). Its character as such does not hinder it from being endowed with a magic life (see below.) The object on which it was engraved or painted must have been a drinking-horn, whose contents (brewing) is called by Egil Fánn's, either because the serpent encircled the horn which contained the drink, or because the horn, on which it was engraved, was named after it. In no other way can the expression, Fánn's brewing, be explained, for an artificial serpent or dragon is neither the one who brews the drink nor the malt from which it is brewed.

The possessor of the horn, embellished with Fánn's image, is the mythical person who, to Egil's vexation, has insisted on the claim of the lower world to his sons. If the skald has paraphrased correctly, that is to say, if he has produced a paraphrase which refers to the character here in question of the person indicated by the paraphrase, then it follows that "Fánn's brewing" and Fánn himself, like their possessor, must have been in some way connected with the lower world.

From the mythic tradition in Gudrunarkvida (ii.), we already know that a serpent, "a long heath-fish," is engraved and painted on the subterranean horn, whose sorrow-allaying mead is composed of the liquid of the three Hades-fountains.

When King Gorm (Hist., Dan., 427; cp. No. 46) made his journey of discovery in the lower world, he saw a vast ox-horn (ingens bubali cornu) there. It lay near the gold-clad mead-cisterns, the fountains of the lower world. Its purpose of being filled with their liquids is sufficiently clear from its location. We are also told that it was carved with figures (nec cælaturæ artificio vacuum), like the subterranean horn in Gudrunarkvida. One of Gorm's men is anxious to secure the treasure. Then the horn lengthens into a dragon who kills the would-be robber (cornu in draconem extractum sui spiritum latoris eripuit.) Like Slidrugtanne and other subterranean treasures, the serpent or dragon on the drinking-horn of the lower world is endowed with life when necessary, or the horn itself acquires life in the form of a dragon, and punishes with death him who has no right to touch it. The horn itself is accordingly a Fánn, an artificial serpent or dragon, and its contents is Fánn's hrosti (Fánn's brewing).

The Icelandic middle-age sagas have handed down the memory of an aurocks-horn (úrarhorn), which was found in the lower world, and was there used to drink from (Fornald., iii. 616).

Thus it follows that the hilmir Fán's hrosta, "the lord of Fan's brewing," mentioned by Egil, is the master of the Hades-horn, he who determines to whom it is to be handed, in order that they may imbibe vigour and forgetfulness of sorrow from "Urd's strength, cool sea, and Son's liquid." And thus the meaning of the strophe here discussed (Sonatorrek, 18) is made perfectly clear. Egil's deceased sons have drunk from this horn, and thus they have been initiated as dwellers for ever in the lower world. Hence the skald can say that Hilmir Fán's hrosta was inexorably firm against him, their father, who desired to keep his sons with him.[15]

From Völuspa (str. 28, 29), and from Gylfaginning (ch. 15), it appears that the mythology knew of a drinking-horn which belonged at the same time, so to speak, both to Asgard and to the lower world. Odin is its possessor, Mimer its keeper. A compact is made between the Asas dwelling in heaven and the powers dwelling in the lower world, and a security (ved) is given for the keeping of the agreement. On the part of the Asas and their clan patriarch Odin, the security given is a drinking-horn. From this "Valfather's pledge" Mimer every morning drinks mead from his fountain of wisdom (Völuspa, 29), and from the same horn he waters the root of the world-tree (Völuspa, 28). As Müllenhoff has already pointed out (D. Alterth., v. 100 ff.), this drinking-horn is not to be confounded with Heimdal's war-trumpet, the Gjallarhorn, though Gylfaginning is also guilty of this mistake.

Thus the drinking-horn given to Mimer by Valfather represents a treaty between the powers of heaven and of the lower world. Can it be any other than the Hades-horn, which, at the thingstead near Urd's fountain, is employed in the service both of the Asa-gods and of the lower world? The Asas determine the happiness or unhappiness of the dead, and consequently decide what persons are to taste the strength-giving mead of the horn. But the horn has its place in the lower world, is kept there—there performs a task of the greatest importance, and gets its liquid from the fountains of the lower world.

What Mimer gave Odin in exchange is that drink of wisdom, without which he would not have been able to act as judge in matters concerning eternity, but after receiving the which he was able to find and proclaim the right decisions (ord) (ord mér af ordi ordz leitadi—Hav., 141). Both the things exchanged are, therefore, used at the Thing near Urd's fountain. The treaty concerned the lower world, and secured to the Asas the power necessary, in connection with their control of mankind and with their claim to be worshipped, to dispense happiness and unhappiness in accordance with the laws of religion and morality. Without this power the Asas would have been of but little significance. Urd and Mimer would have been supreme.

With the dyrar veigar (precious liquids), of which the dead Helge speaks, we must compare the skirar veigar (clear liquids), which, according to Vegtamskvida, awaited the dead Balder in the lower world. After tasting of it, the god who had descended to Hades regained his broken strength, and the earth again grew green (see No. 53).

In dyrar veigar, skirar veigar, the plural form must not be passed over without notice. The contents of one and the same drink are referred to by the plural veigar—

Her stendr Balldri of brugginn miœdr skirar veigar Here stands for Balder mead brewed clear "veigar" (Vegt., 7)—

which can only be explained as referring to a drink prepared by a mixing of several liquids, each one of which is a veig. Originally veigar seems always to have designated a drink of the dead, allaying their sorrows and giving them new life. In Hyndluljod (50) dyrar veigar has the meaning of a potion of bliss which Ottar, beloved by Freyja, is to drink. In strophe 48, Freyja threatens the sorceress Hyndla with a fire, which is to take her hence for ever. In strophe 49, Hyndla answers the threat with a similar and worse one. She says she already sees the conflagration of the world; there shall nearly all beings "suffer the loss of life" (verda flestir fjörlausn thola), Freyja and her Ottar of course included, and their final destiny, according to Hyndla's wish, is indicated by Freyja's handing Ottar a pain-foreboding, venomous drink. Hyndla invokes on Freyja and Ottar the flames of Ragnarok and damnation. Freyja answers by including Ottar in the protection of the gods, and foretelling that he is to drink dyrar veigar.

Besides in these passages veigar occurs in a strophe composed by Ref Gestson, quoted in Skaldskaparmal, ch. 2. Only half of the strophe is quoted, so that it is impossible to determine definitely the meaning of the veigar referred to by the skald. We only see that they are given by Odin, and that "we" must be grateful to him for them. The half strophe is possibly a part of a death-song which Ref Gestson is known to have composed on his foster-father, Gissur.

Veig in the singular means not only drink, but also power, strength. Perhaps Bugge is right in claiming that this was the original meaning of the word. The plural veigar accordingly means strengths. That this expression "strengths" should come to designate in a rational manner a special drink must be explained by the fact that "the strengths" was the current expression for the liquids of which the invigorating mythical drink was composed. The three fountains of the lower world are the strength-givers of the universe, and as we have already seen, it is the liquids of these wells that are mixed into the wonderful brewing in the subterranean horn.

When Eilif Gudrunson, the skald converted to Christianity, makes Christ, who gives the water of eternal life, sit near Urd's fountain, then this is a Christianised heathen idea, and refers to the power of this fountain's water to give, through the judge of the world, to the pious a less troublesome life than that on earth. The water which gives warmth to the world-tree and heals its wounds is to be found in the immediate vicinity of the thingstead, and has also served to strengthen and heal the souls of the dead.

To judge from Hyndluljod (49), those doomed to unhappiness must also partake of some drink. It is "much mixed with venom" (eitri blandinn miok), and forebodes them evil (illu heilli). They must, therefore, be compelled to drink it before they enter the world of misery, and accordingly, no doubt, while they sit á nornastoli on the very thingstead. The Icelandic sagas of the middle ages know the venom drink as a potion of misery.

It appears that this potion of unhappiness did not loosen the speechless tongues of the damned. Eitr means the lowest degree of cold and poison at the same time, and would not, therefore, be serviceable for that purpose, since the tongues were made speechless with cold. In Saxo's descriptions of the regions of misery in the lower world, it is only the torturing demons that speak. The dead are speechless, and suffer their agonies without uttering a sound; but, when the spirits of torture so desire, and force and egg them on they can produce a howl (mugitus.) There broods a sort of muteness over the forecourt of the domain of torture, the Nifelheim inhabited by the frost-giants, according to Skirnersmal's description thereof (see No. 60.) Skirner threatens Gerd that she, among her kindred there, shall be more widely hated than Heimdal himself; but the manner in which they express this hate is with staring eyes, not with words (a thic Hrimnir hari, a thic hotvetna stari—str. 28).

74.

AFTER THE JUDGMENT. THE LOT OF THE BLESSED.

When a deceased who has received a good ords tirr leaves the Thing, he is awaited in a home which his hamingje has arranged for her favourite somewhere in "the green worlds of the gods." But what he first has to do is to leita kynnis, that is, visit kinsmen and friends who have gone before him to their final destination (Sonatorr., 17). Here he finds not only those with whom he became personally acquainted on earth, but he may also visit and converse with ancestors from the beginning of time, and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the history of all past generations, told by persons who were eye-witnesses. The ways he travels are munvegar (Sonatorr., 10), paths of pleasure, where the wonderful regions of Urd's and Mimer's realms lie open before his eyes.

Those who have died in their tender years are received by a being friendly to children, which Egil Skallagrimson (Sonatorrek, 20) calls Gauta spjalli. The expression means "the one with whom Odin counsels," "Odin's friend." As the same poem (str. 22) calls Odin Mimer's friend, and as in the next place Gauta spjalli is characterised as a ruler in Godheim (compare grænar heimar goda—Hakonarmal, 12), he must either be Mimer, who is Odin's friend and adviser from his youth until his death, or he must be Honer, who also is styled Odin's friend, his sessi and máli. That Mimer was regarded as the friend of dead children corresponds with his vocation as the keeper in his grove of immortality Mimisholt, of the Asa-children, the ásmegir, who are to be the mankind of the regenerated world. But Honer too has an important calling in regard to children (see No. 95), and it must therefore be left undecided which one of the two is here meant.

Egil is convinced that his drowned son Bodvar found a harbour in the subterranean regions of bliss.[16] The land to which Bodvar comes is called by Egil "the home of the bee-ship" (býskips bær.) The poetical figure is taken from the experience of seamen, that birds who have grown tired on their way across the sea alight on ships to recuperate their strength. In Egil's paraphrase the bee corresponds to the bird, and the honey-blossom where the bee alights corresponds to the ship. The fields of bliss are the haven of the ship laden with honey. The figure may be criticised on the point of poetic logic, but is of a charming kind on the lips of the hardy old viking, and it is at the same time very appropriate in regard to a characteristic quality ascribed to the fields of bliss. For they are the proper home of the honey-dew which falls early in the morning from the world-tree into the dales near Urd's fountain (Völuspa). Lif and Leifthraser live through ages on this dew (see Nos. 52, 53), and doubtless this same Teutonic ambrosia is the food of the happy dead. The dales of the earth also unquestionably get their share of the honey-dew, which was regarded as the fertilising and nourishing element of the ground. But the earth gets her share directly from Rimfaxe, the steed of the Hades-goddess Nat. This steed, satiated with the grass of the subterranean meadows, produces with his mouth a froth which is honey-dew, and from his bridle the dew drops "in the dales" in the morning (Vafthr., 14). The same is true of the horses of the valkyries coming from the lower world. From their manes, when they shake them, falls dew "in deep dales," and thence come harvests among the peoples (Helge Hjorv., 28.)

75.

AFTER THE JUDGMENT (continued). THE FATE OF THE DAMNED. THEIR PATH. ARRIVAL AT THE NA-GATES.

When the na-dictum (the judgment of those who have committed sins unto death) has been proclaimed, they must take their departure for their terrible destination. They cannot take flight. The locks and fetters of the norns (Urdar lokur, Heljar reip) hold them prisoners, and amid the tears of their former hamingjes (nornir gráta nái) they are driven along their path by heiptir, armed with rods of thorns, who without mercy beat their lazy heels. The technical term for these instruments of torture is limar, which seems to have become a word for eschatological punishment in general. In Sigrdrifumal (23) it is said that horrible limar shall fall heavy on those who have broken oaths and promises, or betrayed confidence. In Sigurd Fafnesb. (ii. 3) it is stated that everyone who has lied about another shall long be tortured with limar. Both the expressions troll brutu hrís i hæla theim and troll visi ydr til búrs have their root in the recollection of the myth concerning the march of the damned under the rod of the Eumenides to Nifelhel (see further on this point Nos. 91 and 123).

Their way from Urd's well goes to the north (see No. 63) through Mimer's domain. It is ordained that before their arrival at the home of torture they are to see the regions of bliss. Thus they know what they have forfeited. Then their course is past Mimer's fountain, the splendid dwellings of Balder and the ásmegir, the golden hall of Sindre's race (see Nos. 93, 94), and to those regions where mother Nat rests in a hall built on the southern spur of the Nida mountains (Forspjallsljod). The procession proceeds up this mountain region through valleys and gorges in which the rivers flowing from Hvergelmer find their way to the south. The damned leave Hvergelmer in their rear and cross the border rivers Hraunn (the subterranean Elivagar rivers, see No. 59), on the other side of which rise Nifelhel's black, perpendicular mountain-walls (Saxo, Hist., Dan.; see No. 46). Ladders or stairways lead across giddying precipices to the Na-gates. Howls and barking from the monstrous Nifelheim dogs watching the gates (see Nos. 46, 58) announce the arrival of the damned. Then hasten, in compact winged flocks, monsters, Nifelheim's birds of prey, Nidhog, Are, Hræsvelger, and their like to the south, and alight on the rocks around the Na-gates (see below). When the latter are opened on creaking hinges, the damned have died their second death. To that event, which is called "the second death," and to what this consists of, I shall return below (see No. 95).

Those who have thus marched to a terrible fate are sinners of various classes. Below Nifelheim there are nine regions of punishment. That these correspond to nine kinds of unpardonable sins is in itself probable, and is to some extent confirmed by Solarljod, if this poem, standing almost on the border-line between heathendom and Christianity, may be taken as a witness. Solarljod enumerates nine or ten kinds of punishments for as many different kinds of sins. From the purely heathen records we know that enemies of the gods (Loke), perjurers, murderers, adulterers (see Völuspa), those who have violated faith and the laws, and those who have lied about others, are doomed to Nifelhel for ever, or at least for a very long time (oflengi—Sig. Fafn., ii. 3). Of the unmerciful we know that they have already suffered great agony on their way to Urd's fountain. Both in reference to them and to others, it doubtless depended on the investigation at the Thing whether they could be ransomed or not.

The sacredness of the bond of kinship was strongly emphasised in the eschatological conceptions. Niflgódr, "good for the realm of damnation," is he who slays kinsmen and sells the dead body of his brother for rings (Sonatorrek, 15); but he who in all respects has conducted himself in a blameless manner toward his kinsmen and is slow to take revenge if they have wronged him, shall reap advantage therefrom after death (Sigrdr., 22).

When the damned come within the Na-gates, the winged demons rush at the victims designated for them, press them under their wings, and fly with them through Nifelheim's foggy space to the departments of torture appointed for them. The seeress in Völuspa (str. 62) sees Nidhog, loaded with náir under his wings, soar away from the Nida mountains. Whither he was accustomed to fly with them appears from strophe 38, where he in Nastrands is sucking his prey. When King Gorm, beyond the above-mentioned boundary river, and by the Nida mountains' ladders, had reached the Na-gates opened for him, he sees dismal monsters (larvæ atræ; cp. Völuspa's in dimmi dreki) in dense crowds, and hears the air filled with their horrible screeches (cp. Völuspa's Ari hlaccar, slitr nai neffaulr, 47). When Solarljod's skald enters the realm of torture he sees "scorched" birds which are not birds but souls (sálir), flying "numerous as gnats."

76.

THE PLACES OF PUNISHMENT.

The regions over which the flocks of demons fly are the same as those which the author of Skirnersmal has in view when Skirner threatens Gerd with sending her to the realms of death. It is the home of the frost-giants, of the subterranean giants, and of the spirits of disease. Here live the offspring of Ymer's feet, the primeval giants strangely born and strangely bearing, who are waiting for the quaking of Ygdrasil and for the liberation of their chained leader, in order that they may take revenge on the gods in Ragnarok, and who in the meantime contrive futile plans of attack on Hvergelmer's fountain or on the north end of the Bifrost bridge. Here the demons of restless uneasiness, of mental agony, of convulsive weeping, and of insanity (Othale, Morn, Ope, and Tope) have their home; and here dwells also their queen, Loke's daughter, Leikin, whose threshold is precipice and whose bed is disease. According to the authority used by Saxo in the description of Gorm's journey, the country is thickly populated. Saxo calls it urbs, oppidum (cp. Skirnismal's words about the giant-homes, among which Gerd is to drag herself hopeless from house to house). The ground is a marsh with putrid water (putidum cœnum), which diffuses a horrible stench. The river Slid flowing north out of Hvergelmer there seeks its way in a muddy stream to the abyss which leads down to the nine places of punishment. Over all hovers Nifelheim's dismal sky.

The mortals who, like Gorm and his men, have been permitted to see these regions, and who have conceived the idea of descending into those worlds which lie below Nifelheim, or the most of them, are vast mountain caves, abyss in question and have cast a glance down into it. The place is narrow, but there is enough daylight for its bottom to be seen, and the sight thereof is terrible. Still, there must have been a path down to it, for when Gorm and his men had recovered from the first impression, they continued their journey to their destination (Geirrod's place of punishment), although the most terrible vapour (teterrimus vapor) blew into their faces. The rest that Saxo relates is unfortunately wanting both in sufficient clearness and in completeness. Without the risk of making a mistake, we may, however, consider it as mythically correct that some of the nine worlds of punishment below Nifelheim, or the most of them, are vast mountain caves, mutually united by openings broken through the mountain walls and closed with gates, which do not however, obstruct the course of Slid to the Nastrands and to the sea outside. Saxo speaks of a perfractam scopuli partem, "a pierced part of the mountain," through which travellers come from one of the subterranean caves to another, and between the caves stand gatekeepers (janitores). Thus there must be gates. At least two of these "homes" have been named after the most notorious sinner found within them. Saxo speaks of one called the giant Geirrod's, and an Icelandic document of one called the giant Geitir's. The technical term for such a cave of torture was guyskuti (clamour-grotto). Saxo translates skúti with conclave saxeum. "To thrust anyone before Geitir's clamour-grotto"—reka einn fyrir Geitis guyskuta—was a phrase synonymous with damning a person to death and hell.

The gates between the clamour-grottoes are watched by various kinds of demons. Before each gate stand several who in looks and conduct seem to symbolise the sins over whose perpetrators they keep guard. Outside of one of the caves of torture Gorm's men saw club-bearers who tried their weapons on one another. Outside of another gate the keepers amused themselves with "a monstrous game" in which they "mutually gave their ram-backs a curved motion." It is to be presumed that some sort of perpetrators of violence were tortured within the threshold, which was guarded by the club-bearers, and that the ram-shaped demons amused themselves outside of the torture-cave of debauchees. It is also probable that the latter is identical with the one called Geitir's. The name Geitir comes from geit, goat. Saxo, who Latinised Geitir into Götharus, tells adventures of his which show that this giant had tried to get possession of Freyja, and that he is identical with Gymer, Gerd's father. According to Skirnersmal (35), there are found in Nifelhel goats, that is to say, trolls in goat-guise, probably of the same kind as those above-mentioned, and it may be with an allusion to the fate which awaits Gymer in the lower world, or with a reference to his epithet Geitir, that Skirner threatens Gerd with the disgusting drink (geita hland) which will there be given her by "the sons of misery" (vélmegir). One of the lower-world demons, who as his name indicates, was closely connected with Geitir, is called "Geitir's Howl-foot" (Geitis Guýfeti); and the expression "to thrust anyone before Geitir's Howl-foot" thus has the same meaning as to send him to damnation.

Continuing their journey, Gorm and his men came to Geirrod's skúti (see No. 46).

We learn from Saxo's description that in the worlds of torture there are seen not only terrors, but also delusions which tempt the eyes of the greedy. Gorm's prudent captain Thorkil (see No. 46) earnestly warns his companions not to touch these things, for hands that come in contact with them are fastened and are held as by invisible bonds. The illusions are characterised by Saxo as ædis supellectilis, an expression which is ambiguous, but may be an allusion that they represented things pertaining to temples. The statement deserves to be compared with Solarljod's strophe 65, where the skald sees in the lower world persons damned, whose hands are riveted together with burning stones. They are the mockers at religious rites (they who minst vildu halda helga daga) who are thus punished. In the mythology it was probably profaners of temples who suffered this punishment.

The Nastrands and the hall there are thus described in Völuspa: